“Connections” brings together three local artists who met through the medical field and now connect through art. The exhibit opens Saturday at the JCC Gallery.
By Gabriel Escalera
When the White Coats Came Off, the Art Began
April 29th, 2026
For most of their adult lives, these three women dealt in things that could be measured: blood counts, diagnoses, and patient outcomes. Now they work in color, language, and thread.
Cindy Rae Mathiasen is a painter inspired by nature. Jennifer Larsen is a poet and former chief of endocrinology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Elizabeth Pfeffer has been making quilts for over 40 years, starting long before she thought of it as art. All three are busier than ever.
Their first shared exhibition, Connections, opens soon at a local gallery. It is not a coincidence that the word they chose is also the thing that kept them together across decades of medicine, friendship, and now art.
Three mediums, one conversation
The exhibition took about a year and a half to build. Some pieces existed already and found their place. Others were made because of each other. A quilt of birds. A painting of birds. A poem about birds. Each made independently. Each pointing toward the others.
Cindy Mathiasen
“When I read Jennifer’s poetry, a single word or a phrase will show itself to me in a piece of art. That was really the beginning.”
Jennifer had a practical problem to solve: how do you put a poem in a gallery? The answer — display it beside the art that inspired it — turned out to be more powerful than she expected.
Jennifer Larsen
“The poetry became a linker between the different arts. You’ll see a poem made from a painting, and then new art made from the poem.”
Elizabeth, who almost said no to the entire project, says it changed how she sees herself.
Elizabeth Pfeffer
“I view myself as an artist now. It’s been a journey and a good journey.”
Free, open, and still unfinished
The exhibition is free to the public. All three women say they’re curious to see what connections strangers make — the ones the artists never planned. Cindy puts it simply: “All humans are creators. We are all connected. This is just three mediums to show that.”
