The flooding that rippled through the state of Nbraska took away many residents’ belongings and homes. Senior art education major at Wayne State College Paige Spieker’s art got ruined in the flooding.

Like many, Spieker had flooding in the basement of her house.

“Throughout my four years of college here, I’ve stored all of my stuff in the basement of my house, just for safe keeping,” Speiker said. “That’s our safest place in the house to keep it out of the way.”

According to Spieker, she’s created hundreds of pieces during her time at WSC, but lost the majority of them.

“A lot of it was kind of worn away from the water,” Spieker said. “The majority of it got destroyed. There was only maybe five to seven pieces that actually were still in good condition that I would be able to present to kind of show people for what I’ve done in college.”

Unfortunately, most of her artwork was not salvageable.

“Most of it I ended up having to throw away,” Spieker said. “Some of it I kept just for my own files and stuff like that. But they are still nothing I would show in front of people.”

Despite having the majority of her art ruined, Spieker will still be presenting her work as part of the senior art show.

“I’m still in the art show; I figured out a way that I could present enough work to show what I can do,” Spieker said. “I don’t have as many as some people, but I did figure out a way that I was able to still participate.

“There was one piece that I had made after just to fill it up a little bit more. But there was only one piece I still had to do.”

Spieker will be closing out her education at WSC this year.

“I’ll graduate in December and I’m hoping to find a teaching job either around Omaha or Lincoln, or even like Arizona,” Spieker said. “I hope to teach, and then after a few years I’m planning to be a school counselor. So, I’ll go to grad school after that too.”

Spieker believes her major allowed her to explore different art mediums and techniques.

“With art education, you do have to take a variety of classes,” Spieker said.  But my favorite right now would be pottery. I definitely got into painting for a while, but I think pottery is my go to right now.”

Spieker plans to look forward to the art show.

“I don’t think I’ll end up recreating anything, but because I know there’s better things to come,” Spieker said.

Despite losing many pieces in the flood, Spieker hasn’t given up hope.

“I definitely have been keeping a positive attitude about this,” Spieker said. “I know there’s other people who have had their whole entire lives destroyed and their homes are not livable anymore. I just want to give out my condolences to them too. This has been really hard on me, but I know it could be worse.”

The senior art show opens this Thurs. and there will be free reception from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

The show will be held in the Nordstrand Visual Arts Gallery in the Conn Library. The exhibit runs through April 11th and includes artwork by seven WSC Seniors.