Thursday nights at JMKAC are the place to be. Did you know the Arts Center and the Art Preserve are open until 8:00 p.m. every Thursday? Both spaces come alive from 4:00–6:00 p.m. with drop-in social hours designed to help you relax, get creative, and connect. 🎨 At the Arts Center, the Social STUDIO features hands-on, self-guided art-making and refreshments for all ages. 🍻 At the Art Preserve, the Fred Smith Bar sets the mood for a laid-back happy hour surrounded by art and great conversation. Make it your Thursday tradition—explore our exhibitions, enjoy a drink, and leave inspired. 📸: (1) Visitors at the Fred Smith Bar, 2023. (2) Mural painting in the Social STUDIO with artist Isabel Castro (standing right), 2022. (3) Visitors explore the Social STUDIO, 2023. Courtesy of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. https://www.jmkac.org/event/thursday-nights-the-places-to-be/2025-05-22/ (fb)

"Where art, energy, and intention converge...⚡Emery Blagdon’s “The Healing Machine” is a mesmerizing environment decades in the making, now on view at the Art Preserve. After inheriting a small property in Garfield Table, Nebraska, Blagdon dedicated his life to harnessing the Earth's natural forces—believing that minerals, magnetic fields, and electrical currents could hold healing power. Driven by the grief of losing both parents to cancer, Blagdon transformed a humble shed behind his home into a kinetic, glowing sanctuary of handmade devices. Using tinfoil, magnets, Christmas lights, plastic beads, masking tape, and chemical elements gifted by a local pharmacist, he assembled his “pretties”—intricate, symmetrical forms strung together and anchored by paintings radiating from a central point. After his death in 1986, longtime friend Dan Dryden preserved the work until it was acquired by the Kohler Foundation, Inc. and gifted to the Arts Center in 2007. “The Healing Machine” is not just an artwork—it’s a lifelong act of hope, ritual, and devotion. 📸: Visitors explore Emery Blagdon's "The Healing Machine" at the Art Preserve, 2023. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center. https://www.jmkac.org/artist/blagdon-emery/ (fb)