December 2025
We have compiled a list of First Friday participants to allow you to experience the art of downtown! Please remember to follow each individual gallery's in-person policies & be sure to use #LNKFF when you post pictures to share your night!
101 N 14TH ST. | 11 AM
It’s that magical time of year!
Join us for Makers & Creators on December 5th — a cozy holiday market featuring amazing local artists and small businesses!
Shop handmade candles, soaps, art, clothing, and more — all the unique, heartfelt gifts you won’t find at the big box stores.
Come sip, shop, and support your community while crossing a few names off that gift list.
Because the best gifts are made with love (and bought locally).
List of artists coming soon!
118 N 14TH ST. | 12 PM - 7:30 PM
The Red Keys is the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s newest all-gender, co-ed competitive A Cappella group, founded in 2017. They are dedicated to high-level performance and cultivating a passion for the arts within the collegiate music community.
They are currently fundraising for expenses that will allow them to participate in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella!
Here’s where YOU come in, dear reader:
*SHOP on First Friday, December 5th – 10% of sales will be donated to this group
*Tip during that evening’s performances by The Red Keys, at 6:30 & 7:00
Thank you for supporting our bookstore and these talented young people!
12-7:30: 10% donated to UNL’s The Red Keys Vocal Group
5:30-7:30: Treats
6:30 & 7: Sidewalk Performances by The Red Keys
Burkholder Art Studio & Galleries
719 P ST. | 5 PM - 8 PM
More details to come.
140 N 12TH ST. | 5 PM
First Friday Cookie & Holiday Treat Competition at Captain Jack’s!
Join us Friday, December 5th, for a sweet spin on First Friday at Captain Jack’s! This month, we’re skipping the featured artist and celebrating the season with a Cookie & Holiday Treat Competition! Bring your best batch of cookies, bars, candies, or festive desserts and see if you have what it takes to take home the title of Holiday Treat Champion!
How It Works:
• Anyone can enter — simply bring a homemade holiday treat to compete.
• Competitors receive one free drink with entry.
• Every drink purchased during the event earns a vote ticket (and raffle entry).
• Vote for your favorite treats to help crown our 1st and 2nd place winners!
• Each vote ticket also doubles as an entry in our raffle for bonus prizes.
Friday Drink Special: $3 Fireball shots — it’s Fireball Friday!
Bring your friends, grab a drink, and get festive with an evening of sweets, drinks, and holiday cheer. Whether you’re competing or just here to taste and vote, it’s the perfect way to kick off the holiday season!
Date: Friday, December 5th
Bar Open: 2:00 PM
Treat Competition: 5:00 PM
Awards: 8:00 PM
Come for the cookies, stay for the community — it’s a First Friday you won’t want to miss!
119 S. 9TH ST. | 5 PM - 8:30 PM
This show is curated by Clements Noyes Art Gallery artist and horse painter Janna Harsch. Three Gallery artists, and four guest artists join her for an exciting holiday experience. Live music "Celtic Christmas" by Highstreet Irish and treats from The Rabbit Hole Bakery.
Featuring Janna Harsch, Teri Martens, Lindsey Whitt, Mary Ringenberg, Deena Schultz, Lynette Fast, Cayden Moore, and Jo Brown
200 S ANTELOPE VALLEY PARKWAY | 5 PM - 8:30 PM
Our December First Friday artist is Karissa Bettendorf! Join us for the opening on Friday and check out her new paintings. The show will be up during the month of December.
2055 O ST. | 6 PM - 8 PM
November 7 - December 27
Clouds:
Nona Hershey
Jennifer Leach
Michelle Martin
This exhibition presents 3 artists who contemplate the meaning and transformative nature of clouds. The earth’s unique character as the water planet has made life possible, and yet clouds are intangible but essential. As our weather changes we are keenly affected by cloud formations and forces….we daily read the clouds, and imagine various configurations, and we use euphemisms of clouds for our moods and dreams. These artists use drawing, woodblock printing, and photo-polymer intaglio plates to craft their efforts to capture nature’s ephemeral clouds, and the vast power within.
Nona Hershey was Professor and Chair of Printmaking at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. Her work is included in over 100 public and corporate collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Harvard Museum; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Art Gallery; Minnesota Museum of Art; Smithsonian Institute; Krakow National Museum; and the Calcografia Nazionale, Rome. She has had residency grants at the Asillah Forum Foundation, Morocco; Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland; Ucross Foundation, WY; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Vermont Studio Center, and twice at the MacDowell Colony, NH. Numerous solo exhibitions include Dolan/Maxwell Gallery, Philadelphia; Galleria Il Ponte, Rome; Hunterdon Art Museum, NJ. https://www.nonahershey.com/
Jennifer Leach has an BFA in graphic design and illustration and studied printmaking at Kent State University. She has a post baccalaureate in art education from Cleveland State University. Her work has been shown nationally and locally in galleries including” The Providence Art Club, The Gallery at the Met Store in NYC, the Salmagundi Club in NYC, Boston University, The Fawick Gallery at Baldwin Wallace University, Manhattan Graphics Center, the Erie Art Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, and the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. Jennifer’s work is included in the Summa Hospital Healing Arts Collection, Dalad Art Collection, and Newark Public Library Special Collections. Jennifer is a member of The Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA) and serves on its board. She is a past president and board member of The Print Club of Cleveland.
jenniferleachgallery.com
Michelle Martin is a Professor of Art at The University of Tulsa and Director of the School of Art, Design and Art History. She received her BFA from Texas Tech University and earned her M.F.A. at The Ohio State University. Her work has been shown in over 230 national and international exhibitions including venues in New Zealand, Venezuela, Iceland, Italy, Bulgaria, Turkey, England, and Canada. Her work is in private, public and university collections, including the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art, Zuckerman Museum of Art (Kennesaw, GA), Kohler Library (Madison, Wisconsin), Muscarelle Museum of Art (The College of William and Mary), the Akron Museum Art Library Program, Rutgers Center for Innovative Paper, the Southwest Collection (Texas Tech University), University Art Museum (University of Louisiana) and Wichita Art Museum. http://www.michellemartinprintmaker.com/
140 N. 8TH ST. | 7 PM - 9 PM
More details to come.
1100 E O ST. | 5 PM - 9 PM
More details to come.
STADIUM DR. & T ST. | 5 PM - 7 PM
More details to come.
The Eloise Kruger Gallery of Miniatures
RM 831 of Oldfather Hall on UNL City Campus | 3 PM - 6 PM
The Eloise Kruger Collection of Miniature Furnishings and Decorative Arts comprises about 20,000 pieces of 1:12 scale furniture and accessories of historically accurate American, English, French, and Asian designs make up this collection, and about 2,500 pieces are on display. The handmade miniatures were collected and commissioned by Eloise Kruger and made by renowned model artists.
211 N 14TH ST | 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
More details to come.
130 S 13TH ST | 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Join us to hear Prairie Psycho live at Francie & Finch Bookshop on Friday December 5th!
124 S. 9TH ST. | 5 PM - 9 PM
More details to come.
1300 P Street | 5 PM - 8:30 PM
More details to come.
1155 Q ST. | 5 PM - 7 PM
The Great Plains Art Museum is open late on First Friday, December 5, 5-7 p.m. with three exhibitions and light refreshments. Visit the lower-level education studio for a coloring activity.
On View:
“Wild Great Plains”
Lower-Level Gallery
October 3, 2025-February 21, 2026
Inspired by the Center for Great Plains Studies’ 50th annual conference, “Wild Great Plains,” this exhibition considers the concept of “wild” in art. Drawing from the Great Plains Art Museum’s permanent collection, “Wild Great Plains” explores how artists have connected with and portrayed the wild species and places of the region.
“Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land”
First-Floor Galleries
September 5–December 20, 2025
Twenty-five Otoe-Missouria artists, ranging from traditional to contemporary and working in any medium, were selected to co-create an art exhibition reflecting on healing, reconciliation, and reconnecting to the land. "Reflections of Our People" is a key part of the new Mellon-funded initiative “Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors: Re-Indigenizing Southeast Nebraska.” The initiative, a partnership between the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma and the Center for Great Plains Studies, aims to promote healing and reconciliation in our region by reconnecting the Otoe-Missouria Tribe to one of their homelands in southeast Nebraska and educating non-Native people about the history and ongoing presence of the Otoe-Missouria and other Indigenous peoples in our region.
This will be the first exhibition to center Otoe-Missouria artists and their creative work. Jessica Moore Harjo, Ph.D. (Otoe-Missouria/Osage/Pawnee), is the curatorial director for this exhibition.
“Big Blue Reservation: Struggles and Hope of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe”
September 5–December 20, 2025
Mezzanine Gallery
One hundred seventy years ago, the Treaty of 1854 was passed by Congress, authorizing the move of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe to the Big Blue Reservation in Gage County, Nebraska. The Tribe watched as acre by acre of their land was sold off by the government and treaties were broken. In 1881, the Tribe was moved from this reservation to Red Rock, Oklahoma.
The Gage County Historical Society, along with the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, arranged a summer exhibit in 2024 to educate the public about this important part of American history. The Otoe-Missouria Tribe once called Southeast Nebraska home. Through the displacement of the people during the 1800s, they lost sacred traditions. This exhibit includes their voices of how that loss affected them into the present.
The Tribe and the Society wanted this exhibit to travel to other institutions to provide a cultural history of Nebraska, utilizing the Tribe’s perspective. As a result of this hard work, the Gage County Historical Society’s traveling exhibit will open in the Great Plains Art Museum’s mezzanine gallery on Sept. 5, 2025. This exhibit is on view in conjunction with “Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land.”
Handspoken Fair Trade (originally Ten Thousand Villages)
140 N. 8th ST. |
1208 O ST. | 5 PM - 8 PM
More details to come.
Lincoln Marriott Cornhusker Hotel
333 S. 13th St. | 6 PM - 9 PM
More details to come.
701 P St SUITE 102 | 5 PM - 8 PM
More details to come.
More details to come.
131 CENTENNIAL MALL N | 5 PM - 7 PM
More details to come.
More details to come.
325 S 11th St. | 7 PM - 9 PM
More details to come.
1410 O St. | 7 PM - 10:30 PM
Check out their website and view all of their different studios for more details.
More details to come.
Saint Paul United Methodist Church
More details to come.
Sheldon Museum of Art and University Dining Services are collaborating to realize artist Ken Friedman’s 1967 event score “Twenty Gallons: Cook soup for several hundred people.” The soup will be served at the museum and in campus dining centers from 11 AM to 2 PM and from 5 to 7 PM. Free and open to the public.
Participants will be entered to win a framed event score from the exhibition “Ken Friedman: 92 Events.”
About the exhibition “Ken Friedman: 92 Events”
“92 Events” presents works by American-born, Sweden-based Fluxus artist Ken Friedman. The conceptual, action-oriented, language-based works challenge the idea of an artwork as a unique object and as distinctly separate from daily life. The instructional texts are playful—absurd even—and viewers are invited to realize the event scores in their minds or in real life.
“92 Events” was conceived by Ken Friedman and Copenhagen-based art historian Peter van der Meijden and has been presented by institutions around the globe since 2019. The exhibition is on view at Sheldon Museum of Art through January 4, 2026.
More details to come.
210 Architecture Hall (HDR Pavilion Lobby) | 5 PM - 7 PM
More details to come.
More details to come.
Have an art show in downtown Lincoln you'd like added to our monthly list?
Email Maia at maia@downtownlincoln.org.