Ice Storm, Lori Nix

Artwork Overview

Ice Storm, Lori Nix
Ice Storm, Lori Nix
Lori Nix
Ice Storm
1999
Lori Nix, artist
born 1969
Ice Storm, 1999
Portfolio/Series title: Accidentally Kansas
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: chromogenic color print
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 40.64 x 50.8 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 16 x 20 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 40.64 x 50.8 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 16 x 20 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 24 x 32 in
Credit line: Anonymous gift
Accession number: 2007.0052.09
On display: Brosseau Learning Center
Add to portfolio

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Images

Label texts

Brosseau Center for Learning: In Conversation with the 2025–26 KU Common Book

Whitetail deer are so named for the white patch of fur under their tails that they raise when they sense danger. They measure between six to seven feet long and can jump up to eight feet high and cover a distance of ten feet per bound with a top speed of thirty miles an hour. With a decrease in natural predators over time and only humans as the primary ones left, their numbers have increased. 

They have spread into urban areas with surprising ease due to no natural predators and cultivated lawns with water supply near, making it the ultimate oasis. In fact, estimates of whitetail population in the US are placed at eleven million and are constantly expanding. Although not all estimates agree with these numbers, instead pointing closer to thirty million. This overabundance of deer causes millions of dollars in agricultural damage a year. This price point is not even considering the damage to property as well as injury-related expenses from getting into automobile accidents making their true impact much more significant.

The whitetail deer holds a special place in Cherokee culture symbolizing peace, gentleness, and harmony. These feelings are not exclusive to just the Cherokee people but to many. This opinion is reflected in iconic films such as Bambi and Open Season which both emphasis the “evils” of hunting.  This has in turn caused wildlife management to come under scrutiny in trying to control the ballooning populations using traditional methods.

Lori Nix’s work represents a scene common on any road in Kansas, not just the country road which is represented in this work. The car quickly swerves to avoid an accident that could cause tragic damage and loss of life for a more catastrophic option to occur instead.  

Suzanne Huffman can only give whitetail deer two stars.

Exhibition Label:
“Conversation II: Place-Kansas,” Apr-2008, Emily Stamey
“My town was too small to have a name; I grew up surrounded by the wheat fields of northwestern Kansas. I have been in tornadoes, blizzards and floods. As a girl growing up surrounded by what seemed to be the large expanse of an uncaring Nature, I witnessed some strange and gruesome animal fatalities. I remember a pond that had frozen over very early in the season, trapping thousands of frogs in the ice. I chipped them out and threw them at my sister.

“I love disaster movies. The wealthy people who had to come to terms with the mean and nasty elements in 1970s flicks like The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and The Poseidon Adventure always seemed especially funny. With my adrenaline rushing, I expected to be thrilled and titillated by these filmed disaster epics and their impending doom. But in my firsthand experience of natural disasters everything slows down. I’m left feeling detached, except for an odd sense of humor in it all.”
Lori Nix

From the artist’s statement on her website, http://www.lorinix.net/

“The most familiar and yet varied sense of place may be the concept of home. And in her very own Lori-Nix way, the photographer reveals her clever interpretation of home in a series of sixteen photographs called Accidentally Kansas, which reference specific events from her childhood. She conveys a sense of home that we can all relate to in its approachable, humorous, and slightly off-the-wall way.

“Last spring, I heard Nix speak about her Accidentally Kansas series, amongst a panel of “disaster photographers” telling epic tales about their exploits in the ruins of Hurricane Katrina and in the wreckage left by the Tsunami that rocked Asia in 2004. As the audience sulked lower and lower into their seats facing these depressing, though admittedly important, events and thoughts, Nix stepped up to the podium and slowly said, “I have a little different way of photographing disasters.” The mood of the room reversed completely within the first five minutes of Nix’s discussion.”
Emily Ryan, Spencer Museum Office Manager

Exhibitions

Conversation II: Place-Kansas
Emily Stamey, curator
2008
Art Minute Tour
2017
Brosseau Center for Learning: Home for the Holidays 2018
2018–2019
Brosseau Center for Learning: In Conversation with the 2025–26 KU Common Book
Scott Barber, curator
Wyatt Haywood, curator
Suzanne Huffman, curator
Ellen Joo, curator
Luke Jordan, curator
Arial Kim, curator
Doug Bergstrom, curator
Susan Earle, curator
Sofía Galarza Liu, curator
Kevin Liu, curator
Kate Meyer, curator
Cara Nordengren, curator
Hana Rose North, curator
Liz Pfeiffer, curator
Sydney Pursel, curator
Rachel Straughn-Navarro, curator
Eli Troen, curator
Maggie Vaughn, curator

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 287 (revised Episode 114) Jul-2007; revised May-2013, Emily Ryan I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. In her 1998, 2000 series, "Accidentally Kansas", photographer Lori Nix presents a witty perspective on outlandish events she recalls from her childhood in the Midwest. Born in Kansas and raised in Missouri, Nix is no stranger to capricious weather and unusual natural occurrences. In "Accidentally Kansas", she embraces these memories. Nix constructed dioramas of 18 particularly bizarre recollections, and took color photographs of them. The result is a series of brilliantly colored and composed images that poke fun at popular Midwestern stereotypes, such as tornadoes, and insect infestations. Challenging viewers to determine the degree of reality represented, Nix’s humorous compositions present an interesting style of photography-one that proposes new interpretations of personal remembrances. In July 2007 the Spencer became the first institution to own Nix’s entire series. You can view any of the photographs from "Accidentally Kansas" in the print room on Fridays from 10-12 and 1-4, and by appointment. With thanks to Emily Ryan for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.