10 -- Charlotte Street's 10 Year Book

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10 Front cover: Aaron Wrinkle, Contemporary Cultural Based Analogs (installation detail), 2006. photo: E. G. Schempf

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Supporting, presenting, and advocating for Kansas City artists and their work,

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Charlotte Street Foundation cultivates an environment in which artists and art thrive.

TEN YEARS www.charlottestreet.org

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Since its founding in 1997, Charlotte Street Foundation

FIFTY-SIX A

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has recognized and supported the creative contributions of

ARTISTS through unrestricted cash awards.

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The studio of Ken Ferguson (1928–2004) in a small structure on his rural property.

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Whoop Dee Doo at Urban Culture Project’s la Esquina gallery in downtown’s Westside neighborhood, featuring 2007 Award recipient Cody Critcheloe.

CONTENTS

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DREAM BIG David Hughes Jr.

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IS ART POSSIBLE IN KANSAS CITY? Peter von Ziegesar

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KANSAS CITY: STOMPING GROUNDS Matt Wycoff

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CHARLOTTE STREET AWARD RECIPIENTS

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ARTIST INDEX

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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CONTRIBUTORS

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FUNDERS

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CHARLOTTE STREET FOUNDATION

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David Hughes Jr. Founder and Director Charlotte Street Foundation

The year 2007 marks the ten-year anniversary of the Charlotte Street Foundation. What began, in 1997, as a humble initiative to recognize and support individual artists has grown into a network of passionate and inspiring individuals, a range of programs that benefit artists and the city they call home, and a small-scale phenomenon that illustrates what can be achieved when the right people are gathered together to dream big.

DREAM BIG

The Charlotte Street Foundation celebrates ten years of individual and collective accomplishments with a legacy in print.

Charlotte Street Foundation: 10 recognizes the excellent achievements of fifty-six individual artists but, of equal importance, also celebrates the power of possibilities achieved through partnerships and cooperation, and the enormous impact a vibrant community of artists and arts professionals can have on the life and livability of a city.

As we look back over the past ten years, we like where we are today. As we celebrate our ten-year anniversary, we also honor the profound impact of hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of individuals and how their efforts have contributed to the vibrant environment we experience today. Kansas City is increasingly recognized as a great city because of its art and artists. The Charlotte Street Foundation knows that a promising future for Kansas City and its art community relies on continued support, advocacy, dialogue, and new opportunities for individuals and their ideas.

Charlotte Street Foundation: 10 is a reflection and testament to the mission of the Charlotte Street Foundation to support and recognize outstanding Kansas City artists and to consider the tremendous cultural strength the arts represent in Kansas City.

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THE FIRST TEN YEARS Charlotte Street Awards began as an idea I shared with my friend John O’Brien late one night over beers. It was a simple concept then, as it is now: give money and recognition to artists; highlight quality work and the general arts community to corporate and philanthropic leaders, as well as to the general public.

The context nationally, beginning in the 1980s, was one of culture wars (little did we know how much worse these were to become) and the elimination of individual grants to artists from the National Endowment for the Arts. Missouri, too, had discontinued its grants to individual artists.

I had returned to Kansas City after time away at college, graduate school, and then work in New York. (While I had taken only a few art history classes, one memorable professor had been Kirk Varnedoe, who went on to become the chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art.) With a budding interest in the arts and in non-profit activities, I began to get involved in the theater and visual art communities. I also developed friendships with artists, directors, curators, gallerists.

Interesting ideas and conversations, wonderful people, great food, fun parties— everything centered around art.

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Along the way I met John Puscheck, for whom the Charlotte Street Awards and Foundation were later named. John’s house—known as the Charlotte Street Mission—near 54th and Charlotte in midtown Kansas City (vividly described in Peter von Ziegesar’s essay), was an epicenter of art, music, barbeque, dominos, beer, and craziness on a 24/7 revolvingdoor basis. Besides being an artist, John was a chef, philosopher, and agent provacateur. His life was an inspiration to many and his one-liners legendary: “Ask me, I know. I’m an artist.” John literally and figuratively fed the bellies and souls of countless artists, musicians, foodies, and other hangers-on like me. The sense of community in John was real, and it was infectious.

With these beginnings, I became acquainted over the next decade with a different city than I had known growing up. Here was a bohemian subculture full of talented, smart, and lively individuals who were also making a huge cultural and economic impact on the city, as I was to realize in time. In 1989 I began a wonderful fourteenyear association with American Century Investments, where, aside from my real work with clients and marketing, I became a member of the art committee for their growing corporate collection, which included many local and regional artists’ work. I also became a new member of their corporate contributions committee, which disbursed philanthropic dollars into the community. In this role I was keenly interested in exploring support for the full ecosystem of the arts, specifically to get corporate dollars—even small amounts— into the hands of some of the smallest high-quality arts organizations, in addition to supporting the majors. In many cases, these smaller organizations had rarely or never received funding from corporations or foundations. These efforts left me just a step away from the concept of funding individual artists. American Century philanthropic leadership endorsed this new concept whole-heartedly, and continues to blaze a trail in supporting the full ecosystem of the arts in Kansas City—with national recognition accruing to its efforts.1

2006 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition, at the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute.

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Outside of work, I deepened my involvement in the arts as a board member with the Unicorn Theatre, Coterie Theatre, and Friends of Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I joined the board of the Kansas City Art Institute in 1996, which was a turning point for me in focusing my belief that the Art Institute is the primary engine of the arts in Kansas City. Later that same year, with the help of several key players, I created the Charlotte Street Foundation (CSF), named, appropriately, for one of the stalwarts of the bohemian arts community where my idea had taken root.

Carrousel, a group exhibition at Urban Culture Project’s Paragraph gallery, brings new vitality to downtown.

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The Foundation’s initial funding of $10,000 came from American Century Foundation following in-house dialogue with colleagues. Administratively, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation took us on as a small start-up, though not without some deliberations and research into the legality of granting funds to individuals. For the curatorial selection panel, I turned to the advisors I had come to know best: Deborah Emont Scott (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), Craig Subler (UMKC Gallery of Art), Mark Spencer (Yellow Freight Corporate Collection at the time), and John O’Brien (Dolphin). This group was to first nominate and then select. No applications were to be taken. None of us had the means or the time to process applications, and we were comfortable relying on the advisors’ knowledge of the community of artists. All $10,000 was to be disbursed—four awards of $2,500 each.

The checks showed up in the artists’ mailboxes completely unannounced, as we had yet to unveil the program to the general community or the press. For the first several years, many of the recipients wondered if the checks were real.

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From this simple beginning, things began to change almost immediately, as we were open to improvements in the process, based on feedback from the arts community locally as well as nationally. We bobbed, weaved, learned, and adjusted as we went along. I am impatient and my philosophy has always been to start small and simply, with good minds, and adjust going forward, with good minds. Good ideas will blossom and grow larger; bad ideas will fade away with only minimal effort expended. Even in that first year, an unanticipated opportunity arose. The UMKC Gallery of Art had a cancellation in its fall 1997 schedule. After deliberating for all of two minutes, the advisors agreed that an exhibition of the work of the award winners could be important for the artists and our newfound effort. The annual exhibition has since grown into the critical element of recognition for the awards recipients.

Clearly seeing that we needed to document the artists and their work each year, we published an exhibition brochure in the second year—and also produced one for the first year’s exhibition, a year late. We hired essayists to lend credence, thoughtful observation, and dialogue about the artists’ work. While the exhibitions had been selfcurated by the artists to this point, curated exhibitions became the norm in the third year (1999). The H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute hosted the exhibition, with Director Raechell Smith curating and writing the essay; she soon joined CSF as an advisor and later as a board member. This third exhibition was a turning point—our first time in a major contemporary art space—and the attention and recognition to the artists and CSF increased significantly.

In order to broaden our awareness of area artists, nominators were added to the process in the third year; they were former award recipients, arts professionals, and others active in the arts community.

Advisors to CSF began rotating off the committee in the fourth year (2000), now that the effort had gained some stability.

Bruce Hartman, director of the new Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, joined as an advisor in 2003, a year after hosting the exhibition at Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art. This exhibition was notable because it was our first outside the central city.

Community advisors became part of CSF in the fifth year (2001). While they had no input in the selection process, they formed the nucleus of our future board and had increasing input on budget, marketing, legal, and fundraising matters. National curatorial advisors were added in the eighth year (2004) to bring a national perspective to our process, and to expose local artists’ work to a broader art audience over time.

Paul Ha (Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis), Hamza Walker (Renaissance Society, University of Chicago), Valerie Cassel Oliver (Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), and Gregory Volk (independent art critic/curator and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University), have graciously joined in our process.

In 2005, CSF initiated a three-week summer residency for one former award recipient at Art Omi in upstate New York, giving Kansas City artists an opportunity to show their work and network with important national and international artists, curators, and gallerists. The annual residency program developed from a relationship between Time Equities, a New York real estate firm that owns property in downtown Kansas City (whose CEO also founded Art Omi), and CSF’s Urban Culture Project.

The financial support and recognition CSF has provided artists since 1997—with the accompanying increased sense of pride and accomplishment in the arts community— have been critically important and inherently rewarding. Including 2007, we have distributed $352,500; in 2007, the artists selected received $10,000 each.

Additionally, however, the ripple effects of our efforts have been broad and deep—and equally rewarding. To my knowledge, the CSF advisory meetings created the first opportunity for arts professionals from different institutions to meet. While our purpose was to discuss individual local artists, inevitably, discussions turned to the arts community as a whole—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and possibilities. Meetings of the CSF advisors spurred discussion of many issues, from critical writing and dialogue to visiting critics and curated shows of Kansas City artists, and were, in many ways, the forerunner to slightly larger gatherings of arts professionals that I convened in my last years at American Century. I was curious and hoped to pick their collective brains: what else does the arts community deem worthy of funding? While many issues were discussed, the only tangible result of these few gatherings was the collaborative annual ad placed in Art in America: Art in Kansas City.2

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Though this small group stopped meeting, it in turn was the forerunner to the fortyperson Visual Arts Consortium (VAC), which CSF organized and convened in 2004 and 2005. The VAC was (and is) a bottom-up planning effort for and by the arts community. Its work resulted in a published summary report enumerating twenty-six ideas, opportunities, and needs to grow the arts community, targeting specific ways to improve the personal and professional lives of artists and arts professionals. The group’s intention was and is to feed this document and these ideas over time to area business, philanthropic, and political leaders for their edification and support.3 While we were pleased with the VAC’s summary of community-inspired local ideas, we recognized that national thought and dialogue on these topics were critically missing in Kansas City. To that end, CSF has quietly pursued relationships with national philanthropic leaders to gain a broader perspective on issues relevant to Kansas City artists. In 2005 we hosted Ruby Lerner, the executive director of Creative Capital Foundation (New York), for an extensive visit with artists, arts professionals, and business and philanthropic leaders for discussions about artists’ needs locally and nationally. In 2006 Sam Miller, executive director of LINC (Leveraging Investments in Creativity, a national initiative to address artists’ needs) made a similar visit to Kansas City. The Charlotte Street Foundation—with the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City—is moving forward with Creative Capital to facilitate three years of professional development workshops for artists in five disciplines (theater, music, dance, film/video, and visual art). Also through the joint sponsorship of CSF and the Arts Council, Kansas City has received a planning grant to join LINC’s national network of fourteen creative communities— funded by the Ford Foundation—to pioneer prototype strategies to improve artists’ personal and professional lives.4

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In 2002 I had decided to go half-time at my “real” job in order to devote more time to CSF; the following year I went cold turkey for full-time at CSF. Before and during that transition, I asked numerous members of the arts community to share with me what, from their perspective, Kansas City needed.

What emerged was our groundbreaking Urban Culture Project (UCP), whose purpose was to give studio, exhibition, and performance spaces to artists, thereby allowing more artists to take risks with their work in a non-commercial setting. In doing so, UCP would highlight the current and long-standing impact of artists in the community—artists of many disciplines: musicians, actors, dancers, and visual artists. We wanted to see more interdisciplinary work. We wanted artists to mix more and we wanted arts audiences to mix more—all in very accessible, high quality, yet unusual venues. Additionally, adopting and building on an idea from banker Grant Burcham, if we could do this in empty storefronts in the very heart of the city, perhaps it would serve as a small example of organic development and help to bring life to the empty downtown corridors. Building owners, architects, and the vast creative community partnered with us as we gained no-cost month-to-month leases and many pro-bono services to support our efforts (as well as generous funding for our hard costs, some of which went to pay artist-curators).

CSF took a huge step in late 2003 when Kate Hackman (founding editor of Review magazine and formerly with Exit Art in New York) joined as assistant director. As a curator and writer, she has provided critical thinking and additional hands for all we do, specifically guiding the curatorial process for UCP programming and overseeing our curatorial committee— made up of artists, curators, dancers, actors, filmmakers, and musicians—for important input, direction, and outreach.

The newly formed board (2003) also began taking an active role in UCP due to the variety of expertise needed, and has since given thoughtful support and leadership to all our efforts. In 2003 we were also fortunate to have Hesse McGraw, artist and curator, create and direct UCP’s flagship space, Paragraph, with brilliant exhibitions for several years. The reactions and support we have received from the arts community for UCP have been overwhelming. Artist-curators have come forward to create outstanding and thoughtful exhibitions and performances.

The entire creative community has embraced our mission and efforts wholeheartedly. National art leaders have recognized our efforts in collaborative and interdisciplinary programming, and UCP recently received a nod of approval (and accompanying funding) from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The Downtown Loop, with many wonderful old buildings deserted for years, is undergoing a $4-plus billion renovation with large city subsidies.

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Throughout these first ten years, Charlotte Street Foundation, in all of its myriad activities, has been driven by artists and arts professionals. Ideas for the arts community (and beyond) must come from artists and arts professionals, blended with questions and support from the business and philanthropic communities.

CSF has always aimed high. We have engaged good and diverse minds—and amazing people. Are we succeeding in our stated goals and mission? Are we doing so in the spirit of our rich heritage, beliefs, and community? I believe the answer to both these questions is a resounding yes, based on commentary and feedback from artists and the arts community. Our ears are always open, however, to new ideas or processes. As for the future ‌

Eighteenth and Baltimore at the heart of the burgeoning Crossroads Arts District, which has developed organically over many years with artists, entrepreneurs, and small businesses.

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THE NEXT TEN YEARS: A CHARLOTTE STREET VISION Awareness of environmental issues has increased considerably in recent times.

Healthy ecosystems are what sustain life; we all know this at some level, though we often fail to act on that knowledge.

The visual arts community in Kansas City is an ecosystem that has become visibly vibrant in recent years, from the very largest organization (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art with its stunning expansion) to the larger contemporary spaces (the new Nerman MOCA, Kemper Museum, Block Artspace, Grand Arts). From all the artist-run spaces and endeavors (such as YJ’s and Grinders) and commercial galleries to supporting initiatives (such as Review, Avenue of the Arts, One Percent for Art, Lighton International Artists Exchange, Light in the Other Room, Art in the Loop, Urban Culture Project, Charlotte Street Awards). And from the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City to the Kansas City Art Institute, to a real art critic at The Star and the individual artists themselves. Ours is a diverse, interrelated, and interdependent network. And while each of these (and many other) elements differs in size, each is of critical importance to the sustainability of the whole. We must support and nourish each element of the ecosystem—from the largest down to the very smallest.

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Why not just support the largest and let the smaller fend for themselves? Consider the analogous ecosystem of the business world: can you imagine if no support existed for small businesses? if consumer dollars only went to large corporations?

What if there were no entrepreneurs? New ideas and innovations would plummet. The very dynamic nature of our entire capitalist system would fall completely and utterly flat. Artists are the entrepreneurs of the arts community. Their ideas and challenges create the art and culture of today. Can you imagine how dull our lives would be if no artists existed today? how stagnated we would be, culturally, if museums were our only source of artistic ideas? This is no knock against museums; it is to say, rather, that living artists are equally needed and deserving of our support.

In this age of globalization, city after city in America looks, feels, and tastes the same.

We in Kansas City fall right into line with countless dollars to “me-too” subsidized facilities and “attractions”—stadiums, convention centers, entertainment districts.

Artists and arts communities create real and unique art, culture, and environments characterized by a strong, important sense of place. And in Kansas City, the arts community is perhaps the single most unique element of our city (both our past history of jazz and our current strength in visual art and theater). It is the single most likely element that could—and does— distinguish this city.

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The good news is that Kansas City philanthropic and business leaders have a long history of supporting the arts. The critical and thoughtful approach would now be to extend that support to the full ecosystem, including artists themselves.

Support for both the arts and artists is critical for a growing and vibrant culture in the city. Charlotte Street’s vision for Kansas City is to become a magnet for artists. I offer a few thoughts for further advancing this city’s national position in the arts— next steps , if you will, as we complete the Nelson-Atkins expansion, the new Nerman MOCA, and imbark upon constructing the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts: •

Philanthropic and corporate leadership should commit significantly more resources to the Kansas City Art Institute, the engine of our arts community, making it one of the top three schools in the country, thus attracting some of the best young, emerging talent. Additionally, graduate-level (MFA) programs at the Art Institute and/or UMKC are sorely needed and must be established. Likewise the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance and the UMKC Department of Theatre need more funding and attention from civic leaders.

•

Corporate, philanthropic, and arts leaders should help elected officials understand the need for public nurturing of the arts community. Elected officials in turn must research and visit cities such as Chicago and Providence, where enlightened political leadership has been a key ingredient in the renaissance of arts communities.

•

The Visual Arts Consortium’s 26 Big Ideas—ideas to improve the personal and professional lives of artists and arts professionals—should be enacted with support from corporate, philanthropic, and political leaders. Similar efforts must be made for dancers, actors, musicians, filmmakers, and writers at a grassroots level. Philanthropic support of Kansas City’s participation in LINC’s national network of creative communities will provide a jump start to support for individual artists of all disciplines.

•

Civic, corporate, philanthropic, and political leaders should develop more communication and dialogue with the arts community.

David Ford’s studio at Review Studios, a 51,000square-foot building in the East Crossroads that has been converted to subsidized studios for mid-career artists.

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This vision builds Kansas City from the bottom up, organically. In the past fifty years, Kansas City’s most successful (meaning where people want to congregate) and cost-effective developments in the central city have in large part been due to artists of all kinds. From Westport and 39th Street to the Westside and West Bottoms, and from the Crossroads and now East Crossroads to the River Market, artists have been key instigators for real, organic, successful development. Artistentrepreneurs are used to street-level, shoestring operations. They spend their lives designing new stores, bars, restaurants, exhibitions, performances, and businesses that attract people at the lowest possible cost. The addition of artists and entrepreneurs to the creative teams and oversight boards of our city’s megadevelopment projects could vastly improve the chances of success. The business minds of corporate executives, the political minds of elected officials, and the scrappy, street-level minds of artists and entrepreneurs make for a dynamic combination of skills that should be tapped for any future development in Kansas City.

This vision finds small but critical ways to stoke the arts community, thus stoking the city itself—artists, art, culture, creativity, vitality, growth. Artists, without any support, have been leading the way for over a halfcentury; imagine what could happen if they had support—the right kind of support.

Kansas City, with such a major focus, could actually start recruiting artists from other Midwestern cities, becoming a magnet for artists. Short of solving our public school and racial problems, we believe this vision has more potential positive impact on this city, at a lower cost and with a higher likelihood of success, than any other initiative or combination of initiatives we have heard discussed—more than all the stadiums, arenas, and mega-projects combined.

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As part of this vision, we are asking a lot of our civic, philanthropic, political, and business leaders. We in the arts community must equally push ourselves to reach out.

Artists and other arts professionals more in tune than I need to weigh in on this discussion, however, my suggestions are as follows: •

Artists must push and challenge themselves, their ideas, their work—and yes, their networking and marketing—for those who are ambitious.

•

Among artists, our silos in the various disciplines of the arts community (visual, theater, dance, music, writing, film, etc.) must come down so we can encourage collaboration and mixing among disciplines.

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Hip Hop Showcase at Urban Culture Project’s Boley gallery, located in a historically significant building—empty for years—in the heart of the city.

Notes 1. In October 2005 American Century became one of the very first companies in the nation to be recognized by the national Business Committee for the Arts (BCA) for their outstanding support of the arts. The Kansas City firm was named one of THE BCA TEN: Best Companies Supporting the Arts in America, along with American Airlines, Deere & Company, Meredith Corporation, Norfolk Southern Corporation, Shugoll Research, The First American Corporation, United Technologies Corporation, Vinson & Elkins L.L.P., and Wells Fargo & Company. The BCA was founded in 1967 by David Rockefeller.

•

Our largest visual and performing arts institutions must enhance and enrich their programming by engaging in collaborations and cross-pollinations of all kinds—across the full ecosystem of the arts. Such efforts will attract younger and crossover audiences, and will support and encourage artists in multiple disciplines. We have to believe in the whole ecosystem of the arts ourselves— and act on it.

•

The arts community must push to help mend our racial divides. If we as artists and arts professionals can mix more freely, our audiences will mix more— following the lead of Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey—and we can play a part in healing our city.

•

The local arts community must develop more communication and dialogue with arts communities in other cities, as well as with national arts and philanthropic leaders.

•

While the high-profile heavy lifting belongs to the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City, everyone in the arts community will benefit and help the community at large if we participate more actively in the political process.

This, then, is a vision for our city where artists are cultivated, respected, and admired by leaders in the business, political, philanthropic, and civic communities, as well as by a significant segment of the general public. The resulting support for artists expands exponentially, leading artists to participate more fully in our community, and attracting artists from other cities and the region. The positive artistic, cultural, and economic ripple effects proliferate as the city becomes known as a dynamic source of creativity, ideas, and surprises.

The arts community has come to represent a tremendous cultural strength in Kansas City, thanks to so many individuals, initiatives, and small and large organizations. The ten-year anniversary of the Charlotte Street Foundation marks a decade of activism and advocacy for this organization and inspires consideration of the many changes that have occurred in Kansas City during that time. For the arts and for artists, it has been a time of growth, expansion, partnership, dialogue, activity, and increased recognition. As the Charlotte Street Foundation looks forward to a promising future, we have also taken this opportunity to reflect on the success of our collective endeavors and all that has been realized through the programs CSF supports. Through it all we cling to the long-standing tradition of artists gathering for food, fun, and friendship at the Charlotte Street Mission in midtown Kansas City, a history that grounds our beliefs, our actions, and our hopes for the future.

2. The annual ad appeared from 2001 through 2005 in the August issue of Art in America (the Annual Guide to Museums, Galleries, and Artists). Commenting on the ad’s debut, Kansas City Star art critic Alice Thorson wrote, “Open the 2001–2002 Art in America Annual, turn six pages, and there it is: Kansas City strutting its art stuff. In a two-page color advertising spread, the Nelson “Shuttlecocks” and the Bartle Hall “Sky Stations” are pictured, as well as shots highlighting top local shows and splashy holdings like the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s big Louise Bourgeois spider sculpture. A group ad features 10 organizations in all; facing it is a full page devoted to the Oppenheimer-Stein Sculpture Collection at Johnson County Community College, which now numbers six pieces by international artists. All of which suggests that Kansas City takes itself seriously as a significant art center.” Alice Thorson, “Destination: Art,” The Kansas City Star, December 30, 2001.

3. For the Visual Arts Consortium’s summary report, see www.charlottestreet.org/vac.

4. For more information about Leveraging Investments in Creativity, see www.lincnet.net.

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Peter von Ziegesar

IS ART POSSIBLE IN KANSAS CITY?

Musical Musicians Foundation, Eighteenth and Vine District, where jazz greats have been playing into the early daylight hours for more than seventyfive years.

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When I came to Kansas City in the mid1980s, I found already in place an ancient, pedigreed bohemian settlement, as old as anyone could remember and so layered, so rich in its rotting fertile thicknesses of mulch, its roots so networked and intertwined, that although as an art writer my job was to spot and classify the few shiny white mushrooms that popped up on the surface, I felt that if I lived a thousand years I could never penetrate the miles of invisible mycelium that connected its population underneath.1 Artists were clumped in several areas, including “Little Arkansas,” a strip of badly maintained rental houses on Baltimore at 41st Street; Westport; Columbus Park; Hyde Park; the West Bottoms; the Valentine District; and in the ramshackle Greek revival apartment buildings around the Nelson-Atkins Museum—wherever housing was cheap.

Some were not artists at all, but kitsch culture aficionados, who drove around in old cars, collected vinyl records of Kansas City jazz and R&B, bought candy swirl bowling balls to line their garden paths, and attended polka parties in local churches at night. Others were part of Kansas City’s dignified and well entrenched drug culture, born in the old C&M (cocaine and morphine) parlors of Eighteenth and Vine, bolstered by the emerald waves of pot grown in the heartland by ordinary farmers desperate to make their mortgage payments.2 Others were outsider artists and autistic savants, such as Vince Roark, who congregated in the old Nelson Gallery coffee shop, drew shadow projections of multidimensional solids on bits of poster board, and boasted of close ties to the Kennedy family.

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Donald Hoffman, The Kansas City Star’s art critic at the time, apparently believed that his job was to cover doings at the NelsonAtkins Museum of Art, the Kansas City Art Institute, and, with the exception of an occasional suburban art show, little else.

That left the field wide open for me, and having spent the previous decade in the East Village participating in an “underground” art milieu that had really almost gone out of control, I tore into Kansas City’s hairy underbelly with pencil and sometimes microphone in hand, covering abstract artists, folk artists, breakout artists, loft shows, cheesy horror film productions, cranks, forgotten savants such as Jesse Howard, gallery startups, street parades—anyone and anything that smacked of street smarts, took pleasure in its work, and was unapologetic about lifestyle.

There is nothing more swampy, thick, and Cretaceous than an August night in Kansas City; you can almost hear the leather wings of the pterosaurs scrape and flap in the thick, nourishing breeze. Of all of those sultry nights, one remains burned into my memory forever. Dwight Frizzell (an old friend of mine from Art Institute days), tall, lean, and hairy legs and all, in a torn wedding dress, was leading his jazz, reggae, tango, etc. band, the Black Crack Revue (BCR), down the center of Walnut Street, to the cheers of a ragged group of Kansas City troglodytes, while the band played its signature Jurassic version of “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing” to the rapid mariachi scratch gourd of locusts, overhead. The sky had turned a bruised eggplant purple, enormous white blossoms dripped from the catalpa trees; it was a moment of peace and affirmation that there never was going to be anything more rich and full and poignant as this moment. About the same time I wrote an essay about the artist Allan Winkler, about the “joy of small lives well lived,” and this is what I meant.

Although the night was memorable, it was not unusual. Nor was the insouciance. To my way of thinking, people like Dwight Frizzell owned this town. Unnoticed by city fathers—by the suburban businessmen who were busy ringing the city with golf courses and disposable housing—an annual deluge of Kansas City Art Institute graduates had been filling every crack in the ecosystem, especially the almost deserted downtown, for decades: starting small businesses, restaurants, bars; taking jobs as contractors or plumbers by day and playing music or painting by night; preserving whole neighborhoods from the wrecking ball by buying buildings in areas no one seemed to want, restoring them cheaply, and filling them with artists. The live-music bars, boutiques, galleries, impromptu performance spaces, coffee shops, and restaurants of all descriptions—in short, everything that made the city diverse, freespirited, and worth living in—were either started by artists or supported by them.

Kansas City really was the kind of city where you’d want to raise your kids, and writing about its variegated art world kept me happy and interested for years. People were pleasant, rents were cheap, there was always some new decrepit part of town to explore, and the thrift shops were unpicked-over and full of bizarre, interesting stuff.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice that a look of doom settled periodically over everyone’s faces, as if they had suddenly noticed a giant black cloud of locusts looming overhead. Responding to some natural economic cycle, every few years the Kansas City gallery scene would somehow manage to burn itself down to its scorched roots and have to start all over again. There would be mass closings, great bewailing in the press, and when the smoke had cleared that year’s bumper crop of promising Art Institute grads would have split for Chicago, Minneapolis, or the Coasts. But unlike the western fields of big bluestem and Indian grass that ranchers annually torched, there seemed to be no biological benefit here.

The problem, ironic in a rich town, was that there was no money—and the various components tended to blame each other.

Art dealers faulted the Nelson for failing to raise the consciousness of collectors.

Artists blamed the galleries for not showing local talent. Collectors blamed galleries for never coming up with anything interesting.

For its part, from its vantage point on the highest elevation in the city from whence its curators could sometimes hear distant screams of pain and anger, the Nelson felt little desire to join the fracas; its first obligations remained to the general public and to the collection—pursuing and acquiring the best available artwork on the national or international market.

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When I left town in 1993, the art scene that I had grown so fond of had experienced the throes of birth and rebirth so many times— always chained to the wheel of suffering, never arriving—and nothing I saw on my way out convinced me that anything was going to be different. The galleries would go on exhibiting insipid artworks gleaned from the Coasts; artists would rise in periodic rebellion, publish their manifestos, clear out a few old loft buildings, and fade into harried oblivion; while the true Kansas City I knew, the ancient bohemian enclave of peace, wisdom, and decadence, would hum along as before, a powerful machine, unremarked upon, its vast energies untapped.

Imagine my surprise when I returned in 2006 to find a city in transformation, one that The New York Times had taken to calling the “Midwest Soho,” full of selfconfident artists who had no intention of leaving town.3 What I saw helped to change my preconceived notions about what you can do to change anything (which before had been that basically you could do nothing).

Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6:28

At the center of the Kansas City underground, at the heart of darkness and a long way up the river, was John Puscheck. John was a small, fat, red-faced man, who had graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute a few years ahead of me.

John was so dyslexic that he painted his paintings in reverse on the back of Plexiglas; because of his disability, he held only one or two jobs in his life. Instead, he priced his paintings at whatever the rent was—let’s say $340. For more than two decades, Puscheck held court twenty-four hours a day in the back yard of the airplane bungalow he rented from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the 5400 block of Charlotte Street, an artist neighborhood.

John seemed to be living on fumes, literally, simultaneously painting, telling stories, handing out beers, and cooking for whomever showed up. Famously, he could fry up fish for fifty people at a moment’s notice, using three frying pans at once.

Chuck Haddix, a neighbor, who modeled his popular public radio program, “The Saturday Night Fish Fry,” after Puscheck’s impromptu gatherings, remembers the scene as “magical”: the smell of burning leaves, the joyful cries of young children, Puscheck’s tar-mellowed yawp, and the sound of a guitar tuning up on the porch— where Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, the folksinger who influenced Dylan in the early years, once showed up to play.4 The house on Charlotte Street became known as the Charlotte Street Mission, and just about everyone of the underground showed up for a beer and a few salty parables from the Very Right Reverend himself.

John Puscheck—the Very Right Reverend himself.

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David Hughes Jr., who later founded the Charlotte Street Foundation (CSF), met Puscheck in the mid-1980s. The view Puscheck and his “mission” gave Hughes into Kansas City’s demimonde fascinated him. As a businessman (he worked at American Century Investments at the time), Hughes saw artists expending a tremendous amount of energy, but with very little structure or reward to guide that energy—unless you counted a life for its own sake a reward. Furthermore, artists in Kansas City lacked a clear career path. The local art galleries showed very few Kansas City artists, and instead relied on imported artwork from either Coast. How long could one go on selling one’s work in Greek restaurants? Most serious artists packed up after a few years and left for New York, Chicago, or Minneapolis. Hughes foresaw benefits to the entire community if Kansas City’s smartest and active artists could be persuaded to stay in town.

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Thanks for Not Being a Zombie opening at Urban Culture Project’s Paragraph gallery, including work

by Award recipients Seth Johnson and Sean Ward.

After previewing his idea to John O’Brien of the Dolphin Gallery, Hughes invited a few of Kansas City’s contemporary art curators to his house to talk in more depth, shape the idea, and move it forward. That initial group included O’Brien; Deborah Emont Scott, a curator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Craig Subler, who ran the art gallery at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; and Mark Spencer, at that time with Yellow Freight, now with Hallmark. This was perhaps the first time that Kansas City visual arts professionals had gotten together to discuss what the art scene lacked and how it could be made better.

Hughes sprang his idea: to reward serious artists with unrestricted grants, money they could use to pay the rent, buy art supplies or, if they wanted, a surfboard, a car, or lap dances—whatever fed the creative beast.5

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Unrestricted grants to individual artists were unusual at the time. Existing funding programs for artists at the Missouri Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts had recently dried up. Even before then, though, artists had been forced to fight their way through innumerable bureaucratic hoops to obtain the grants: write proposals, justify their expenses, and get an umbrella organization to sponsor them. Hughes’s notion was clean and simple—and a bit radical. Find deserving artists and give them money. Don’t ask them any questions. Let them do what they want with it. “I am impatient. My plan was not to wait around for committees to come to conclusions, but to start it right away, and let it morph into something else later if it needed to,” Hughes said.6 Thus in 1996, the Charlotte Street Fund (now Foundation) came into being, named to capture some the spirit of the Charlotte Street Mission, where Puscheck could still be found every day with a spatula in one hand and a cigarette in the other, handing out ribs and Boulevard beer to anyone who happened to drop by.

This simple act of trust, to give unrestricted grants to a number of creative people each year simply because the Foundation perceived what they were doing as good and necessary to the community, had a kind of snowball effect at a time when activity in the art scene was already picking up speed. Alice Thorson, The Kansas City Star’s current art writer, included the first Charlotte Street Awards in a timeline of events in what she called “Kansas City’s Art Boom.” They included, among other things, the opening of the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art under Bruce Hartman; the reactivation of the One Percent for Art program; the installation of the Nelson Shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen and of the Bartle Hall Sky Stations by R. M. Fischer; the opening of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Crossroads Arts District reaching critical mass.7

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In the past ten years, galleries, alternative spaces, and artist lofts have burgeoned.

There has been a corresponding run-up in real estate prices in the places in which many artists live or work, especially the Crossroads Arts District. The most recent iteration of First Fridays—once a coordinated opening by Crossroads galleries desperate to see customers in the months after 9/11—has mushroomed into something of a street fair, with fire-eaters, outdoor musicians and street vendors. The spectacle attracts about ten thousand gawkers from the suburbs on a good night—though artists themselves have begun to shun the affair as a crass carnival.

Finally, even the long-deserted downtown area has seen some street life since an offshoot of the Charlotte Street Foundation, the Urban Culture Project (UCP), started borrowing or leasing empty storefront and office space, and giving it to artists for studios, performances, and exhibitions.

UCP also inaugurated Third Fridays of performances, open studios, and openings, as an alternative to First Fridays in the Crossroads.

Simply enumerating the changes that have occurred in the past decade does not begin to describe the essential transformation that has taken place in the Kansas City art community, which is primarily psychological. The Charlotte Street Foundation validates artists at important junctures in their careers. It gives them a professionally curated exhibition and a brochure written by a critic or guest curator. Kansas City artists who have labored for years, known only to their supportive circles of friends, ignored by local galleries and the newspaper alike, suddenly receive recognition of the quality that places them in a national perspective.

Young artists a year or two out of art school, who are increasingly receiving the Award as the available stock of unrewarded mid-career artists is depleted, and as their work, stimulated by the sophistication of the art activity taking place around them, is chosen by the outside critics on the awards panels, look upon the Charlotte Street Award as an expected career step. Not only is it possible to make savvy, connected art in Kansas City, but there is a possibility that you will be rewarded for it. The effect of this approbation on the self-image and confidence of the overall art community cannot be overstated.

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If one makes the leap from individual wellbeing to that of the body politic, it is perhaps only a slight exaggeration to look at CSF’s influence over the long-neglected artists of Kansas City simply as an example of good parenting. Heinz Kohut (1913–81), the Chicago psychoanalyst known as the father of the psychology of the self, outlined the ways that a neglectful parent can damage the self-esteem of his child—by ignoring him and ridiculing his achievements, for example. Such treatment over years leads to “empty depression,” low self-esteem, sensitivity to slights, and (one hesitates to say it, but one can understand this in the context of the artist in his studio) chronic masturbation.8 If one looks at Kansas City’s nascent art community as a child, then what else had Kansas City been doing—by spending millions on sports stadiums and nothing on art museums, by ridiculing public art (for example, the fight against the Nelson’s Shuttlecocks, led by one of The Kansas City Star’s lead editorial writers) and installing the worst sort of sentimental sculpture in its parks—but extremely bad parenting?9 In contrast, the Charlotte Street Foundation has nurtured its charges, tempered their natural grandiosity (without swatting them down) by helping them see their work in a national context, rewarded them for their first toddling steps towards proficiency, and above all, has paid attention.

Anne Lindberg’s studio, in a recently renovated light industrial complex on the Westside.

The Foundation received unexpected validation in 2002 from a visit by public policy professor, urban consultant, and best-selling author Richard Florida.

Florida’s message to smaller cities urges them to encourage marginal people such as artists and homosexuals to settle, so as to create an atmosphere that will attract creative types and high-tech businesses: So how do gays and bohemians fit into my analysis? I am not saying that these people literally “cause” regions to grow. Rather, their presence in large numbers is an indicator of an underlying culture that’s conducive to creativity. Gays and artists (as well as immigrants …) are often regarded as being on the fringes of society. The places where they feel at home and thrive tend to have a culture of tolerance and open-mindedness.

Gays and bohemians are leading indicators of a place that has a “creative ecosystem”—a regional habitat which is open to new people and ideas, where people easily network, connect; where bright ideas are not shot down or stifled, but are turned into new projects, new companies, and new growth. Regions and nations that have such an ecosystem—that can do the best job of tapping the diverse creative talents of the most people—gain a tremendous competitive advantage.10

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The artists I met in Kansas City over several visits this year—some of whom I’ve known for a long time and some I encountered for the first time—gleefully enroll in each other’s performance pieces, curate exhibitions of one another’s work, write reasoned critiques of one other in the pages of Review magazine, as well as economic-political analyses of the rapidly changing downtown urban landscape that contains their world. It is what artist and curator Hesse McGraw describes as “an untainted community disinterested in quantified hipness”: “The cool hunters never came to Kansas City,” he avers.

“These ego-free children prefer making pyramids and playing pranks than looking good and getting laid. They make no gestures towards larger scenes … [their] specific, subtle, and personal sense of humor brac[es] against the new order of marketable monocultures.”12 It must have been puzzling for city fathers to suddenly learn that the very people they had been trying to keep out for years were the ones they were supposed to encourage to move in.

The mayor and city council continued to push for expensive “top down” solutions, such as KC Live!, a multimillion dollar “entertainment district” that includes an eighteen-thousand-seat arena, which as yet has no professional sports franchise to populate it. In contrast, the Charlotte Street Foundation has quietly encouraged organic growth, using the facilities already in place, borrowing vacant storefronts and offices for a shifting array of artist studios, galleries, and performance spaces, and throwing Third Fridays parties, openings, and performances. Branching into the Urban Culture Project, the Foundation went after two aims: to support the artists and arts community with non-commercial exhibition spaces and studios with artistdriven programming; and to expose developers and real estate powers to artistic sensibility, showing them that a real downtown street life could be achieved, as has happened in the Crossroads district. In general, UCP provides its benefits to less experienced artists than CSF has been able to reward, thus offering a graduated series of validations for the many young, eager artists who are interested in remaining in Kansas City.11

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While conventional art products—paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings—are prized and exhibited, they alas do not sell in Kansas City, where the number of serious collectors has been estimated at twenty.

Therefore the artists have inventively and without complaint spilled their energies into process, performance, and nonmaterial, multidisciplinary, collaborative art forms. All of this downtown antiprofessionalism and lifestyle-as-art and art-as-lifestyle jibes remarkably with what is going on in the art capital these days.

New York art critic and gallery director Kathy Grayson remarked, “What distinguishes the best of what’s going on now from the rest is that unmistakable, un-fakable sincerity that runs underneath all of it. A fundamental difference exists between that which is held at a conceptual arms-length and a creation fused to the complexly intersecting spheres of intellect, intuition and experience that make up a lifestyle, not an art style.”13

This is not a cynical restating of the old song, “Ev’rythin’s up to date in Kansas City,” but simply to say that young artists in Kansas City share to a close degree the concerns and preoccupations of young artists in other cities, where the emphasis has been on authenticity and community.

Swept by the digital currents of information, they appear to be part of a zeitgeist that is both borderless and universal, as the curators of the 2006 Whitney Biennial describe: It immediately became apparent that the definition of what constitutes “American” is in dramatic flux. Artists, and curators, are moving around the world with an ever greater fluidity, often living or working between countries, traveling back and forth from New York, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, and Chicago to Istanbul, Thailand, Zurich, Berlin, Milan, and London. This fluidity has created a complicated network of communication and artistic exchange that refuses to be contained by geographical borders and that creates arcs which traverse vast distances.14 In other words, this is a good time to be a Kansas City artist. Probably at no other time in history has the regional artist had less reason to feel isolated or separated from the activity of the Coasts. While the Internet brings everything close and every artist has his own Web site, cheap jet travel brings everything even closer. If you move to New York, you will find it populated with friends from Westport and Waldo. When you come back to Kansas City, you find that everyone you knew in Williamsburg has already moved here.

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To see in a single array the artists included in this catalogue is like going into the living room of a friend and encountering a good record collection. It’s surprisingly comprehensive; there are some interesting, even wildly creative additions, and few disturbing omissions. It makes no attempt to be all-inclusive, yet it is surprisingly so.

You can get a fairly good picture of the individual lights that have illuminated the Kansas City art scene for the past ten years. Yet the vision is nowhere near uniform; one detects slight variations as the tastes and makeup of the selection panel changes from year to year. One year there might be a preponderance of graffiti and hip-hop art as if the curators had just uncovered the existence of urban culture.

Talented mid-career artists were heavily weighted in the early years: Tony Allard and Kristine Diekman, James Brinsfield, Russell Ferguson, Nate Fors, David Ford, Lester Goldman, to name a few. Another year might be the year for cool minimalism, or pop minimalism, or simply pop Pop.

Formerly serving rail traffic at Union Station, the Crossroads’ utilitarian building stock has been key to the area’s development as an arts district.

Urban Culture Project’s la Esquina gallery, launched in January 2007—a 2,500-square-foot “white box” for exhibitions and “black box”for performances.

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The aboveground art scene is iconoclastic, humorous, politically engaged; its artists are not at all self-conscious of being thought of as small-town or afraid to be thought of as regional—in fact, they are not and they have long since worked through that self-impression—and are instead proud of the traits that the incubator of Kansas City has brought them: their sly humor, raw energy and eclecticism, their flouting of careerism and its goals and formulas, and their celebration of a cooperative communal spirit.

Perhaps it is a danger of success that one finds oneself a few steps away from where one started. It is considered a matter of some irony in Kansas City, that when John Puscheck died in 2005, surrounded by friends, he had never received the award that commemorated his “mission.” But for a man like Puscheck, perhaps you could say that his life was its own best memorial.

His memory is honored every year with an outré annual Evil Monkey barbecue, reviving the Evil Monkey shows that Puscheck started with Mike Randall and Mike Temple.

I watched a videotape recently sent to me by one of John Puscheck’s friends. It was an unsteady home movie taken in Puscheck’s backyard at his forty-seventh birthday party (1995). They were all there, the fragments of Kansas City’s old guard and underground, the pot-smoking lawyers, the artist who loved naïve and outsider art so much he became a naïve outsider, the drug dealer turned biblical figure. Children ran around underfoot and a reggae band wailed on the porch. It was nice to see so many familiar faces. Puscheck himself could be seen, focused and gentle, intently rubbing spices into the red flesh of an enormous flayed fish, then tying the fish to a piece of plywood and leaning it up to smoke and bubble against a fire. Fierce threads of friendship and community tied these citizens together—decades of doing business with each other, making art together, the whole gamut of having sex, making love, breaking friendships, and starting all over again—and let’s face it, they all liked to have a pretty good time.

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Many critics have pondered the relationship of the underground to the mainstream in our culture. I see the old bohemian culture, with its amazing power to survive, as a kind of beaten-down mulch, from which the younger shoots must gather nourishment.

It is perhaps the genius of the Charlotte Street Foundation that, as an aboveground organization, it has been able to tap into that rich subsoil. All things that grow in the Midwest are subject to extremes of weather, however, and David Hughes himself has commented that the art scene, despite its apparent health, could dry up and blow away in a season.15 Nevertheless, the work that has been discovered and the way that has been found have already been of indescribable benefit, as can be seen in these imaginative and fulsome pages.

James Woodfill’s studio at Review Studios in the East Crossroads.

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Notes 1. During my tenure in Kansas City, which ended in 1993, I wrote arts commentary for The Kansas City Star, KCUR-FM, High Performance, Media Arts, American Ceramics, The New Art Examiner, The Journal of Art, New Letters, the literary quarterly, Kansas City Magazine, Borderline, Spiral, and several publications that I can’t remember or don’t exist any more.

2. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), marijuana is Missouri’s fourth largest cash crop after soybeans, corn, and hay. See www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4547&wt m_view=crop10.

3. Hope Glassberg, “Artists Feel the Squeeze in a Midwest SoHo,” The New York Times, November 29, 2005.

4. Chuck Haddix, interview with the author, October 2006.

5. Peregrine Honig told me that she spent most of the award money on lap dances. She was completely within her rights to do so, and no one from the Charlotte Street Foundation asked later to see a portfolio of her sketches of strippers. Interview with the author, September 2006.

6. David Hughes, interview with the author, June 2006.

7. Alice Thorson, “Destination: Art—Kansas City is Promoting Itself as a Happening Place,” The Kansas City Star, December 30, 2001.

8. Kohut believed that in every person the whole creative self could not emerge successfully without unrestricted parental approval. “If the parents are at peace with their own needs to shine … if, in other words the parents’ self-confidence is secure, then the proud exhibitionism of the budding self of their child will be responded to acceptingly.

However grave the blows may be to which the child’s grandiosity is exposed by the realities of life, the proud smile of the parents will keep alive a bit of the original omnipotence, to be retained as the nucleus of self-confidence and inner security about one’s worth that sustain the healthy person through his life.” Heinz Kohut and Ernest S. Wolf, “The Disorders of the Self and Their Treatment: An Outline,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 59 (1978): 413–25.

9. In his “Shuttlecock Kitsch” opinion published in The Kansas City Star February 15, 1993, Yael T. Abouhalkah wrote, “The Nelson Gallery’s majestic front lawn does not need to be cluttered with silly pop-art. The absurd idea of placing 18-foot-tall sculptures of badminton shuttlecocks on the lawn ought to die peacefully. … People who think the Nelson should be a distinguished gallery, generally but not always for serious works of art, have the right idea. The shuttlecocks would be unnecessary baubles and distractions, at odds with the Nelson’s environment. Others, though, say they want to send a message to visitors that ‘art can be fun’ and that the Nelson is not just for stuffed shirts. … If the Nelson wants to shed that image (and maybe it doesn’t), how about something more plebeian? Giant bowling balls rolling down the slope toward rows of enormous pins. A mammoth bottle of beer nearby. …”

10. Richard Florida, “Kotkin’s Fallacies—Why Diversity Matters to Economic Growth,” www.creativeclass.org/baffler_response.shtml.

Mike Vargo assisted with the article. © 2006/Richard Florida Creativity Group.

Richard Florida is currently the Hirst Professor in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books, 2002), Cities and the Creative Class (Routledge, 2005), and The Flight of the Creative Class (HarperBusiness, 2005).

Florida’s appearance in Kansas City was co-sponsored by the Kansas City Area Development Council and the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City, in conjunction with the KCADC’s annual luncheon.

11. Matt Wycoff, a young artist, confided to me that an artist might reasonably expect to take the following steps on his way to having a successful career in Kansas City: (1.) Proposal accepted for an Avenue of the Arts project—temporary public art displayed in downtown Kansas City.

(2.) A show at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center— one of the early stalwart experimental galleries in the Crossroads.

(3.) A Charlotte Street Award.

(4.) This will lead to the Johnson County Community College and at least one other major collector purchasing works of art.

(5.) Teach a class at the Kansas City Art Institute.

“Suddenly you will find yourself in the upper tier of artists in Kansas City.” Matt Wycoff, interview with the author, June 2006.

12. Hesse McGraw, What’s the Matter with Kansas, exh. cat. (New York: Rare Gallery, 2005). McGraw curated this group exhibition of Kansas City artists, reprising the title of a book by political writer Thomas Frank. Despite its defensive-sounding title, the show was assembled to convince New Yorkers that the work of Kansas City artists is of the same quality as that of artists practicing anywhere.

McGraw was specifically referring to the subjects pictured in the photographs of Jaimie Warren, who documents her friends in bohemian culture in Kansas City.

13. Kathy Grayson, Live Through This: New York in the Year 2005, exh. cat., eds. Jeffrey Deitch and Kathy Grayson (New York, Deitch Projects), 75.

14. Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne, Preface and Acknowledgments, Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night, exh. cat. (New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2006), 18.

15. Hughes, interview.

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Matt Wycoff

KANSAS CITY: STOMPING GROUNDS

The West Bottoms, with many studios and alternative spaces in the old warehouses on the floodplain of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, below the bluffs and downtown Kansas City.

In the summer of 1998 (one year after the first Charlotte Street Awards were given to artists working in Kansas City) I was heading west on I-70 with a friend toward California in a beat-up Honda Civic. As we approached Kansas City in the still-dark early morning hours of July 18, the whole city, still as small as my thumb on the horizon, appeared as if it were in flames and glowing orange around its edges. As we got closer, and seeing the helicopters swirling overhead and the flames lighting up the morning in front of the Kansas City skyline, I could hear a scratchy version of the jazz/blues anthem “Kansas City” playing in the back of my head. Knowing that I was to begin college that fall at Kansas City Art Institute, I persuaded the driver to slip off of the highway toward the old industrial neighborhood called the West Bottoms, where one of the largest fires in the city’s history was continuing to burn out of control. Approaching the police barricades surrounding the Bottoms, we gawked with other onlookers at the scene for hours into the early afternoon.

Eventually we turned our attention south along Broadway’s wide curves, ending up in the historic neighborhood of Westport.

There we dipped our feet into the pools of water at the Vietnam War memorial and walked the streets lined with local stores, coffee shops, and bars before heading farther south to lounge in the geometry of the lawn and sculpture garden at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. That day, and for the rest of my trip across the country and my return trip back to begin college, I kept the image of a burning Kansas City in my mind. I was trying to anticipate what it would be like to live there, whom I might meet, and how they would change my life.

Downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

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Because of its ubiquity, conjuring the song “Kansas City” for this essay may make some Kansas Citians cringe. But what’s interesting to me is the song’s repetitive refrain—I’m going to Kansas City / Kansas City, here I come—and how it operates more as an invitation than a postcard. The song itself never reveals much about the place, but impels the listener to go and see what kind of excitement might be found there.

As a freshman at Kansas City Art Institute in 1998, my first taste of the art community beyond the college was wandering among the coordinated openings of the half-dozen galleries that lined Baltimore Avenue in the Crossroads Arts District. With the modest skyline of downtown Kansas City as the backdrop to otherwise abandoned city streets, it was exciting to see the Crossroads neighborhood activated by a relatively small group of artists and other creative types. It was still completely off the radar of most people in the city and untethered to the endemic over-regulation and rule mongering that often characterize large-scale events. I also identified this scene as the complete opposite of the late 1990s popular culture that I despised, from the sitcom Friends to the Backstreet Boys and the movie Titanic. I still consider those gallery openings in Kansas City to be among my first real metropolitan experiences. The tables stacked with exhibition announcements and wine, the kegs of free beer on the sidewalk, and the crowds of, then, anonymous people talking together or looking at art—it all helped to form my image of what a gallery opening should look and feel like. To an eighteenyear-old with terribly romantic ideas about the nature of art, it was a revelation to see art as an event with its own vitality, energy, and sense of place.

These coordinated monthly openings known as First Fridays were, in those days, characterized by a sense of belonging, by the ability of those present to recognize nearly every face in the crowd. As I became a part of that ad hoc community gathered on Baltimore once a month, the excitement of my initial anonymity grew into a respect for those responsible for making the ongoing event possible. What began with small gatherings of artists roaming among a handful of galleries had, by the time I moved away from Kansas City in 2005, grown to include dozens of galleries, sometimes thousands of spectators, corporate sponsors, street performances, bands, movie screenings, and all sorts of other cultural ephemera. Artist and Charlotte Street Award recipient (2000) Tom Gregg describes the current state of First Fridays as “a mega-event that is virtually unrecognizable from what it was like in the beginning.”1 The public face of the monthly event and the Crossroads neighborhood had clearly changed during the eight years I lived in Kansas City and continues to evolve and change. What remains constant—and vital—are the earnest, often sentimental conversations about art, relationships, memory, death, youth, and the future that might take place there. During openings these conversations occur away from the crowds in darkened, often smoky back rooms and on the loading docks or in the back alleys of the old industrial buildings that define the neighborhood. Or they occur on quiet afternoons in galleries or artists’ studios throughout the Crossroads. For me these experiences—cultivating relationships with other artists and art-interested people—remain among the most memorable of my time in Kansas City.

It has become clear to me that the Charlotte Street Foundation is, at its core, about recognizing and celebrating individual effort within a larger community. It is also about issuing a rare thank you to the many artists who are collectively making the quality of life in the city richer and more dynamic. Winning a Charlotte Street Award has become something of a touchstone in the careers of artists in Kansas City, not to mention its financial significance. The Awards have become an important force within the community and have directly contributed to the growing necessity for artists in the city to view their activities critically, as artist and Award recipient (2000) Jim Woodfill describes: “As a professional artist I have to ask myself tough questions every time I put something out in public. I have to ask, ‘Have I pushed myself and challenged myself?’ And I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking tough questions.”

The best editorial approximation I can make of the changes taking place in the visual art community in Kansas City is that they amount to a feeling of becoming— a feeling that one is part of a critical mass headed toward some greater destination.

Artist and Award recipient (1999) Nate Fors points out a simple reality: “Kansas City has a presence nationally that we didn’t have ten years ago.” That increased presence is evidenced by, among other things, The Kansas City Star art critic Alice Thorson and other writers reviewing Kansas City shows for Art in America and other national publications, as well as more frequent visits to Kansas City by curators, critics, and artists from other cities.

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Kansas City Art Institute—the engine of the arts community.

The steady stream of young artists coming into the community, lured—like myself—by the Kansas City Art Institute, may account for much of this sense of becoming. Artist and Award recipient (1999) Michael Rees testifies to the spirit of KCAI, recalling his years there: “It was a place that was unique in all regards and in all aspects. … There was nothing but potential, and it was up to you to seize that potential and make it real.” Woodfill references his relationship to teaching at KCAI: “Having critical discussions with young artists is one of the main reasons I teach. I pay attention to [the work of young artists] and I learn a great deal from those interactions.” The retention of graduates from KCAI also has a significant influence on the art community in Kansas City, and the Art Institute’s continuing impact is clearly reflected in the fact that nearly sixty percent of Charlotte Street Award recipients graduated from or have taught there.

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KCAI graduates who stay in Kansas City mix with and are supported by a dedicated group of working established and midcareer artists, gallerists, and others who provide the connections between the past and the present. Artist and Award recipient (2000) Peregrine Honig describes the community as providing “multigenerational levels of support, which is unusual in many cities.” Charlotte Street Award recipient (1999), painter, professor, and native Kansas Citian Wilbur Niewald, who won a prestigious fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2006, has spent virtually his entire life either studying or teaching at Kansas City Art Institute. Niewald remembers being selected from grade school in 1935 to attend Saturday classes at the Art Institute: “It was a beautiful experience; it was like another world for me and it has had a tremendous influence on my life and work.”

After high school and a three-year stint in the Navy Air Corp, Niewald earned both his undergraduate and graduate diplomas from the Art Institute and in 1949 began a fortythree-year teaching career there, which ended in 1992. Niewald’s life—and influence—in Kansas City is singular but exemplary of the depth of the art community in Kansas City. Honig explains that this depth and support come from “people [like Wilbur] who grew up in Kansas City and have stayed here, from students, as well as people who have moved away and come back who really appreciate what this city has to offer.”

James Brinsfield, an artist, Award recipient (1997), and influential independent curator also acknowledges this sensibility: “My idea as an artist-curator was that I wanted to investigate themes that cross the generations.” In the eight years I spent in Kansas City, and as a younger artist in this multigenerational community, I concluded that this environment provides the perfect conditions for healthy cultural evolution— passing along the best adaptations for a changing cultural landscape.

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In addition to making and showing their work, many Kansas City artists turn entrepreneur, branching out into curating, running a gallery, and other efforts. David Ford, for example, is an influential artist, former gallery owner, entrepreneur, and Charlotte Street Award recipient (2001).

Ford, with artist Stephen Collins, was an early pioneer of several art neighborhoods in Kansas City, and founded the Left Bank gallery in 1986 and in 1998, YJ’s Third World Snackbar, a popular meeting place for artists and musicians. Artist and Award recipient (1998) Archie Scott Gobber credits Ford in part for his staying in Kansas City: “He made Kansas City feel like a viable place to live and exhibit artwork after I graduated from the Art Institute.”

Award recipient (2003) Jim Leedy took the initial steps to form the neighborhood that would eventually become the Crossroads and has since been dubbed the unofficial “Mayor of the Crossroads.” Before taking a teaching position at KCAI, which he has held for more than thirty years, Leedy had come to understand the transformative power art can apply to cities. He developed a singular vision of the importance of a gallery district in Kansas City and was its chief advocate. Leedy moved into the space that is now the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, joined by the Dolphin Gallery (whose owner, John O’Brien, has also been influential in the neighborhood), the Society for Contemporary Photography, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art (at that time the Cohen Berkowitz Gallery) and a few others, all operating in close proximity to each other in the Crossroads. These pioneers took the evolution of the neighborhood to a more professional and cohesive level, coordinating their openings, which would eventually lead to the First Fridays phenomenon.

In 1997 Davin Watne and Leo Esquivel, both Charlotte Street Award recipients (2002; 2003), formed the Dirt Gallery, an independent, artist-run gallery in the old industrial neighborhood of the West Bottoms. Watne recounts his experience in the early years of the Dirt: We were really influenced in the beginning by some of the things that had come before us: of course David Ford and the Left Bank; but also Tom Deatherage [the Late Show]; Random Ranch, which was Eric Lindveit’s gallery; and later the Dolphin. That stuff, to me at that time, was so exotic and was really what I thought art was all about.

Other examples of artists running independent galleries downtown and elsewhere include Peregrine Honig (Fahrenheit Gallery), Hector Casanova (the Green Door Gallery), Matt (Woody) Wood (the Floor Four Gallery), and Award recipient (2000) Jesse Small, to name just a few. In the late 1990s artist Tom Gregg, with the help of Kendall Jackson and Ika, curated group shows of artists at the Old Post Office Gallery in the West Bottoms.

Jaimie Warren and Award recipient (2004) Seth Johnson, for a brief time in 2002–05, hosted a handful of notable exhibitions— and an incredible amount of cultural activity—at Your Face. Currently, some of this activity is still finding expression in the industrial neighborhood of the West Bottoms. Artist and Award recipient (2006) Anthony Baab describes his loft space there, which houses multiple artist studios and functions as an occasional music venue: “I love this place. Growing up I remember seeing television shows … where young people were living in warehouses with brick walls and it always seemed like a sort of fantasy. So when I moved here I fell in love with these old buildings.” Loitering outside of massive buildings transformed into art galleries on empty city streets after dark is among the greatest joys of being an artist in Kansas City. In spite of the tendency to romanticize these types of places in Kansas City for their purity, there are elements of Kansas City that remain outside of the reach of the global cool hunters; places that still feel clean— untainted by hype, hipness, and surface.

Thanks in part to the number of independent galleries in Kansas City, there is open access to the arts community and art galleries—opportunities to exhibit work that speak directly to retaining artists in town. Exhibiting in area galleries is something almost everyone can do if they have the desire. Artist Jay Norton, a lawyer by profession and Charlotte Street Award recipient (2004), recalls being included in his first group show only two years after he began to make art: “I saw a call for submissions in The Pitch for a show called See what society has done to me at the Red Chair Gallery and I submitted images and got four pieces into the show.” He went on to describe the feeling in Kansas City in 1998 as one of inclusion: Everybody was an artist at that time, and anyone who was making something could get it shown somewhere in some way, which is both good and bad, but the scene was very accessible then and I think Kansas City is still a place where if you are making work consistently and doing a good job at it you are going to get shown.

This sentiment also rings true in the career of Nate Fors, who studied English literature at the University of Kansas and made his first paintings on the backs of canvases salvaged from the art department dumpsters at the end of a semester. Fors recalls, “I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about art history. I was dumping house paint on these things and spray painting on them, making these abstractions in the basement of my apartment.” Just over a decade later and with considerable self-education and dedication to his studio practice, Fors staged his first solo museum exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1991.

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While Fors’s exhibition at the Nelson can be seen as predating the booming interest in local artists in Kansas City, the creation of the Urban Culture Project (UCP), which is an extension of the Charlotte Street Foundation, can be seen as its most recent expression. Using the reputation and connections of the Charlotte Street Foundation—and the goodwill created by it—UCP obtains limited leases on empty spaces and storefronts downtown for their use as artist studios and exhibition spaces; it has been a critical aspect of the arts in Kansas City over the past few years. Early on, UCP provided an opportunity for artist and curator Hesse McGraw to direct Paragraph gallery under its umbrella.

Through Paragraph, McGraw helped set the bar for UCP’s programming, and gave many artists living in Kansas City a more visible presence. Through curating shows of Kansas City artists for venues in Chicago, Miami, New York, and London, he created a wonderful example for the potential future of Kansas City’s artists to extend into broader markets.

The reality of Kansas City’s evolution is that much of its potential presence nationally and internationally will come in the form of print. The efforts of Mike Miller in founding Review magazine acknowledged this fact explicitly. Long before many people would have thought that such a publication was possible or necessary, Miller was producing a scrappy, low-budget newsprint art rag that has, since its inception in 1997, grown into a notable publication covering local, national, and international exhibitions and artists. The cumulative effect Review has had as a galvanizing force in Kansas City is nothing short of amazing.

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Among certain circles in Kansas City, talking about this sense of becoming is a bit like talking about the weather. The conversations often come back to what is now a well-rehearsed amazement at the changes taking place. In 1998 William Easton, writing about Kansas City for the second year of the Charlotte Street Awards, wrote about an altogether different sort of weather: To be an artist in KC is to not be a player in an endless trumping game, a scene shifting of clique and coterie.

There is less voguish schmoozing and no overnight stardom or bubble reputation. There is work. Respect comes slowly. Reputations take time.

The art scene is like a Midwestern spring storm. Thunder that slowly rumbles away for days, the sky filled with a restrained fireworks display every night, and you begin to think that this is how it will always be before it changes. Too romantic perhaps, but what I know of art in Kansas City is its honesty.2 In the most basic sense, what is perceived as honesty in an art community like Kansas City often springs from a simple lack of economic influence on people’s actions. In the eight years I lived in Kansas City, despite being in dozens of exhibitions, both solo and group shows, I never sold one piece of art from a Kansas City gallery.

Even the best-selling artists in Kansas City are still hard pressed to make a living solely from their art—the city is still too conservative and the base of collectors, while growing, is just not deep enough to support them. In this environment, making art or putting together an exhibition appears as a true act of expression, uninfluenced by other seemingly less “pure” motivations. Peregrine Honig, who has run the Fahrenheit Gallery for nearly a decade, agrees: “You don’t make any money having a gallery in Kansas City, especially an alternative gallery. So what it’s really about is having a chance to stay motivated and grounded because it keeps things in perspective all the time.”

In many ways, too, Kansas City’s art scene has evolved from Easton’s Midwestern spring storm rumbling on for days to a place offering a much shorter path to the sort of outward recognition he describes.

Kansas City now holds the promise of becoming a place where young artists can begin and maintain some limited version of a career in art. There are definitive steps— some might say a formula—that artists just out of the Art Institute or just arrived from other places can follow that will lead them to a recognizable success that did not exist ten years ago. There are more opportunities for mid-career and established artists to advance their work and reputation, as well.

The tension that is created between the positive evolution of the community and the things yet to be fully realized or overcome is dramatic. James Brinsfield ruminates on the subject: “I think at heart Kansas City is a conservative city, and that conservatism extends into the arts and culture. That’s why things that are ambitious, whether it’s Charlotte Street or the Nerman Museum or the Nelson expansion, stand out a mile.”

David Ford furthers this assessment to encompass the politics of recognition in the city and the remove between the city and its culture makers: “There’s a lot of judgmental provincialism here in terms of lifestyle.” This divide represents some of the big challenges that face the arts in Kansas City. Ford points a finger to history as a way to recognize these challenges with the ironic suggestion that, “Many of the people responsible for the travel and tourism industry in Kansas City wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with Charlie Parker.”

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In many ways the push and pull between the progressive elements of Kansas City and the status quo makes it an exciting place to be, as an artist. The promise of a future where artists in Kansas City can maintain a viable national or international career is an important desire throughout the art community. A version of this future often seems entirely within reach and unthinkable in the same breath. In my imagination, this Kansas City of the future would be one of many relevant reference points within a decentralized art world. It would take part in an ever-evolving national and international conversation about art and culture. Its artists would enjoy regular reviews in national publications, spots in major exhibitions and biennials, and representation in major collections. Whatever the future of the arts in Kansas City may look like, and despite the provincialism that sometimes threatens to undermine its position in that future, the city remains a place where the quality of the artwork being made is greater than the hype surrounding it. In my opinion, this distinction may be the one true definition of success in any art scene.

Notes 1. This quotation and all others, unless otherwise noted, are excerpted from a series of interviews I conducted specifically for this project from June through September 2006.

During the process of writing this essay I had the opportunity to interview many people involved in the arts in Kansas City, including forty-six Charlotte Street Award recipients.

These forty-six interviews were digitally recorded and comprise an archive of more than sixty hours of conversations concerning the individual lives of the artists, their art, and the ongoing evolution of the arts in Kansas City.

2. William Easton, 1998 Charlotte Street Awards, exh. brochure, accessed online: charlottestreet.org/archive/essay_1998.html.

Archie Scott Gobber, in his Review Studio.

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TONY ALLARD AND KRISTINE DIEKMAN

Tony Allard and Kristine Diekman Corpse and Mirror (video still), 1996 video, 25 min.

Courtesy of the artists

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Allard and Diekman moved to California in 1997 shortly after receiving a Charlotte Street Award and thus may not be well known to the current Kansas City audience, Tony Allard and Kristine Diekman started

though their work was widely presented in

working collaboratively in the early 1990s

the area throughout the 1990s. They

with Corpse and Mirror, a work that began

continue to work together and separately,

as Allard’s performance monologue in 1991

producing work that is vital in both content

and evolved over the next few years into the

and form. Unlike other artistic partners

1996 single-channel video of the same

such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude,

name. A work that has been presented

Allard’s performances and Diekman’s video

more than twenty-five times nationally and

explorations are not dependent upon one

internationally, Corpse and Mirror

another. When it makes sense to work

“questions the ability of rational language

together, they do—but it is not required.

to adequately describe and control extreme

Their individual work continues to thrive

mental states.”1 The video is dreamlike in

and each maintains a voice. Their most

its imagery, moving from one scene to the

recent collaborative project is Future Gen

next in a nonlinear manner. As the main

(2005), a complex media installation that

character in the piece, Allard performs the

relies strongly on their artistic collaboration

narrative, combining elements of time,

and regional partnerships formed

memory, and insanity, while Diekman

specifically for the project. Future Gen

combines her talents as videographer,

combines animation, video, audio,

producer, and video editor.

interviews, and drawing in an installation about the politics and cultural importance of agriculture, especially the corn industry in Iowa. Allard and Diekman’s work has evolved to encompass many formats, including net-based projects such as Downstream, a collaborative, ongoing net-based performance collective.2 —Mark J. Spencer

Kristine Diekman M for Mommy (video stills), 2003–07 video, 10 min.

Courtesy of the artist

1. Tony Allard and Kristine Diekman, artist statement, 2006.

2. For more information on their net-based work, see www.csusm.edu/vpa/ downstream/ downstream_desert/.

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ANTHONY BAAB

Anthony Baab uses pen, pencil, and thingauge drafting tape on panel to create mesmerizing drawings of crystalline structures and invented architectural forms. Inspired by the grandeur of cathedral architecture and the spirit of ancient constructions, Baab finds his own “sacred places” in the contemporary architectures of factories, dams, water treatment facilities, and greenhouses.1 For Baab, modern technologies designed to alter natural elements and cycles embody hubristic acts of violence against nature as well as heroic attempts to save it. Baab’s drawings of hybrid, quasi-utopian and sometimes absurdist architectures reflect the crisis of our engagement with the natural world, as seen through the hopeful

Baths (detail), 2006 pencil and tape on panel 24 x 42 inches Courtesy of the artist

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lens of one who would make radical proposals to change it.

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Untitled (detail), 2004 pencil and tape on panel 42 x 84 inches Collection of Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Johnson County Community College Overland Park, Kans.

Baab likens the process of creating a drawing to the constant revisions of a historical text. A single work may require tens of thousands of tiny pieces of tape, painstakingly applied, and can take up to a year to complete. While working the surface of a panel (primed with up to thirty layers of gesso and acrylic), Baab allows evidence of earlier drafts to remain in the form of stray marks, smudges, and pencil lines. “Like a blueprint that has been plotted over many times on the same surface,” says the artist, “each drawing exposes a process of recalculations and erasures necessary to produce a final polished (work).”2 Most recently, Baab has expanded his investigation of water-oriented themes to consider the structure of waves and the rendering of water in measurable units. He has also begun a series of sculptures based on the portable architecture of the military pup tent. Baab emphasizes that regardless of his particular interests at any one point in time, his overarching concern is always “large systems” viewed from a certain distance. “(It) seems to have been the way that I’ve always made art,” says Baab, “compulsively rendering little things over and over until they acquire a meaning, which can be passed on to the next body of work.”3 —Stacy Switzer 1. Anthony Baab, Harvested Tabernacle Systems, artist statement, 2006.

2. Ibid.

3. Anthony Babb, e-mail exchange with the author, August 14, 2006.

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The son of a career military man, James Brinsfield spent much of his early life in Germany. While in high school in Frankfurt, as he was struggling in woodshop class, he saw an artwork a fellow student had created in studio art class. “That was it,” Brinsfield recalls. “After that I would go into galleries and become transfixed, looking at Inverted, 1997 oil and enamel on paper 17 x 11 inches Courtesy of the artist

real art.”1 He decided to become an artist and was accepted in the young artists studio program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1976 Brinsfield earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He then taught art in economically challenged neighborhoods in Chicago and exhibited his work at the prestigious Nancy Lurie Gallery.

Perhaps because of his background, Brinsfield observes, “I always felt I was a bit of an outsider.” Although Chicago was famous for its “Hairy Who” Imagist art scene, he nevertheless moved toward abstraction. In the late 1960s, while still in his teens, Brinsfield was struck by a particular abstract painting by Gyorgy Kepes that referenced, chillingly, the bombing of a church in Alabama. “This showed me,” Brinsfield states, “that you can make abstraction and hook it to content.”

Brinsfield is now in the vanguard of postmodern artists making abstract paintings that subtly fold in personal as well as political content. Combining content with abstraction is an aesthetic high-wire act; Brinsfield accomplishes it in a variety of ways. His paintings, made with shiny enamel paint on paper attached to canvas, have sleek liquid surfaces that are beautiful and enormously seductive. Stylistically, the work oozes confidence and appears effortless, and the beauty of the paintings pulls the viewer up close. Careful

JAMES BRINSFIELD

examination, however, gradually reveals shapes and forms that resemble such things as tanks, caves, cars, highways, and planes. It is up to the viewer to decode such symbolic shapes; some may refer to the horror of contemporary war scenes, while others reflect the artist’s love of automobiles or music.

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Oh-Oh-Oh, 2006 oil and enamel on canvas 48 x 68 inches Courtesy of the artist

While Brinsfield’s work evokes the gestural and intuitive painting style of the Abstract Expressionists as well as the conceptual agenda of postmodernism, he is also a classicist. Before brush meets canvas, each of his paintings is thoroughly and painstakingly worked out on paper—these “sketches” are works of art in themselves— and the imagery he incorporates into his work is the product of considerable deliberation.

Brinsfield’s ability to combine contemporary sociopolitical signifiers with the most pressing formal issues of Western painting defines a career that fully embraces the dilemmas, challenges, and delights of our visual culture.

—Elisabeth Kirsch 1. This and all subsequent quotations are from James Brinsfield, interview with the author, August 29, 2006.

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CALLYANN CASTEEL

Hamburger Costumes, 2002 fabric, foam, wire, stuffing, vinyl, plastic tubing, batting, packing peanuts 50 x 43 x 43 inches each Courtesy of the artist

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Blind, bound, impotent monsters; fat hamburgers; and headless debutantes donning flesh-colored pelts: these are a few of the characters that populate Callyann Casteel’s riotous drawings, performances, and handmade soft sculpture. In Casteel’s highly imaginative world, bodies (part human, part animal, and part food group) wear the half-digested glut of popular and consumer culture like so many winter coats piled onto a runway model. Ridiculous, gangly, and pathetic, Casteel’s aberrant cast of characters embodies a humorous approach to individual failure and issues of global concern, such as food safety, bioethics, pollution, and environmental crisis.

Backwater Nasty One and Backwater Nasty Two (2005) are among Casteel’s most involved projects to date. Heeding Claes Oldenburg’s famed proclamation against art that just sits around on its ass, these elaborate, overstuffed, Day-Glo-colored costumes are designed to be worn in spontaneous, unscripted performances that Casteel enacts with friends and fellow artists. Casteel began these performances in 2002, with a series of hamburger and calculator costumes worn to grocery stores and while giving away free hamburgers in a park. Since then, Casteel’s costumes have become more intricate and less direct in their allusions, with works such as the Nasties offering up a strange brew of Cabbage Patch cuddliness and postpunk aesthetics matched with the surreal excesses of camp and schlock horror films.

Backwater Nasty Two , 2005 fabric, foam, wire, stuffing, batting, thread, plastic 96 x 60 x 60 inches Courtesy of the artist

Never didactic, Casteel’s costumes often sheath their content in a soft, stuffed outer layer. Increasingly, though, Casteel’s work seems to be adopting the double-sided mask of the carnivalesque, wherein critique and celebration are fused. An abject mass of melting ooze, Casteel’s Dead Blob (2005), for example, could make its debut on the stage of a children’s theater. Yet with eyes taped over and mouth agape, it may also be the (im)perfect mascot for our times.

—Stacy Switzer 41

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Patrick Clancy’s art is centered in the now but is fixed on the future. Rooted in an exploration of dynamic energy systems, it manifests as photographs, text, electronic intermedia projects, interactive

His most recent body of photographic work,

installations, and autopoietic computer

Equilibrium and Flow, reveals the dizzying energy of nature that we know instinctively, as we spin in space, stop, and feel the world continue to move in our cells. Or as we race through space, eyes fixed on one point as all else blurs around us. In these moments, we become one with the universal flow. Clancy expresses this flow visually and metaphorically using a hybrid process. Working in a darkroom, he places a negative in the enlarger, then rotates the photographic paper beneath it, in irregular stops and starts, to create a unique analogue print. This image is then scanned by a high-resolution camera to create a digital file, which is laser printed. The effect is mesmerizing and palpable, thanks to the “persistence of vision” phenomenon that allows moving pictures to become cinematic experiences in our mind’s eye.

simulations. He seeks that place in which all things come together: nature and culture, chance and intention, haptic and optic, macro and micro, time and space, information and experience.

It was not until after earning his MFA in painting from Yale that Clancy shifted his focus to electronic technologies. In 1968 he co-founded Pulsa, a pioneering artist collaborative that developed the first voltage-controlled, hybrid, digital/analogue audio synthesizer. In 1969–70 his work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in

Spaces, the first major show of installation art in the United States. In 1970–71 he taught at Cal Arts along with Nam June Paik and Allan Kaprow. Today, as chair of the photography and new media department at the Kansas City Art Institute, Clancy offers students a unique historical

Clancy’s Writing Machine is a work in

perspective on new media and a visionary

progress that documents the ever-shifting,

roadmap to its future.

interdependent flow of natural and cultural information. For example, changes in wind velocity and direction in Banff, Alberta, Canada, trigger corresponding changes in a computerized stack of text files written by Clancy and others. Changes in barometric

Unfolded 02, 1998 dye coupler print 24 x 20 inches Courtesy of the artist

pressure in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, cause a top page of text to drop to the bottom of the stack, like a repressed memory.1 When complete, the Writing

Machine will exist as a gallery installation, a body of photographs, a video projection, and an exhibition catalogue. It will be an exquisite reminder that every cause has its effect somewhere in the universe. We are all in this together.

—Jan Schall 1. For more information see channel. creativecapital.org/project_67.html, 1–2.

Seabed (exchange of flows), 2004 Lambda photographic print 50 x 68 inches Courtesy of the artist 42

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PATRICK CLANCY

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MICHAEL CONVERSE

The visceral, writhing quality that seems to permeate so many of Converse’s drawings dominates his paintings and installations as well. His swirling, ten-by-thirty-foot mash-up of drawings and paintings tacked,

The drawings, paintings, and collages of Michael Converse conjure a fantasy world that stands between André Breton’s Surrealist categories of “psychic automatism” and dislocated realism.

Employing varying degrees of illusory naturalism within a process that seems purely stream-of-consciousness, Converse builds open-ended landscapes, figures, narratives, and dialogues out of his shaky lines and colors, and juxtaposed objects and images, calling to mind work ranging from the punk illustrations of Raymond Pettibon to the naughty faux-abstraction of Sue Williams to the sprawling installations of Mike Kelley.

In some of his most memorable and deceptively simple drawings, Converse converts familiar images seemingly derived from our collective memory—such as advertisements, children’s books, comics— into scenarios underscoring the originals’ undercurrents of sex and violence.

Rendered with dense, dripping lines, these drawings appear to sag and morph before our eyes: turning a strolling yuppie couple in 1970s après-ski gear into a pair of leering corpses; Dumbo the elephant into a saw-toothed carnivore, mid-meal; and pirates and warriors into demons who appear to rise from primordial goo.

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pinned, and taped together for the 2004 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition served as a point of departure for more recent installations at the Kansas City Home Show and the Art Omi residency program. In both these 2005 installations, the artist’s drawings literally came off the wall to not only overtake but consume the environments in which they were placed, as sheets, wallpaper, and even furniture found their way into the undulating fabric of these monumental collages.

Curator and critic Stacy Switzer has succinctly stated the unsettling appeal of Michael Converse’s work: “Intimate, daring, and emotionally charged, Converse’s works map a landscape of abject trauma and transformation.”1 It has also proven influential; in 2006 exhibitions such as the Telephonebooth Gallery’s klusterfudge and Jon Peck and Jaimie Warren’s traveling

Whoop Dee Doo, Converse has been clearly poised as an elder statesman to an emerging generation of young artists enthralled with his vision.

—Maria Elena Buszek 1. Stacy Switzer, Charlotte Street Awards, exh. brochure (Kansas City: Grand Arts, 2004).

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Home Show (installation detail), 2005 mixed media dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

Untitled (installation detail), 2004 mixed media 120 x 420 inches Courtesy of Grand Arts 45

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Deanna Dikeman grew up in the American Midwest. During the past two decades, she has created a prolific body of photographic images that share, with great intimacy, something of that experience with her viewers. Relative Moments, a series she

Evening wear: 1950s/1960s/designer, 2005 pigment ink jet print 22 x 53 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

began in 1986, chronicles ordinary moments of her extended family’s activities, capturing the private gestures and smaller truths contained in father’s chores, mother’s orderly home, and grandmother’s kitchen; these are the personal moments that define for each of us a sense of home, security, and belonging. Dikeman’s sharp observation and the quietly receptive lens of her camera serve to capture a visual history of one family’s life, yet the ongoing narrative embedded in this series also conveys larger, more universal truths about American culture.

Dikeman’s work is connected to a rich history of documentary and fine-art photography in its capacity to transform ordinary people and places into iconic and monumental images. In this context, Dikeman’s work can be seen in lineage with Dorothea Lange’s memorable 1936 series of the “Migrant Mother,” published in Life magazine, and the innovative color work by photographers such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. If Life magazine left us with a legacy of belief in the profound power of visual imagery to inform a more inclusive sense of cultural identity as it documented both major news events and everyday moments, then contemporary photographers have continued to mine this tradition and add to it with their own uniquely original visions.

Relative Moments fast-forwards the “fixed” image we have of post–World War II middleclass society and its common-sense values.

Dikeman’s images offer insightful commentary on a nostalgic notion of the past, revealing an echo and longing for a simpler, if not more simplistic, time and a generation who grew up as radio listeners gathering together in the living room to learn of world events. But they also contain a layer of more subtle commentary about the maddash pace of modern life as it is commonly lived now, focusing on quiet interiors where the conspicuous trappings of high-tech gadgetry and the wear-and-tear effects of consumerism are blissfully absent.

—Raechell Smith 46

DEANNA DIKEMAN

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Watching Theron, 5/03, 2003 silver gelatin print 18 x 14 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

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Assorted Flavor, 2005 acrylic, conduit, fluorescent lighting 168 x 480 inches Courtesy of the artists

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Since beginning their collaboration in 1996, Rie Egawa and Burgess Zbryk have gained a great deal of international attention. Their work has been published in the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Italy in such important periodicals as Intramuros, Interni, Wallpaper, and ID magazine. They have received numerous awards for their design work, yet they do not limit their aesthetic by thinking of themselves only as designers. Although their work relates to contemporary design and much of their work serves a function (lighting, chairs, screens), their pieces also have the look and feel of art objects. This seems especially true with work such as Sweater Tubes, lighted sculptures that have colorful hand-knitted coverings. Egawa and Zbryk admit that they are more interested in aesthetics than in function—further supporting their development as artists rather than designers per se.1 One of their signature pieces, Puzzle Screen (2000), is, aptly, a room divider that fits together like a puzzle and can be made out of a variety of materials such as powder-coated steel or plywood. The screen can be scaled to a variety of sizes; in 2006 egawa + zbryk completed a seventeenfoot-tall version for a client in Atlanta. egawa + zbryk’s working method further exemplifies their artistic orientation and attention to the individual object. They continue to make most of their work in their studio instead of sending it out to be fabricated. Both take pride in the craftsmanship of the object and are equally adept at working in a variety of materials, including wood, metal, plastic, paper, and textiles. Recently egawa + zbryk have begun exploring public art commissions with a measure of success. They have recently been awarded a project for the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s One Percent for Art program.

—Mark J. Spencer

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EGAWA + ZBRYK

Sweater Tubes (installation view), 2004 yarn, steel, plastic, light elements 72 x 240 inches Courtesy of the artists

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With a witty combination of nostalgic materials and imagery, and issues from contemporary popular culture, Lori Raye Erickson’s work is both humorous and cutting. In work that relates to sexuality, religion, and politics, Erickson opens our eyes to ongoing conversations, and she does it in such a way that we do not mind being provoked. After all, she wants to make us smile when we are thinking about these issues.1 One of her open-ended series is directly related to the 2001

LORI RAYE ERICKSON

controversy when the Boy Scouts of America clearly stated that homosexuals could not be Boy Scout leaders. The Boy Scouts’ stance on sexual orientation provided Erickson with a forum for discussing America’s sexual mores, its inherent hypocrisy, and our desires to leave certain issues untouched. In her 2002 work entitled Gay Scout 1–50, Erickson addresses this issue directly by painting fifty sexually nonconformist scouts with as many ethnic, racial, and cultural types as there are scouts.

But not all of Erickson’s work is as topical.

She also reveals a much lighter side in her painted assemblages: Legos® and lead, bunny and gunny, girls and curls.

Alliterations and rhymes come easily to mind when you look at the work of Lori Raye Erickson. Perhaps it is because much of her work has the initial feel of a nursery rhyme. Or is it perhaps the direct intent of the artist to provide us with this additional thought? Trained as a graphic designer, Erickson surely knows the subtle tricks of the designer, and she uses them skillfully in all her work. Whether it is a 1950s mother with a large butcher knife or a Scout with a pink gun, Erickson continues to add the spirit to her artwork that she once felt was lacking in her graphic design work as a student.

—Mark J. Spencer 1. Lori Raye Erickson, artist statement, 2006.

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Darling, 2002 acrylic, enamel, lead, rubber, antique aluminum cup, wood on wood 48 x 29 x 5 inches Courtesy of the artist

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A Jester of Five, 2005 acrylic, enamel, lead, antique bowling pins, metal, wood on wood 48 x 30 x 4 inches Courtesy of the artist

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In yet other layers, Tu Madre, Guerro relates to Esquivel’s Chicano heritage. The fight implied by the boy’s bruised face is a fantasy that the artist concocted as a response to racism he experienced as a schoolboy.

Edith features a beautiful bouquet of flowers centered on a mock mattress. The bouquet resembles the shape of a head; yellow flowers suggest blond hair, and two small, red buds form lips. The image of the woman’s head could suggest a lover, yet the diminutive dimensions of the bed seem to imply childhood. Esquivel associates the work with life events: an early girlfriend named Edith and youthful experiences working at construction sites where coworkers made catcalls at passing women.

You as a tree, 2006 brush and ink on paper 18 1/2 x 15 inches Courtesy of the artist

To make his Insecurity Blankets, Esquivel bends pieces of metal mesh to imitate the ripples in a blanket; he then sews the pieces of metal mesh together and adds gypsum plaster to create a surface for an image. The process of making an Insecurity Blanket mimics the makeup of a gallery

52

In the work of Leo Esquivel, layers of

wall, as if his work has become a shaped

contradictions and allusions stack up like

section of it. So far, the images on the

the layers of materials he uses. Esquivel

Insecurity Blankets are quite unsettling:

skillfully shapes elements such as

one piece in process features a ghostly

construction-grade styrofoam, sheetrock

grim reaper. Esquivel may be on the verge

mud, plaster, primer, and oil paint to create

of questioning the security of art world

striking objects that bring to mind dreams,

success in an insecure world. His ability

fantasies, and memories. In Tu Madre,

to extend his art into new arenas may be

Guerro (“Your Mother, White Boy”), a boy’s face peers out from an illusionistic pillow that bears a hollow where his head apparently has been.1 As with his other pillow sculptures, Esquivel executed it while referring to an actual pillow set up in a still-life tableau, resulting in a beautiful rendering. However, the boy’s face has been bruised badly in a beating. We are seduced by the artist’s skill, yet it is put in service of creating an image that is painful to view.

the most compelling sign of this artist’s excellence.

—James Martin 1. Translation provided by the artist, September 2006.

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LEO ESQUIVEL

Tu Madre, Guerro, 2004 whitebead styrofoam, drywall joint compound, primer, oils 6 x 22 x 15 inches Collection of Beniah Leuschke and Emily Sall

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Slump Jar on Wood Pedestal, 1998 black stoneware with chrome slip 30 1/2 x 13 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

KEN FERGUSON

White Hare Platter, 1982 salt-fired porcelain 19 x 23 x 4 1/2 inches Estate of Ken Ferguson

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Myths of creation, procreation, and sexuality infuse Ferguson’s sculptural and functional pots from this point onward: horned bulls are joined to udder pots, paired rabbits leap in unison over baskets, Adam and Eve come together on platters, Ken Ferguson had a lot to say, and he said

seductive odalisques and mermaids display

it in a big way—through his art, in the

their curves. Somewhat later, even the clay

classroom, and on a national stage. Raised

takes up these metaphors. Pot bodies sag

in a small town near Indianapolis and

and slump, pour spouts droop, vessel lips

schooled in art at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie

thicken, surface imperfections abound and

Tech and the New York State College of

glazes drip frothy and thick. Ferguson

Ceramics at Alfred University, Ferguson

declared these the pots he had been

lived by the principles of hard work, straight

wanting to make, pots “that look like me.”2

talk, and pragmatism. But his imagination

His often-oversized pots of this period

and curiosity opened the world before him.

embody humanness with both sympathy

Ferguson found a sensibility that resonated

and ironic wit.

with his own in Bernard Leach’s seminal

Ken Ferguson had plenty to say and his pots

tome A Potter’s Book (1940). The English

are still speaking.

potter promoted an aesthetic based on utility, simple form, honest handling of

—Jan Schall

materials, and ennobling humility. This aesthetic, also articulated in the writings of

1. Edward Lebow, “The Pottery of Ken Ferguson,” in Ken Ferguson (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1995), 12.

2. Ibid., 23.

Soetsu Yanagi (1889–1961), a leading scholar of Japanese folk crafts, guided the course of ceramics for decades.1 Ferguson’s early work revealed the marriage of form and function. He worked on a domestic scale, throwing teapots, pitchers, bowls, plates, casseroles, and storage jars that feel good in the hands and fit well on kitchen shelves. The stoneware vessels are smooth and symmetrical.

Ridged imprints of the potter’s fingers and casually applied glazes provide understated adornment.

Soon after his arrival in Kansas City in 1964, Ferguson discovered the encyclopedic ceramic collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He was drawn, in particular, to the extraordinary Burnap collection of English ceramics and the vast collections of Chinese and Japanese ware.

Throughout his tenure as chair of the ceramics department at the Kansas City Art Institute, he used the museum collection as an educational resource for his students and an inspiration for his own work. Many of his vessel forms have their origins here, as do images brushed onto or sgraffitoed into the clay.

Udder Jar with Bulls, 2004 black stoneware with chrome slip 17 1/4 x 11 x 11 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City 55

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Venusberg (detail), 1997 machined wood, charcoal 144 x 168 x 192 inches (sculpture); 24 x 72 inches (drawing) Courtesy of the artist and Adam Jones

RUSSELL FERGUSON

I was transferred to the moon, 2007 charcoal pigment on paper 12 x 56 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City 56

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Russell Ferguson’s massive installations explore the conflicted sites where nature and technology meet: a meandering river gorge carved over eons of time, spanned by a trestle bridge engineered for efficiency; a rugged mountainside scarred by abandoned mining tipples and tailings.1 By placing aesthetically mediated versions of these damaged places in the gallery, Ferguson asks us to consider the price of progress.

At the same time, he creates shrinelike homages to the meeting of spirit and matter.

Ferguson’s installations typically consist of a three-dimensional structure set before a charcoal, ink, and/or watercolor drawing.

Some drawings stretch out horizontally, like

Raised in Kansas City, Ferguson studied at

oversized Chinese landscape paintings,

the Kansas City Art Institute (where his

while others function as murals, covering

father, Ken, chaired the ceramics

an entire wall. All surge with the power of

department) before earning his MFA at Yale.

gesture and chiaroscuro. Swirling and

His deep feeling for nature led him to the

rolling, coalescing and dispersing, they

Findhorn community in Scotland and to an

record the flow of pure energy—that of the

eight-year apprenticeship with architect

artist and that of nature. The sculptural

Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti in Arizona. His

components are constructed of wood and

involvement with Zen studies in Port

resemble architectural models of bridges

Townsend, Washington, and on a Navajo

and mechanisms. Together, the drawn and

reservation brought further insights. Best

constructed elements speak to the

known as a draftsman, printmaker, and

complementary nature of life, to the conflict

sculptor, Ferguson also has designed

and resolutions of intuition and reason.

gardens, interiors, stage sets, costumes, and a teahouse. He is director of the foundations program at the Kansas City Art Institute and has been honored twice for his inspired teaching by election to Who’s Who

Among American Teachers.

Ferguson explores related themes in his often-colorful, smaller scale drawings and prints. Here, the sublimity of the large installations is replaced by wit, irony, and, at times, an irreverent mirth. Yet beneath the humor lies a discomfiting reminder.

Human beings invented technology and now must do its bidding. It has become the master and we its servants, as the earth bears witness.

—Jan Schall 1. Russell Ferguson, artist statement, n.d.

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JENNIFER FIELD

As an artist, Jennifer Field is best known in Kansas City for the cut metal collages she began creating in the mid-1990s, evoking Idyll, 2003 ceiling tin, tin, plywood 22 x 11 x 2 inches Courtesy of the artist

serene, fluid landscapes. The harmonious mergence of natural elements in her work, whether in combinations of cut metal or more recently in paint and experimentation with digital collage, is achieved through a process of reconstructing visual fragments to form a whole.

This artistic process reflects what Field describes as an ongoing “contemplative practice,” involving an attempt to break through the “conditioned” mind into intuition and imagination.1 While versed in Western classical artistic traditions by virtue of extensive European travel and a short period of study at the San Francisco Art Institute, Field does not attempt to

Influenced by world religions, mysticism,

reference established art movements or

and philosophy, Field was also inspired by

styles. Her work balances classical

Thomas Hart Benton, with whom she

compositional symmetry with a more tribal,

visited frequently as a child at his studio in

shamanistic vision of the Earth.

Kansas City. Sinuous connectivity and

By fracturing then recombining core motifs

Benton’s style is evident, for example, in

of nature—clay, rocks, dirt, sand, fauna,

Field’s landscape, as the crow flies, a

water, sky, stars—Field enacts a unique

series of four contiguous cut metal collages

process of clarification. She speaks of “art

created for the 2003 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition at the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute. The continuity and large scale of that work, sharing visual tendencies with a mural, stands out as an ambitious example of Field’s metal collage.

unconventional perspective reflecting

as medicine,” an antidote to academic, canonical standards of perception and representation. Senses of wonder and magic arise in her idyllic landscapes, recalling the enchanted beauty of Hudson River School paintings. Yet fluidity and harmony are achieved via intentional, systematic reordering of visual elements,

The intrinsic quality of Field’s work, no

invoking precisionist intuition as opposed to

matter what medium she employs, ensues

loose spontaneity.

from a broader practice that occupies her life. Less about the product than the process, Field’s concept spans beyond the physical object, existing more comfortably in a meditative space where her imagination can freely roam.

—Heather Lustfeldt 1. Jennifer Field, interview with the author, August 9, 2006.

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Mercy, 2005 digital collage dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

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DAVID FORD

Bonus Kill , 2001 acrylic and wood on canvas 60 x 45 inches Courtesy of the artist 60

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Having lived in the Mayan area of Mexico, Ford is drawn to indigenous culture and examines its absorption by colonialism in his work. An inspired activist, Ford also An avid world traveler, David Ford’s

acknowledges William Burroughs, John

expansive experiences define his self-

Cage, and Merce Cunningham as important

taught art practice, manifesting in many

creative influences. Ongoing projects, such

forms and functioning in what he describes

as the living protein sculpture/altarpiece

as “multiple

dimensions.”1

Reflecting a

continuum of engagement, all aspects of his life experience are seemingly infused with, and inextricable from, his art.

San Simone (Maximone), honoring the patron saint of bad habits, meld strategy and spontaneity in highly anticipated, immersive public performances that stretch notions of what art can do and be.

Ford’s work—including paintings and a range of performance and action-based

Ford’s dynamic involvement in the art scene

work (infinite maquettes, protein

for the past twenty years has earned him

sculptures, and civic performances)—

recognition as an extraordinary creative

incorporates political, social, cultural, and

force in Kansas City, and beyond. Whether

economic aspects and strives for an

at YJ’s Third World Snackbar on Eighteenth

expression beyond a single self, time, place,

Street (a local bastion of cultural exchange

or set of ideas. His otherworldly acrylic on

that Ford owns and operates), amidst his

canvas painting I’m Ready (2005), for

performances and exhibitions, or currently,

example, images one’s willing embodiment

in his studio at Review Studios in Kansas

of the “other”—divergent belief systems,

City, David Ford inspires the creative spirit

cultures, ideologies—symbolizing a

in those he touches.

syncretic quest for broader understanding of being.

Simultaneously invoking the guttural and sublime, Ford’s philosophical approach to

—Heather Lustfeldt 1. David Ford, interview with the author, August 14, 2006.

2. Ibid.

life and art balances and reveals inherent paradox. Constantly playing with dualities— serenity/fear, beauty/ugliness, occident/ orient—he provokes questions and insinuates persuasive suggestions without providing concrete answers. His work begs for a new middle ground where

My God Your God (installation detail), 2004 from the series Infinite Maquettes acrylic, cardboard, wood, 64 acres of halogen light dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

reconciliations of the most extreme oppositions are achieved.

Bonus Kill (2001) portrays the passionate link between love and violence. Current political and societal crises—found, for example, in his paintings God’s Will Over

Man and Welcome (both 2005), each referencing terrorism in drastically different manners—are ironically conjoined with invocations of classical art, decoration, and landscape tainted by age and rot, a conceptual stylistic trait Ford refers to as “pop-decay.”2

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NATE FORS

Transformation and ambiguity are core qualities of Nate Fors’s art. Known for buoyant abstraction within painting, sculpture, and multimedia installation, Fors cleverly stages formal and conceptual shifts to constantly activate playful tension.

References to Dadaism, Abstract Expressionism, and the potent luminosity Toss (detail), 2000 Avenue of the Arts temporary public sculpture commission enamel on inflated inner tubes, street lamps (5 street lamps, 52 tubes) dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist and Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

of Post-Painterly abstraction emerge in Fors’s work. His background in English literature and passion for films and music are integral anchors as well, informing visual and verbal puns and a dynamic set of aesthetic and conceptual underpinnings.

Inspired by the work of French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard, musician John Cage, and writer James Joyce, the creation of an imaginative flow is a constant goal for Fors, as he hopes to foster multiple interpretations and experiences for his audience.1

Slimpsy (1999), a fusion of painting and sculpture created for the 1999 Charlotte

Street Awards exhibition at the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, marries a directness of form with the sort of conceptually loaded irreverence that marks so much of his work. Cradled by wall and floor, the arc-shaped installation comprised a plastic trellis, vinyl, fabric, and ready-made objects—a consistent component of Fors’s work—composed as a singular painting. References to architecture and Minimalist sculpture are apparent in this and other works, exemplifying a postmodern penchant for revision and conglomeration.

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The straddling of dichotomous aspects— both and nothing, accidental and intentional, humorous and serious— connects the diverse bodies of work Fors has created for over two decades. Widely recognized for ironic yet intently formal work, Fors has incorporated a range of media outside of traditional paint, including opulent inner tubes, feather boas, dog toys, tires, and lights. A lyrical, curvilinear wall installation of fiber-optic cable and lights (bold one liner, 2003) exemplifies the sensuous quality of form and composition Fors consistently achieves via unexpected means. Recent explorations with new materials, including a heightened use of digital technology, demonstrate this artist’s inclination to keep experimenting, forging surprising, fresh directions for his art.

—Heather Lustfeldt 1. Nate Fors, interview with the author, July 29, 2006.

star spangled to death, 2006 enamel on insulating foam sealant and wood 80 x 36 x 13 inches Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Johnson County Community College Overland Park, Kans.

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JUSTIN GAINAN

White dots, 2006 (in foreground, installation view, 2006 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute) paper, light, pedestal 36 x 96 x 60 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

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Straight Fields, 2005 graphite on paper 40 1/4 x 74 1/4 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

Since graduating, this young artist has pursued several related but distinct series of drawings. He creates his Dot Portraiture drawings in a distracted state, not deliberately attending to where the pencil might be hitting the paper. Like automatic writing, this looser structure allows for randomness to reveal its own kind of order, as a set of constraints play out in infinite variation. An ongoing series of Smudge

Drawings is based on tiny found bits of paper collected from the Dolphin frame shop where Gainan works—literally Justin Gainan’s recent labor-intensive

collections of smudge marks that are

graphite drawings emit a quiet heat. They

byproducts of the framing process. In

are a product of millions of tiny marks, laid

Gainan has enacted these drawings in

painstakingly creating enlarged versions of

down one by one, each subtly informing the

three dimensions as well, perhaps most

these castoffs, the artist elevates

next like bodies pressing up against one

memorably in a voluptuous installation of

happenstance to what appear as other-

another in a crowd. These “fields” of gray

hundreds of pieces of scrap lumber, again

worldly landscapes, or at least extremely

are documents of energy expended over

an accumulation of like but varied forms,

attentive odes to the color gray, which he

time, focused physical activity enacted on a

stacked and compressed into a finite

admits he likes quite a lot. Pin marks are

flat surface within finite borders.

architectural niche as part of the 2004 BFA

creeping back into the work, as well, in

Suggesting maps of the world, oceans,

exhibition at the H&R Block Artspace at

dialogue with the pencil mark, as Gainan

cities, populations, Gainan’s drawings

Kansas City Art Institute. It may come as

reengages his training in fiber to further

elevate simple gestures through repeating

little surprise to learn that Gainan

expand the physical and expressive terrain

them ad infinitum, revealing in the process

graduated from the school’s fiber

of his drawings. Recognized at this early

the inevitability and essentialness of

department; at its core, his work feels

stage in his career with a Charlotte Street

variation as a fundamental condition of life.

perfectly located in the physical gesture of

Award, Gainan has already asserted himself

Gainan’s drawings are products of

pulling a stitch—tying a knot, penetrating

a serious, thoughtful, and focused artist

intentionality, as well as vehicles for getting

cloth, traversing distance, repeating …

using the humblest of means and a

out of the body and tapping into a different

lightness of touch to create contemplative

state of being—meditative exercises with

works with enduring resonance.

spiritual dimensions.

—Kate Hackman 65

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I am the Shit, 2006 enamel on stretched plastic, wood, light bulbs 60 x 300 x 48 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

ARCHIE SCOTT GOBBER

If you’ve ever been at a loss for words, then you will recognize and appreciate the precision of Archie Scott Gobber’s use of text in paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. In 1998, Gobber was the youngest artist to receive the recently established Charlotte Street Award for artistic excellence. Gobber found the calling of early inspiration in the nostalgic and iconic signage of a bygone era, referencing the imagery and text of promotion, propaganda, and pinup. Since then, however, Gobber has turned his attention toward the politics of world opinion, global events, and personal conviction to inform his artistic vision.

Specific to moment or milieu, the artist’s messages have grown increasingly concise.

While his work often comments clearly on perceptions and responses to events that happen to and around us, it manages to do so in such a way that allows space for a viewer’s own response and interpretation.

Gobber’s handling of found and selected materials and the manners of manipulation he employs have gained from a growing sense of confidence, but the works also benefit from his steady infusion of wit, punning, and open-ended meaning.

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What grounds and distinguishes Gobber’s most recent work is the delicate interplay between the personal, the artistic, and the political. The artist has been strategic in his appropriation and projection of voice, intentionally blurring the boundaries of authoritarian directive and internal questioning. Considerations of leadership and craftsmanship, alike, are cause for the artist to invite speculation about the way we look and listen. Ultimately, the artist reminds us—just as he is mindful himself— that we all assume public responsibility for

Perfecto, 2006 enamel, paper, found objects, cedar 163 x 42 x 28 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

the choices and decisions we make as we form our opinions, develop our convictions, and move through the world.

—Raechell Smith

Doers, 2004 16-color lithograph, edition of 24 30 x 38 1/4 inches Courtesy of Lawrence Lithography Workshop 67

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Release, 2001 alkyd on canvas 84 x 54 inches Courtesy of the Goldman family

A major presence in the Kansas City art world for nearly forty years, Lester Goldman taught painting at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1966 until his death from cancer in 2005. Goldman began his career as a figurative painter, drawing inspiration from such European masters as Balthus and Jean Hélion via Leland Bell, Goldman’s teacher at Indiana University. In the 1970s Goldman moved into abstraction and in the mid-1980s embarked on an ambitious tenyear, three-phase project, The Latest Blow

to Mirth, consisting of chaotic, carnival-like environments incorporating large-scale paintings and mixed-media sculptures, texts and diagrams, music, video, and collaborative performances, all enlivened by prolific Dadaesque wordplay. Much of this work engaged contemporary social and political issues and events, such as the first Gulf War of 1991.

In the late 1990s Goldman’s focus returned to object making as he created lively and inventive abstractions in a variety of media.

Goldman’s 1998 exhibition at the Jan Weiner Gallery emphasized a concern with drawing and painting in complex and colorful compositions writhing with linear and biomorphic elements. His 2001

LESTER GOLDMAN

exhibition at Joseph Nease Gallery of largescale paintings, sculptures, and mixedmedia works featured antic biomorphic shapes, high-keyed colors, and patterns and dots and black-and-white stripes, the latter related by Goldman to the stripes of concentration camp prisoners’ uniforms.

These stripes recurred in a memorable painting-sculpture hybrid made of stuffed vinyl fabric that Goldman presented at the 2001 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition.

Goldman’s 2003 exhibition at Joseph Nease offered paintings, mixed-media sculptures, reliefs, and watercolors again featuring lively twisting and stretched organic forms, electric colors, and patterns of dots and stripes. A critic for Review characterized Goldman’s work as “exuberant and playful but rarely lacking a darker, or at least ambiguous subtext.”1

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The dark element came to the fore in Goldman’s final body of work, exhibited at the KCAI Crossroads Gallery in summer 2005. Titled Issachar’s Surveillance (Issachar is Goldman’s Jewish name), the exhibition featured sculptures made of fused, Cyber Green lacquer-painted gourds, grotesquely evocative of viscera and vertebrae, combined with white painted metal armatures, canisters, and tubing that conjured medical equipment. Goldman’s 2000 visit to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, where the Nazis performed unconscionable medical

Two Feet, Three and a Half Hats, and a Gifted Liar, 2001 vinyl, wood, foam, cloth 114 x 216 x 54 inches Courtesy of the Goldman family

experiments on Jews and others, inspired these sculptures, which express skepticism toward modern biotechnological research while fundamentally protesting man’s inhumanity to man. Combining formal clarity and ethical urgency, Goldman’s final sculptures stand as perhaps his most cogent and eloquent works.

—David Cateforis 1. “Joseph Nease: Lester Goldman: Boxcar—The Paintings,” Review 5, no. 2 (April/May 2003): 24.

Rock Club, ca.1990 collage, drawing with silver foil 60 x 132 inches Courtesy of the Goldman family

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Elijah Gowin’s photographs slip in through the eye, unsettle the mind, and sink into the soul. Their high, lonesome voices awaken memories of unknown experiences and unfamiliar places. The stories they tell are mythic and resonant.

Gowin draws inspiration from the South, the land of his ancestors. He did not set out to

ELIJAH GOWIN

become a photographer, though his father, Emmet Gowin, is one of America’s finest.

Instead, he came to it through literature—in particular, Southern literature. The stories of Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty were wellsprings for his own writing.1 In time, however, he came to understand that images, rather than words, would be his calling.

The scenes in Gowin’s Hymnal of Dreams photographs are constructed fictions; nature provides the stage, but he arranges the details. An old woman holds a bird’s nest containing two cubic “eggs.” A shrouded bed is suspended by ropes in a woodland clearing. The surreality of these images is enhanced by the rich tones of Gowin’s impeccable gelatin silver prints.

In his more recent series, Watering, Gowin explores the human condition through the metaphor of water. Water has the power to sustain life and destroy it, to cleanse the body and renew the spirit, to strip away the past and reveal the future—for better or for worse. Gowin’s new photographs are equally enigmatic. Are these images of immersion baptism or post-deluge rescue?

His photographic process echoes his subject matter. Through it, Gowin strips the image to its iconic essence. He begins with a manipulated digital image file printed as a small negative on inkjet paper. He cuts out this negative, scans it, and prints it (much enlarged) onto watercolor paper.2 He, alone, decides which details will remain and which will be drowned in the watery expanse.

—Jan Schall 1. Elijah Gowin, interview with Russell Joslin, Shots Magazine 77 (September 2002).

2. Gowin, artist statement, n.d.

Treading1, 2006 pigment inkjet print 40 x 55 inches Courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery, New York 70

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Deposition1 , 2005 pigment inkjet print 22 x 28 inches Courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery, New York

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Tom Gregg hit his stride in the early 2000s with colorful, glossily realistic still-life paintings of everyday objects on tabletops.

Steak, 2000 oil on panel 45 x 48 inches Courtesy of George Billis Gallery, New York

Gregg’s inviting subject matter ranged from food and drink to drugs—a bowl of cherries; a Big Mac on a plate; cigarettes in a glass ashtray next to a partly drained whiskey glass; a glass of water and scattered pills— arousing consumerist desire while eliciting awareness of potential harm from overindulgence in various vices such as fast food, smoking, drinking, and pill popping.

Although inspired by Pop art and the appearance of products in advertisements and store displays, Gregg crafted these paintings in the studio working from direct observation. He carefully arranged and lit his objects, then rendered them in detailed drawings and subsequent paintings executed with thin layers of oil paint applied to gessoed birch panels. Presenting his subjects in frontal, centered views to give them an iconic presence, Gregg heightened their allure by picturing them against bright colors laid down in three horizontal zones.

These zones signify the front edge of the table, the tabletop, and the background wall, while simultaneously functioning as nonobjective color fields of the kind employed by abstract painters such as Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland. Yet Gregg’s zones of color were, like his still life objects, painted from observation, from bright fabrics that he incorporated into the overall set up of his still lifes.

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TOM GREGG

Green Knot, 2005 oil on panel 13 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches Courtesy of George Billis Gallery, New York

Prompted by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and high-profile corporate scandals, Gregg in 2003 produced a compelling series of still lifes critically addressing “power and masculinity.”1 Memorable paintings included Let’s Roll, depicting a red plastic gasoline container against a blue backdrop;

Flag, showing a crumpled American flag on a gold table top against a green backdrop, suggesting “money colors” (a painting ironically purchased by the Harvard Business School); and Fat Cat, a decadent masculine composition of silver bucket and tongs, amber-colored cocktail, cigarette, and lighter, which Gregg calls “my CEO painting.”2 Gregg’s most recent series, the smallformat Knots and the large-format

Unknowns, depict bright, monochromatic fabrics wrapped and knotted around spherical objects and presented against subdued backgrounds. While originating in Gregg’s concern with current events—an early, red knotted headlike form responded to the much-publicized beheadings of Western hostages by Islamic terrorists3— these enigmatic and beautiful paintings ultimately transcend topical commentary to emphasize visual perception, aesthetic refinement, and the possibility of broad, metaphorical interpretations.

—David Cateforis 1. Tom Gregg, quoted in Alice Thorson,“He’s on a Roll: KC Artist Tom Gregg’s Work Gets Showcase in New York,” The Kansas City Star, May 22, 2003.

2. Ibid.

3. Gregg, telephone interview with the author, July 25, 2006.

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Cream (Section) #1 (detail), 2006 industrial felt, maple 10 1/2 x 70 3/4 x 3/4 inches Collection of Brad and Linda Nicholson 74

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For the past several years Marcie Miller Gross has made art by folding and stacking textile forms, principally towels, to create both self-contained sculptures and sitespecific installations. Initially using colorful bath towels then moving on to used white hospital towels, used blue surgical towels, thrift store clothing, and, more recently, Mass (installation view), 2002 used surgical towels, steel 74 x 83 x 84 inches Courtesy of the artist

new white cotton huck towels, Gross has creatively exploited her fabrics’ embedded associations with the human body, both healthy and sick, while employing them to investigate the material and expressive possibilities of weight, density, compression, repetitive activity, layering, and accumulation.

Gross’s self-contained sculptures present stacked textiles on benches or shelves or placed directly on the floor, such as the monumental Mass (2002), a six-foot-tall cube made from layered blue surgical towels. Her site-specific works, such as

Axis (2003), a floor-to-ceiling stack of blue surgical towels, enter into a dialogue with— and heighten the viewer’s awareness of— their architectural surroundings. Extending to an engagement with a larger social

Gross’s employment of repeated, stacked,

context, Gross’s Use-Re-Use (2004) at FLEX

manufactured elements references 1960s

Storage Systems in Topeka comprised

Minimalism, especially the stacked metal

hundreds of pounds of used clothing and

box sculptures of Donald Judd, while her

bath towels that she purchased from a

emphasis on process and use of soft,

neighborhood thrift store, washed in a local

flexible materials evinces a kinship with the

laundry, stacked precisely in relation to

Post-Minimal sculpture of Robert Morris,

the architectural space, and then donated

Eva Hesse, and others. Added to these

back to the thrift shop, restoring the towels

artistic touchstones are poignant allusions

and clothing to the neighborhood and to

to the vulnerable human body generated

human use.

by abject materials—especially recycled hospital and surgical towels that retain blood and urine stains despite repeated laundering—and Gross’s evocation of mundane and repetitive domestic chores such as washing, folding, and stacking laundry, traditionally identified as “women’s work,” which connects her work to feminist concerns.

Gross’s 2006 exhibition at the Paragraph gallery featured elegant, wall-mounted sculptures made of strips of industrial felt stacked on wood shelves or wrapped around horizontal lengths of wood to emphasize felt’s associations with insulation and silence. In adopting felt, Gross bravely left behind the towels and clothes that made her reputation and employed a material indelibly associated with both Robert Morris and Joseph Beuys, successfully adapting it to her personal aesthetic and further extending her artistic range.

—David Cateforis

MARCIE MILLER GROSS

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“Materials are the muse,” claims Rachel Hayes as she considers her art.1 Her fascination with constructing optical environments of layered color, texture, and material is the base from which she explores a range of concepts and applications through a variety of installations. By pushing the inherent properties of her media—combinations of colorful sheer fabrics and translucent vinyl that she collects and composes by sewing—Hayes reconsiders material, process, and site.

While modernist impulses arise in her work—de Stijl, Bauhaus, Post-Painterly abstraction, and environmental installation—Hayes’s site-specific application of synthetic, technologically produced materials evince the here and now. Environmental conditions including light, air, and space further inform her work as materials themselves. Hayes uses these materials directly and purposefully to

Hayes capitalizes on inherent qualities

viscerally transform a space; any referential

of space and light, apparent in a recent

aspects beyond this directness, such as

work, Pseudo-Luminous Slant (2006)

gender or craft, are byproducts of less

installed in Richmond, Virginia. Deviating

interest to her.

from the loose movement of her curtainwalls, the illuminated, angled, and taut

Hayes created Billowall (2004) for the 2004

Charlotte Street Awards exhibition at Grand Arts, part of a series of large, suspended panels of sewn vinyl and fabric. Two years later, Hayes earned an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and has demonstrated an expansion of concept through increasingly challenging installations.

geometric panel invoked luminosity and precision in a manner acknowledging one of her influences, James Turrell.

Experimentations with Op-inspired black magic marker drawings on vinyl and acrylic on paper installations hint at new directions for Hayes to explore.

Hayes’s recent large-scale project at SculptureCenter in Long Island City, New York, featured a dizzyingly dynamic,

RACHEL HAYES

concisely composed installation. To create Transrevelation Celebration (2006), a giant, opulent quilt pattern of sewn fabric and pleather (a plastic simulation of leather), Hayes first documented the space, then proposed an installation in a large hallway responding directly to architectural components including columns and shelving units. Intensely optical, flawlessly executed, and transformative, the work’s strength and clarity demonstrate Hayes’s progression and potential as an ambitious, emerging artist.

—Heather Lustfeldt 1. Rachel Hayes, telephone interview with the author, July 28, 2006.

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Pseudo-Luminous Slant, 2006 vinyl, polyester, acrylic paint 180 x 180 x 108 inches Courtesy of the artist

South Dakota Skywalk (performance view), 2004 polyester, vinyl 96 x 960 inches Courtesy of the artist

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Simu-Lighthouse, 2004 digital image on melamine plate 10 inches diameter Courtesy of Western Exhibitions, Chicago

ADRIANE HERMAN

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As an artist, educator, and maverick impresario of an intriguing range of artminded endeavors, Adriane Herman is a bit of a shape-shifter. Like many contemporary artists, Herman has worked in a variety of media to create a body of work that includes prints and multiples, artist books, sculpture, painting, installation, and performance art. With a solid background in printmaking, she is known and honored nationally for her adventurous innovations within this venerable genre of artistic practice; her investigations with emerging

Herman’s antics are sometimes serious,

media have helped set a new course for

sometimes silly, and sometimes twisted

printmaking in the digital era.

with a hint of the trickster, but always focused with two central aims: honing a

In 2001, for example, Herman’s work was included, alongside that of Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg, Kiki Smith, and others, in the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition

Digital Printmaking Now, one of the first exhibitions to explore the synthesis of digital technology and the printing process.

Her work for that exhibition was something of a surprise, featuring a uniquely concocted recipe for a limited edition series of inkjet images printed directly onto the surface of homemade sugar cookies. In addition to a list of impressive credentials, including an MFA in printmaking and a BA in English literature and art history, Herman also has earned a Level II Certificate from the Wilton School of Cake Decorating and Confectionary Art. It is this unique and genuine fusion of high

critique of contemporary culture’s fascination with consumption (art, food, experience, human memory, nostalgia, and everyday commodities) and navigating new and unplanned routes for the intersection of contemporary art and a very public, sometimes unsuspecting audience. She has choreographed a savvy new paradigm for developing new audiences for art, where no one is harmed and a select few may even become repeat visitors.

—Raechell Smith 1. See www.slopart.com. Visit the Web site today to discover a bevy of art available for purchase online or by telephone, including a Simu-Lighthouse, a recent series of priced-tosell (at $99.99) and limited-edition works featuring the “most photographed East Coast beacon” printed on dishwasher and microwavesafe melamine plates.

and low, in fact, that best characterizes Herman’s art and permeates every facet of her artistic practice—art making, collaborating, curating, and teaching.

Kansas City may best remember her for her collaborative curatorial efforts with life/art partner Brian Reeves, on behalf of Slop Art. Described by the artist as a collaborative curatorial project, Slop Art “investigates the relationship between fine art and consumer culture,” offering original works by artists at every imaginable price presented in familiar contexts such as the supermarket circular-style catalogue and presentation displays that look more like cash-and-carry than contemporary art museum.1

Adriane Herman and Brian Reeves Slop’s Supermarket Circular, 2003 offset lithography, 24 pages, edition of 90,000 10 1/2 x10 1/4 inches Courtesy of slopArt.com 79

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Mother Hood, 2006 lithograph, chine collĂŠ, woodcut transfer 15 x 19 inches Courtesy of Lawrence Lithography Workshop

PEREGRINE HONIG

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Peregrine Honig’s luscious works have been simultaneously seducing and repelling audiences since she first began widely exhibiting her work as a painting student at the Kansas City Art Institute. A prodigious talent, her delicately rendered figures— generally women on the cusp or first blossom of adolescence—seem to be captured with an almost childlike grace, reflective of the early age at which the artist began demonstrating her gifts as a draftsperson. But while her lithe and rosy-cheeked characters may draw us toward their charms, Honig consistently finds myriad ways to render the ugly realities that lurk beneath their alluring façades. Slipping shocking critiques and surprising physiques into her figure studies, she recognizes that “contemporary issues are much more captivating when the victim is portrayed as a modelesque woman.”1 Since Honig received a Charlotte Street Award in 2000, she has honed her bait-andswitch style. Her 2001–02 series of pinup girls immediately indicated the direction of the artist’s interests. A student and fan of

Man Horse, 2005 watercolor, pen and ink on paper 11 x 6 inches Courtesy of the artist

pinup history, Honig nonetheless reads in them a dark side of women’s sexual and professional lives—a tension she made tangible by pairing figures inspired by classic examples of cheesecake illustration with verses that ask the audience to look closer at details that suggest these figures have been battered, degraded, and

As critic Zane Fischer has astutely noted,

exploited by forces outside the picture

Honig’s fantastic work in fact “comes from

frame. More recently, and comically,

life, from real perceptions of being a

Honig’s drawings have included victims of

woman and a girl, rather than from a

the exponentially expanding beauty

masturbatory fantasy where sex and death

industry, as she invents subtly outrageous

are the answers to every question.”2 A

figures that illustrate modern “illnesses”

complex brew of wonder and indignation,

such as Silicomania and Tanorexia (both

optimism and melancholy, Honig’s

2005). Also subtle in their grotesque beauty

deceptively simple work packs a powerful

are her recent Mint Forest (2003–04) and

punch.

Albocracy (2005) series, in which Honig explores and exaggerates the uncanny allure of fantasy human-animal hybrids and regal albino figures, respectively, to draw attention to the role of the unattainable and extraordinary in our construction of beauty—outlandish ideals that we all too often, and unfairly, project upon our world and ourselves.

—Maria Elena Buszek 1. Peregrine Honig, artist statement, April 2002.

2. Zane Fischer, “Drawing for Content,” San Francisco Reporter, April 6–12, 2005.

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Mystical, romantic, and darkly comical, Seth Johnson’s eclectic oeuvre is unified by the theme of unification. In his artwork, “My work contends that the difference

writing, and curatorial work, Johnson is a

between the punk who puts a safety pin

bridge builder, driven to uncover the ways

through his nose and the self-flagellating

in which ever-battling human factions

sadhu is one of semiotics; both forms of

ultimately share more than they realize.

masochism are born of the same essence.”

—Seth

Johnson1

Since graduating from the printmaking program at the Kansas City Art Institute in 2001, Johnson has been a pivotal figure in the area’s increasingly expansive, confident gallery scene. While Your Face gallery— co-founded and directed by Johnson—was short-lived (2002–05), its influence was enormous in that it encouraged young artists to not only believe that the gallery’s punk do-it-yourself sensibility could be replicated, but that there was enthusiasm in Kansas City for the kind of cutting-edge

Stichomancy (Kinski as Aguirre), 2005 graphite on paper 22 x 18 1/4 inches Courtesy of the artist

local and national artists, designers, and performers shown there. As critic Hesse McGraw wrote of the gallery in its heyday, Your Face managed to engage both “20year-old New Wavers and the ‘wine-andcheese-eating crowd’” of our frequently fractional art community.2

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Johnson’s studio work similarly manages to bridge disparate communities. His prints, paintings, and multimedia installations hone in sometimes on the tangible, sometimes on the subconscious affinities possible in the broad spectrum of human experience, often to unsettling effect. It is telling that Wrathful Offering, the ambitious installation Johnson debuted at the 2004 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition, crossbred “systems specific to Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism and American death metal” by drawing upon both traditions’ similar sounds, symbolism, and philosophical structures.3 Less comfortable but no less compelling is Johnson’s sleightof-hand in arousing empathy for a neo-Nazi in his meticulous painting Give Me Your Love or I’ll Destroy the World (2005), derived from a gruesome mug shot of a battered prison inmate. Our immediate desire to project ourselves into the work and rescue the victim from this suffering is soon undercut by our revulsion to the White Power tattoos peeking out from beneath his shirt. This work illustrates the sophistication of Johnson’s strategies; while there is a moral impetus to the artist’s unifying art, the questions of morality he asks us to ponder are never didactic but wrought with complexity and contradiction—much like the nature of morality itself.

Stichomancy (Punk Flyer), 2005 graphite on paper 15 x 12 1/2 inches Courtesy of the artist

—Maria Elena Buszek 1. Seth Johnson, artist statement, 2005.

2. Hesse McGraw, “Goldmine Days, Goldmine Nights,” Review 5, no. 2 (April/May 2003): 94.

3. Johnson, artist statement, 2004.

SETH JOHNSON

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Immediately apparent in Leeah Joo’s drawings and paintings is her impressive ability to represent details. The windows that figure prominently in her work feature intricate lace curtains, while wood grains swirl around the frames and sashes.

In Fireworks on the 4th of July (2002), an intricately painted veil-like curtain sets off the foreground of the picture while the window behind it reflects a scene of a woman undressing in front of a man. A female observer stands just behind the couple, offering a twist on the long tradition of nude females modeling for men. In Mr.

Kim’s Waiting Mind (2006), a male figure appears to look through a window at a building on fire in the distance, as a woman and child in the background seem to be peering at the male figure. Windows have been used to help create an illusion of space receding into the background for nearly six hundred years in Western art; in both of these cases, however, the reflections in the windows seem at least as important as the imaginary space beyond them. This has a dramatic impact: the reflections push the picture space back into that of the viewer, as if we are surrounded by and might participate in the action being portrayed.

Looking at Joo’s art is a sensual experience—a great reward in itself.

However, the interrelations between Joo’s painted subjects and their viewers recall recent criticism and art history, propelling her work beyond mere sensual pleasure.

Over the past thirty years or so, theorists such as Laura Mulvey have identified voyeurism as a primarily male The Golden Dream, 2002 oil on wood panel 40 x 36 inches Courtesy of Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago

preoccupation and have utilized terms such as “male gaze” accordingly, positing females as passive objects within this scenario.1 Since the late 1970s the work of leading female artists such as Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger has been closely associated with critiquing this male gaze.

LEEAH JOO

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The viability of a “female gaze” has been debated by numerous scholars, and in the past decade was often considered an appropriation of the male gaze because it still results in one empowered participant (the viewer) dominating a disenfranchised nonparticipant (the observed). At best, critics identified female gaze as fleeting or passive rather than active. Only in relatively recent feminist theory have writers elucidated strategies that enable more active female roles.2 Joo seems to be taking up where these debates leave off, in part as if to question the assumption that conventional female roles are inherently objectionable and antifeminist. Ornaments such as graceful lace curtains and blinds seem to embrace traditionally female domestic and decorative associations.3 Moreover, Joo’s window reflections enable others to become active members of her tableaux, while the art itself reaches beyond the picture frame to become part of our world.

—James Martin 1. In particular, see Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 6–18, repr. Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 14–27.

2. See, for example, Rieko Yamanaka, “Curious and Sensual: The Neo-Female Gaze in Maya Deren’s At Land,” 2002, www.witsendzine.com/ musings/rieko/atland.htm; Laura Vasquez, “The Gaze of the Curious Woman,” Women and Language, September 2002; and Nalini Paul, “Other Ways of Looking: The Female Gaze in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea,” eSharp, Spring 2004, www.sharp.arts.gla.ac.uk/issue2/paul.htm.

3. See Alice Thorson, “Panes and Pleasures: Human Drama Fuses with Artist’s Skillful Method in Exhibit,” The Kansas City Star, December 13, 2002.

Mr. Kim’s Waiting Mind, 2006 acrylic on canvas 20 inches diameter Courtesy of Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago

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One mark of exceptional contemporary art is that it bears appreciation from a wide variety of perspectives. Tammi Kennedy has successfully created an art form that captivates immediately, yet makes lasting contributions to theoretical discourse. She employs a rather obsessive technique that involves wrapping items in layer after layer of adhesive tape. Then she cuts the tape away from the original object, leaving a hollow cast. Finally, the seam resulting from the separation is sealed. Among other admirable qualities, the resulting facsimile reflects and refracts light, creating a subtle and surprising range of colors.

In works such as Chair #1, Kennedy raises everyday objects to the status of fine art by re-creating them and literally placing them on a pedestal. Another series of works seems to address art itself as a subject: her wrapped wood pallets have been likened to modern-era striped paintings.1 More recent works have originated from taxidermy animal heads, a U.S. flag, and prayer rugs, resulting in works that perhaps have a more topical point to make.

Plenty of works from art history have preceded Kennedy’s appropriation of the commonplace. However, the selection of adhesive tape as her primary material distinguishes the work and results in an Buck, 2002 cellophane tape 36 x 16 x 17 inches Courtesy of Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City

inherently delicate and short-lived expression. In Kennedy’s hands, fragility becomes a great strength. It suggests an art historical lineage that includes Eva Hesse’s translucent works from the 1960s,2 Tony Cragg’s sculptures of the 1970s made from plastic refuse, and Sarah Sze’s more recent teetering installations of ephemera.

Like these works, Kennedy’s sculptures encourage us to recognize and appreciate the fleeting nature of all that surrounds us.

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More significantly, the imitative nature of Kennedy’s tape pieces directs our attention back to her original sources. The artist states: “I like to think of them as the physical manifestation of the soul of the

TAMMI KENNEDY

object, as if all that is left of the actual object is this ghost-like shell, its soul. They encourage the viewer to reevaluate their relationships to these everyday objects and to rethink themselves within their everyday lives.”3 This reflective process enables us to examine basic concepts such as originality and authorship. In Chair #1, one wonders what can be considered more original. Does her source chair exemplify originality, and therefore deserve her reverence and ours?

Or is her facsimile more original because she is an artist and she created it? If the facsimile seems more original, then how does its fragility affect the concept of originality as an enduring artistic value?

The ability of Tammi Kennedy’s work to raise such open-ended questions ensures that it will continue to be a source of fascination long into the future, even if the artistic signs pointing to these questions have long since disappeared.

—James Martin 1. Alice Thorson, “Charlotte Street Fund 2002,” The Kansas City Star, December 15, 2002.

2. Tammi Kennedy, interview with the author, September 2006.

3. Kennedy, artist statement, May 2006.

Chair #1, 1999 cellophane tape 34 x 17 x 17 1/2 inches Collection of Sprint Nextel

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In the lawns and gardens that comprise much of the Kansas City area, one is likely to meet a rather diverse cast of characters.

Toxic plants such as poison ivy, pokeberry, and jimsonweed flourish next to more desirable plants such as fescue, pin oaks, tomatoes, and beans, while all share space with ambivalence-evoking specimens such as black walnut, gooseberry, and mulberry.

Somehow, nature finds room for all of them to coexist here.

ties of this country. It’s really messed up.

I’m trying to make something beautiful out of a big mess.”1 Indeed, one gets lost in these larger-than-life paintings—pulled in by their beauty, but transfixed by their

large paintings on canvas. These captivating

complex otherworldliness. If these

works feature renderings inspired by plants

paintings represent Key working Mandala-

and organic shapes, recalling still life

like, trying to find his way in a messy world,

painting. Yet instead of the compact sizes

then we might all stand to gain from

and minute details typical of that genre,

witnessing his experience.

than-life dimensions that bring to mind the “all-over” canvases of Abstract Expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock. The artist also draws on his familiarity with wall painting techniques and wallpaper patterns, gained from his experience working as an interior decorator.

Key’s art seems to suggest that ideals such as diversity and coexistence are imperfect and complex. Prune and Spoon (2006) offers tightly controlled weaving and interlocking forms, perfect shapes and bright colors, and pleasing rhythms marching across a bold background.

However, this aesthetic reverie is interrupted by the sudden awareness that items usually associated with beauty— plants—have been represented with unwholesome undersides. Some plant forms smoke cigarettes; some resemble condoms or male and female genitalia.

Others have been hermetically sealed under glass domes like scientific specimens. As a whole, these organisms appear as if they might live somewhere other than Earth.

MAX KEY 88

The artist has said, “I don’t get the priori-

This sense of diversity pervades Max Key’s

Key’s compositions spread out in larger-

Hard Spring, 2005 oil on canvas 72 x 48 inches Hallmark Fine Art Collection

Spending Midnight Oil (2005) brings environmental and geopolitical notes to these themes. A meandering tree occupies the foreground of the painting, providing nesting and feeding sites to silhouettes of birds, while the background features floral forms that float in circular pools of brown.

Grasslike shapes rise from nests and seem to seep long strands of liquid; near the bottom of the painting a hummingbird feeds on one such drip. The predominant color in the work can best be described as bluishbrown, bringing to mind the color of motor oil and the impact of fossil fuels on the natural world.

—James Martin 1. Alice Thorson, “Painting Nature in his Own Images: Max Key’s Multipatterned Works are ‘Living Wallpaper,’” The Kansas City Star, July 24, 2005.

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Spending Midnight Oil, 2005 oil on canvas 84 x 60 inches Courtesy of the artist

Prune and Spoon, 2006 oil on canvas 48 x 120 inches Courtesy of the artist

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Ke-Sook Lee’s art is represented in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and throughout the Midwest. She also exhibits abroad. From the beginning of her artistic

KE-SOOK LEE

career, Lee’s genius has been in making sublimely poetic art that is highly personal yet global in its concerns.

“Many women have passed away without receiving their full recognition, or having the chance to develop their potential,” Lee states. “Ordinary women aren’t acknowledged, but people couldn’t survive without their support. I want to show this in my art. Through my work I want to honor their hard work.”1 Lee acknowledges that her art begins by being autobiographical, informed by her early life in Korea and her days as a homemaker before studying at the Kansas City Art Institute. When Lee was growing up in Korea, all the clothes were made by women, without benefit of sewing machines. In homage, instead of canvas as the backdrop for her art, Lee uses cloth in Seeds 1 (detail), 2005 tarlatan, fabric, thread 12 inches diameter Courtesy of George Billis Gallery, New York

various domesticated forms—doilies, handkerchiefs, pillowcases, dishtowels, and cheesecloth. She stitches a variety of organic shapes onto the different fabrics.

“Ever since people have [had] clothes, there are stitches. I think it is one of the earliest artistic techniques developed in our civilization. So now I ‘draw’ with stitches. I

Lee’s preference for humble materials is

like to use that technique for my art. A

also connected to age-old artistic traditions

stitch is a dot that makes line that makes

of Korea. “In Korea,” Lee explains, “we

form. Stitches give me perfect medicine.

value the minimal and the humble. I like

They are time consuming, and they require

using modest and cheap materials to create

patience. Stitches are me when I had no

the maximum amount of impact.” Besides

eyes, mouth, or legs, and was working only

her stitches, Lee uses brown washes made

for family.” Yet each tiny stitch represents a

from the clay in her garden—“it’s what has

seed that “offers hope of personal growth.”

to normally be thrown away, and it

Of the many shapes stitched by Lee onto fabric, there is one form—a spidery creature—that appears most often. It is a positive symbol for her. “Contemporary women have so many things to take care of; not only homemaking but also their careers. All the arms and legs represent strength and the ability to do more—it’s energy. It represents me as I’ve gotten stronger, too.”

represents where I came from: a seed grown out from the earth.” She also creates a brilliant blue wash from paint that represents the sky and light. She dedicates it to all the women in Korea who were forced to inhabit small rooms in their houses and had to work all day and night.

Lee loves the blue because “it is like looking at the sky; they’re [the women] outdoors getting fresh air.”

—Elisabeth Kirsch 1. This and all subsequent quotations are from Ke-Sook Lee, interview with the author, September 1, 2006.

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Seed Pods (installation view), 2005 tarlatan, thread, earth pigment 165 x 104 x 96 inches.

Courtesy of George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles

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It’s all about now, Jim Leedy insists: “on some level I’ve always known that I could be dead in thirty minutes, so I’m a fanatic; I give one hundred percent, whatever I’m doing.”1 It is this fundamental belief that propels the Dionysian output of Leedy’s oeuvre, and that also guides him in his multiple roles as artist, professor, gallerist, and community arts leader. But what fuels the teaching, curating, and arts administration for Leedy is the art-making process itself.

Leedy’s voluptuous and intensely handwrought ceramics, paintings, and sculpture pulsate with life, and often seem on the verge of a cosmic explosion, ready to send shooting stars in every direction. Whatever the media—he is a prolific artist who works with “anything and everything”—Leedy’s art is always multilayered. He explains: “The essence of my work is exploration. Some of my paintings have at least ten paintings on top of each other. They’re always ongoing.”

His ceramics, which often have multiple figurative elements, appear to have been forged by a hierophant in some ancient, forgotten kingdom. Magic blows in the wind around Leedy’s art.

Leedy speaks freely of the pivotal forces in his artistic life: As a military photographer during the Korean war, Leedy came into contact with classical Asian ceramics, notably raku ware. He realized that a tea bowl or a ceramic vessel was as much an art object as a sculpture or painting. Clay became Leedy’s principal medium.

In New York City, while attending Columbia University in the 1950s, Leedy met such future art greats as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, with whom he verbally sparred at the legendary Cedar Bar. (Leedy still believes that one of the best ways to teach art is to sit down with a beer and talk.)

Abstract Expressionism, with its energy and gestural, intuitive qualities, became Leedy’s main artistic process. He also studied art history with various intellectuals, including The Buck Stops Here, 1962–64 four-part glazed stoneware 88 x 22 x 18 inches Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Nerman, F85-6 A–D

Meyer Shapiro. Having already embraced Asian art, he gravitated toward philosophies such as Taoism, feeling a natural rapport with traditions of spiritual immanence.

Leedy, whose great-grandmother was American Indian, has always believed that all natural forms contain a life force.

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JIM LEEDY

While teaching at the University of Montana in the 1960s, Leedy formed important personal and professional relationships with fellow faculty clay artists Rudy Autio and Peter Voulkos. All three men, in their own idiosyncratic ways, raised the status of ceramic work in the United States from the decorative and/or utilitarian to the level of high art.

Expanding Forces II, 1993 acrylic on paper 49 1/2 x 41 inches Collection of Harrison Jedel, Kansas City, Mo.

Leedy’s work has often been described as shamanic, challenging the contemporary notion that we live in a desacralized cosmos. Leedy creates art because of a fundamental need to access the power of the sacred, with its connection to an ultimate reality. With his artwork, Leedy creates his own imago mundi—a representation of a constructed cosmic order, with overtones of both life and death.

“My work is about a lifetime search for realism,” Leedy explains; “by that I mean getting down to the real materials of stones, landscape, the birth of stars, and the universe.”

—Elisabeth Kirsch 1. This and all subsequent quotations are from James Leedy, interview with the author, September 15, 2006.

Untitled plate, 1998 salt-fired stoneware 21 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches Courtesy of the artist

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ANNE LINDBERG

Breathing (installation view), 2003 stainless steel, pine, acrylic, graphite 120 x 480 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist 94

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Parallel 2, 2006 graphite on cotton board 58 x 52 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

Even in works as disparate as old brain (2004) and democracy (2005)—both recently exhibited in the breathtaking Decelerate exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art—Lindberg further Multimedia artist Anne Lindberg’s work is

explores this contradictory goal. In the

so diverse in its aesthetic, media, and

former, the artist compares the primitive

processes as to defy easy description. It is,

strands of our sophisticated brain to a

however, consistently driven by an

glittering pile of rayon sewing thread, six

obsession with observation. Whether using

by thirty feet, tangled together like a

dance or music, air or light, birds or coffee

massive mop or ponytail. In the latter,

grounds as her point of departure,

Lindberg transcribes a speech by natural

Lindberg’s work is about—the artist, her

history writer Terry Tempest Williams in

subjects, her audience—paying attention.

hand-wrought strings of wire “text” that

In earlier works such as of freckles (1999), Lindberg demonstrated the process of meditation and extraction that she has

make manifest the author’s contention that too much conversation blurs and weighs down its potential for real meaning.

since explored in myriad ways. In this piece,

As Decelerate curator Elizabeth Dunbar

the artist dyed, dripped, and stitched

wrote of such pieces, “Disciplined in their

abstract patterns derived from freckle

form and methods of construction, yet

clusters onto handmade paper with the

hedonistic in their beauty and amassing of

translucency of skin, to striking effect.

materials, Lindberg’s objects are quiet,

Subsequent works such as her breathing

poetic, and visually arresting—often

(2003) and bird cloud (2006) installations

eliciting visceral responses.”2 And while

found the artist imitating similar flocking

the subjects, media, and experience of all

patterns in nature by “drawing” across

Lindberg’s work is tremendously different,

walls with not only paint and graphite, but

each piece in its own way forces her

wires weighted with wood and the fine

audiences to slow down, investigate, and

shadows that they cast. In all these, the

ponder its making and meaning on its

artist’s desire to create works that are

own terms.

simultaneously “ephemeral and minimal, yet dense and manic” is realized with startling simplicity.1

—Maria Elena Buszek 1. Anne Lindberg, interview with Daniel A. Siedell, in air/mass (Lincoln, Nebraska: Sheldon Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004).

2. Elizabeth Dunbar, Decelerate, exh. cat.

(Kansas City: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005), 22.

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Top to bottom: The Habana Inn, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 4, 2003, 2003 The Habana Inn, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, September 26, 2003, 2003 The Habana Inn, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, August 17, 2003, 2003 silver gelatin prints 20 x 24 inches each Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Johnson County Community College Overland Park, Kans.

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ART MILLER

Miller’s two subsequent series, Bears and

Issues of identity, gender, and class have been the mainstay of postmodern art for more than two decades. Photography, whether the self-referential work of Cindy Sherman or Nan Golden’s portraits of the demimonde, has been the preferred medium for many of the artists who have tackled these constructs. Kansas City native Art Miller has focused his unwavering photographic gaze on all these

The Habana Series, highlight subcultures within the gay community. Traveling repeatedly to San Francisco, St. Louis, and other cities, Miller took pictures of “bears”—homosexuals who defy the conventional stereotypes of gays as fey and swishy by dressing like “regular guys.”

Bears typically flaunt their manifestly hirsute physiques, and at first glance these images appear to be of men hanging out at a motorcycle rally or tailgating at the nearest stadium. Miller’s pictures are completely unstaged, but they are also subversive—they confound heterosexual and media clichés of gay behavior.

contemporary issues.

Acting much as a cultural anthropologist, Miller has spent the past twenty years photographing in various cities in the United States, creating three distinct bodies of work. Because he photographs in black and white with an apparently neutral, nonjudgmental stance, his work has a documentary sensibility. But there is always more to Miller’s work than is first apparent.

“All of my artwork is driven by strong personal social concerns, drawn from my life experience,” he says, adding, “all three series may appear diverse, but they are actually connected.”1 Miller’s earliest body of work, the

Architectural Series, began in 1985 and still continues. Disturbed by the razing of many of Kansas City’s most cherished building sites, Miller documents their demise due to “complicated social reasons, such as ‘white flight,’ issues of affluence, and the myth of the new.” These photos frequently show mounds of rubble, with just a hint of what was, and many have a funereal feel. While deeply personal, Miller’s Architectural Series is also a microcosm for the obliteration of community-based centers across the country, replaced by generic malls and big-box stores.

Equally subtle and even edgier is The Habana Series. Miller made seventeen trips in a ten-month period to the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City, a large resort hotel for gay men. One area in the hotel was established specifically for cruising. “You sit in a window and guys check you out,” Miller explains simply. He set up a 35mm hidden camera to document activity at night. The images are deliberately blurred so no one is identified, which adds to the eerie, furtive quality of each dreamlike picture. In The Habana Series, postmodern notions of the “male gaze” are deconstructed in a startlingly different way. These images are not salacious. Rather, they become universal metaphors for desire and loneliness. And as with all of Miller’s work, the painful longing for community is made palpable.

—Elisabeth Kirsch 1. This and all subsequent quotations are from Art Miller, interview with the author, September 17, 2006.

John, Missouri Gay Rodeo, Wyandotte County Fairgrounds, 1998 silver gelatin print 20 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist 97

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When Dean Mitchell was eighteen, he entered his first art competition and won a savings bond. As an artist, he never looked back. He paid for college by selling his

Mitchell now has a waiting list for his work,

watercolors, and then worked as an artist

and he continues to grow and experiment

at Hallmark. When he left there in 1983,

as an artist. But whatever his subject

despite his fears, he quickly became one of

matter, Mitchell’s art always retains a

the rare artists who was able to support

powerful psychological presence—a kind of

himself entirely from art sales. Mitchell’s

inner still point—that mesmerizes the

paintings and works on paper of

viewer.

representational urbanscapes, portraits, and still lifes quickly achieved international critical acclaim.

Cultural critic Reginald Gant believes that the ineffable emotion the viewer feels when experiencing Mitchell’s art “comes right out

In the past twenty years, Mitchell’s art has

of the African-American experience. It’s the

been shown in numerous gallery exhibitions

result of an aural construct—‘call and

throughout the country, and his work has

response’—that evolved during slavery

been published in two books. He recently

(one group of slaves would sing out, and

contributed etchings to a limited edition

another group would respond). Imperative

book of Maya Angelou’s poetry. When his

in these exchanges were issues of faith,

work was selected for the historically

trust, and perseverance. In Mitchell’s work,

significant exhibition Black Romantic,

whether it’s a portrait or a street scene,

curated by Thelma Golden for the Studio

one gets the sense that his subjects are

Museum in Harlem in 2002, Michael

waiting for a response, and that they will

Kimmelman, chief art critic for The New

persevere, whether the response is forth-

York Times, reproduced one of Mitchell’s paintings full-page color for the Sunday art section. In his review of the show, Kimmelman praised Mitchell’s art and compared it to Vermeer’s. Separately, a documentary and children’s book are currently being prepared on Mitchell’s art and life story.

coming or not.”3

While Mitchell has been blessed with both an outsize talent and stellar success, he has also experienced existential insecurity about his artistic viability due to his AfricanAmerican heritage. “In the seventies no one wanted to represent me because I was black,” Mitchell explains.1 He finally got an exhibition with a Hungarian dealer, Zotan, in Panama City, Florida. (They remain in contact to this day). Mitchell continued to enter—and win—various national art Socrates, 2000 oil on panel 24 x 15 inches Courtesy of Bryant Galleries, New Orleans

competitions, mostly in watercolor, a medium in which he is truly inspired. “I could make money doing that,” he observes, “and it was safe because no one knew I was black.”2

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—Elisabeth Kirsch 1. Dean Mitchell, interview with the author, September 9, 2006.

2. Ibid.

3. Reginald Gant, interview with the author, September 10, 2006.

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Watchman, 2005 oil on panel 40 x 30 inches Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Dennis and Julie Smith

DEAN MITCHELL

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Every Word Spoken Together in this Room, 2004 magazines 96 x 60 x 120 inches Collection of Diane Botwin Alpert

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MILES NEIDINGER

“I want to make you fall in love with toilet paper,” Miles Neidinger admits, exuberantly but with some apprehension that he might be cornered, too easily categorized as an artist playing a purely aesthetic game of everyday-material manipulation.1 Neidinger does succeed, time and time again, in making us fall in love with toilet paper—or, more precisely, drinking straws, newspaper, aluminum foil, wire clothes hangers, electrical tape, cable ties—in

Untitled, 2004 wire coat hangers 156 x 129 x 264 inches Courtesy of the artist

striking, spatially oriented works generated through the repetitive use of a single given unit. Pleasure is compounded in the moment of delay between first glimpse and realization of what one is actually seeing:

So what if one rewrites the rules? This

sheer delight in the inventiveness of the

might give rise to the gorgeous, infinite loop

manipulation. Yet Neidinger is not solely

of red plastic straws that is Red

concerned with mining the beauty in the

Oscillastraw, or to a self-storage bay filled

mundane, though that is part of it. As this

to its edges with magazines stood on their

emerging artist’s body of work develops, a

sides to yield a sumptuous carpet of

more personal and expansive vision is

feathering pages that provokes a full body

becoming evident in a practice that

longing to lie suspended upon it, as with

encompasses drawing, sculpture,

Every Word Spoken Together in this Room.2 Or it might manifest in a series of continuous line drawings that are the poetic fruit of an intensely focused effort to keep a pen moving and mapping a page without ever touching the previously drawn line. Or as Maelstrom of Reflection, an undulating silver wall composed of sheets of aluminum foil.3 All are the products of zooming in then spreading out, reflective of the artist’s tendency to set constraints then explode the possibilities within them. There is nothing arbitrary about Neidinger’s choice of materials—they tend to be things firmly wedded to middle-class suburban domesticity, such that rewriting their function embodies a cathartic retort to the confinements of consumer culture and everyday routine. Ultimately, Neidinger may be arguing, quietly but adamantly, for a new world order, where rooms are constructed of coat hangers and toys are never relegated to the toy box.

installation, and recently, even photography.

Ever the keen observer, Neidinger has lately been paying close attention to the way his cat navigates the corner of a room—stretching up the wall, sprawling into the confined space with its entire being. In addition to his cat, Neidinger watches and takes inspiration from his children, interested in the systems and logics that underlie their decision-making processes. He questions the way things are routinely ordered, then posits alternate systems, informed by other concerns and privileging a different sort of outcome.

Cleaning the house, Neidinger notes, is really just moving stuff around, informed by some deeply ingrained conception of what clean or organized or virtuous looks like.

1. Miles Neidinger, interview with the author, August 18, 2006.

2. Site-specific installation commissioned by Diane Botwin Alpert for FLEX Storage Systems, Topeka, Kans., as part of Moving in Moving Out, a group exhibition curated by Hesse McGraw, Josh Shelton, and James Woodfill, 2004.

3. Site-specific installation created for the 2005 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition at Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans., curated by Bruce Hartman.

—Kate Hackman 101

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Still Life with White Pitcher and Yellow Cloth, 2000 oil on canvas 26 x 32 inches Collection of John and Linda Johntz

Pine Trees at Loose Park, 2003 oil on canvas 29 x 36 inches Collection of Adelaide Ward 102

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WILBUR NIEWALD

Wilbur Niewald is in love with the world and all it has to teach us. With the keen eye of a scientist, he studies the human visage, the objects of daily use, the natural environment, and the complexities of constructed cities and traffic ways. With the skilled insight of an artist, he renders that world in oil paintings that bring us close to the life of things.

Niewald’s focus is on the intimately known world of his hometown, Kansas City. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and went on to teach there for forty-three years, twenty-eight of them as chair of the painting and printmaking department.

During these years, his own work continued to evolve. Cézanne’s influence can be felt in the structural clarity and faceted planes of Niewald’s paintings, while the Impressionist passion for painting en plein air inspired him to begin working entirely outdoors in 1970. His paintings capture this freshness in luminous hues and confident brushwork.

Niewald is forever seeking new locations, while returning to favorite spots, on occasion, to explore them with new eyes.

His paintings offer glimpses of the world we move through but forget to see: giant, dark trees sweeping the sky above the verdant plains of Loose Park, where Union and Confederate soldiers fought and fell

Gerry with Black Vest, 2001 oil on canvas 24 x 20 inches Courtesy of the artist

long ago; or a bend in the Missouri River, where Lewis and Clark’s keelboat passed more than two hundred years ago, but where concrete, steel, and bricks dominate today.

History is but a subtext of Niewald’s painting, however. His chief aim is to situate himself within time and space, and faithfully depict the scene before him. His is the omniscient eye, looking down upon and across wide vistas, analyzing and abstracting broad passages while bringing others into sharp focus. His reverence for his subject is matched only by his passion for painting.

—Jan Schall 103

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Resist Not Evil (Parking Lot), 2006 oil on panel 18 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist

Jay Norton paints a dark vision of the world. His ironic, surreal narratives, often interspersing image and text, are intense, nightmarish dramas identifying problems that plague American culture and society, hence affecting the world. While critical and disparaging, Norton’s work resounds with sincere urgency as a cutting response to the turbulence of contemporary times.

Norton uses black humor and absurdity to convey deep social and cultural divides. As a message maker, he incorporates pop, consumer, and nationalistic icons in

JAY NORTON

scenarios that often deride the effects of capitalism and confront sociopolitical hypocrisy, propaganda, greed, and violence.

Following the 2004 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition at Grand Arts, Norton embarked upon an inflammatory series of work,

Raze—A Declaration of Independence (2005), in which he addressed clashing ideologies of East and West, and perceptions of America, post-9/11. Maybe She’s Born With It (featuring a woman in a burkha painted upon an American flag bearing its slogan namesake) and depictions of youths aiming machine guns at one another painted atop national flags (Bazooka Israel, Bazooka Palestine) are horrific and condemning, as well as humorous, provoking sadness and anger simultaneously.

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As a self-taught artist, Norton acknowledges Francisco de Goya and graphic materials including comics and monster magazines as informing his style.1 He began painting in 1996, two years after graduating from law school and becoming a criminal defense lawyer. He describes his profession as affecting his worldview, fueling his urge to creatively respond to horridness and corruption in a truthful way.

For Norton, the recognition and direct confrontation of what’s wrong is a liberating and proactive way of dealing with the world.

Norton’s most recent series of paintings is inspired by ideals of Christian anarchy espoused by Leo Tolstoy in his nonfiction work from 1894, The Kingdom of God is

Within You. Norton’s series, named after Tolstoy’s work, depicts strangers of different ages and races embracing in public spaces, including an airport lounge and parking lot. Lofty commands such as Depart from Evil, scrolled upon a floating, blood-spattered white banner, or Resist Not Evil, within a bleeding book of scriptures, signify tragedy and evil lurking in our immediate midst. While the navigation of evil is paramount, Norton finds glimmers of hope in the capacity of the human heart to give, hence to save.

—Heather Lustfeldt 1. Jay Norton, interview with the author, August 6, 2006.

Suicide Room, 2004 oil on panel 36 x 28 inches Courtesy of the artist

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MICHAEL REES

Putto 2x2x4, 2005 animation and LuminOre iron on fiberglass over expanded polystyrene foam and steel animation: 1 minute, 48 seconds sculpture: 192 x 122 x 175 inches Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo., Museum Purchase made possible by a gift from DST Systems, Inc., 2005.1a–b

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Michael Rees is a native Kansas Citian whose work merging the realms of art, science, and technology has received national and international acclaim. An artist’s artist for the digital age, Rees has collaborated widely and made significant contributions to the emerging language and scholarship of new media art.

Putto 2x2x2x2, 2003 edition of 3 with artist proof fiberglass with Emron automotive paint 78 x 62 x 72 inches Courtesy of the artist

Since the mid-1990s, Rees’s work has engaged questions of physicality and consciousness through a combination of computer animation, software programs, sculpture, and emerging fabrication technologies. Rees’s unusual process often involves 3-D modeling and digital animation of forms as a first step, followed by output to a Rapid Prototyping Machine or Computer Numeric Controlled mill. The resulting works combine video animation, shown on a screen, with three-dimensional sculptures, so that the ethereal realm of the digital is intertwined with and inextricable from the concrete and the physical.

Rees’s sculptural forms are psychically charged, mutant bodies at once playful, anatomical, sensual, and grotesque. The acephalous body is a primary metaphor across the artist’s work; for Rees it represents a primal state of pure physical, energetic, and emotive potential. Recent video and sculptural works, including the

Putto series, feature dynamic multilimbed figures flexing and bending in a kind of ecstatic dance. Unweighted by reason, these headless figures give physical form to “the moral ambiguity of synthetic life.”1

Rees began his investigation into “aberrant life forms” early in his career, and has pursued it continuously in three interrelated strains of work: the Monster series, concerned primarily with the body; the Sculptural User Interface, rooted in conceptual art and computational science; and the Ajna series, which interrogates the relationship between Western science and Eastern metaphysics.

Rees’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and abroad. In 2005, Rees installed a public sculpture and video animation, Putto 2x2x4, at the corner of Twelfth and Central Streets in downtown Kansas City as part of a collaboration with the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and DST Systems, Inc. —Stacy Switzer 1. Michael Rees, “Putto 2x2x2x4, notes” (computer printout), n.d.

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Donald Ross, also known as Scribe, may be the best known artist in Kansas City.

Reaching the vast portion of the population that never sets foot in a gallery, his largescale solo and collaborative murals have animated the fronts, sides, and backs of buildings in the heart of the city for nearly a decade. Whether or not one knows the artist behind these artworks—or the numerous gallery exhibitions to his credit— Scribe’s signature rhinos, whales, elephants, fish, rabbits, and bumblebees,

In addition to his work in the public realm,

contextualized in densely packed, vividly

often produced in collaboration with other

colorful, physically expansive tableaux, are

artists, Scribe has consistently created

popularly embraced as inextricable layers

work for the gallery context, from individual

of a Kansas City-specific urban landscape.

drawings and paintings, to site-specific

Though having studied briefly at Kansas City Art Institute, Ross regards himself as primarily a self-taught artist, with graffiti having played a central role in his personal and artistic evolution. The son of a minister, he is also strongly informed by his religious upbringing. These primary influences feed an artistic practice in which personal and moral struggles are translated into contemporary parables, rendered in a highenergy, immediately accessible visual language. Often interweaving references to specific biblical passages, Scribe employs an ever-expanding cast of animal characters—representing a range of personality traits, instincts, and societal aspects—to enact a variety of scenarios both closely relating to specific events and conflicts in his own life, and speaking of common human experience in navigating through the world.

murals spanning walls and floors, to playful, larger-than-life papier-mâché versions of his animal characters, situated within elaborate multimedia environments.

Philippians 2:2–4, for example, an installation for the 2003 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition at the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, featured a parachute-clad, threedimensional rhino protagonist set against a painted backdrop of swirling blue sky punctuated by bombing airplanes. Taking its name from a biblical passage calling for humility and the love of others above and as an extension of oneself, and created as the artist was on the verge of becoming a firsttime father, the installation seemed a pure embodiment of an expectant parent’s aspirations and anxieties: not quite steady on his feet, the rhino stood with one arm outstretched as if to embrace the future, while still dragging his deflated parachute behind him like the weight of persistent weaknesses and past defeats. Several years later, it seems perfectly in keeping with Scribe’s art-making practice and persona that he is about to publish a children’s book, There’s an Octopus Under my Bed, expanding the scope of his practice, and audience for his work, even further.

—Kate Hackman

DONALD ROSS, a.k.a. SCRIBE

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Donald Ross (Scribe) and Jason Brunson Destructive Forces, 2005 spray paint 180 x 360 inches Courtesy of Evolution Audio

New trouble in the Resound Fields, 2006 mixed media on wood 24 x 48 inches Courtesy of the artist

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JUDI ROSS

Aciano (installation view), 2005 cast polyurethane, paint, pigment, steel; 3,000 pounds of sifted earth from Yahuitlรกn in the valley, Oaxaca, Mexico dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

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Since earning her MFA in fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1995, Judi Ross has established a concise yet exquisitely evocative artistic terrain.

Products of a poetic personal vision backed up by fierce artistic muscle, major works have ranged from heroically scaled kinetic sculptures to sensual, immersive multimedia installations. Prints, collages, photographs, writings, sound, and video are also ongoing elements of the artist’s holistic practice.

Central to Ross’s work is an attempt to “open a landscape of organic being and human possibility.”1 In recent years, she has used cast polyurethane, flowerlike forms—pigmented supersaturated, hyperreal shades of acid green or electric blue— as recurrent icons symbolizing a merger of organic and humanmade. Contextualizing these sculptural elements in a range of scenarios, she has collapsed opposing notions of nature and culture, body and mind/spirit, in favor of a more expansive arena of potentials.

In Presence/Present, an installation at Joseph Nease Gallery in 2000 (later reconfigured as Aciano and presented at

Homo faber (2002) at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art placed similar forms in a radically different context. Dozens of long, narrow Plexiglas boxes, arranged in a grid and each containing a neat row of the blossoms, were lit from underneath by pulsing green incandescent lights, all connected to a single power source by a snaking metal cord. In this haunting installation—its title means “man the maker”—the forms read as products of genetic engineering, situated in an eerily Orwellian laboratory. Yet again, Ross’s work is always of the “both/and” variety, and the pristine beauty of the whole endeavor, coupled with a future-oriented sense of possibility, allowed a vast field of interpretations and reverberations.

Since 2001, Ross has split time between

several venues in Mexico), synthetic

Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches at

blooms, affixed to tall, thin stems of varying

the University of Illinois; Kansas City; and,

heights, sprang like trumpets from the

increasingly, Oaxaca, Mexico, which has

mouths of cast human faces embedded in

fueled recent and emerging work. Anhelo,

an undulating landscape of lush soil.

an in situ installation in the Etla Valley,

Evincing exuberant release from temporal

Oaxaca, continues to exist as a series of

constraints while still nurtured by the earth

striking photographs. Ross backpacked a

and connected to (or product of) the body,

small population of her synthetic flowers

the flowers also connoted receptacles or

into the valley, then, after seeking

tentacles of sorts, collectively arching

permission from various landowners,

toward some distant voice, or sun, or god—

installed and photographed them colonizing

perhaps instinctually, perhaps driven by

a greener than green landscape, or snaking

social code or doctrine. Typical of Ross’s

through gorgeously dilapidated pink and

work, the piece offered many places to land

blue architectural structures. The

but nowhere to easily settle.

photographs are at once entirely surreal and completely right, as if these amped-up flowers have finally found a fitting home.

Some have interpreted the images as exposing the artificiality (and inferiority) of Ross’s constructed nature when pitted against the “real thing,” but that seems far too easy. Rather, Ross exalts the infinite potential of both real and imagined—to surprise, seduce, provoke, and converge in fantastic moments of beauty and wonder.

—Kate Hackman 1. Judi Ross, artist statement, 2006.

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Although he was trained as a painter and has taught painting since 1972, Warren Rosser spent much of the 1980s and 1990s creating abstract mixed-media wall reliefs and freestanding sculptures. In 1998 he returned to painting and has since produced hundreds of nonobjective canvases that have been featured in numerous solo exhibitions to consistent critical acclaim. To create this ongoing series of acrylic paintings, Rosser has worked on the floor, using squeegees and trowels to move paint across the canvas surface and defining forms through the use of masking tape and stencils. The principal form has been a stenciled ellipse, which Rosser has modified frequently as his work has evolved. Early paintings in the series feature an ellipse-and-track motif that generates numerous references, both natural and cultural, from stemmed flowers to cartoon-style legs and feet, from mallets to barstools to pendulums. Later works include an ellipse with short stems on either of its long sides, which Rosser likens to a head with projecting ears. Rosser has also worked with large circles around which the ellipses rotate, and with horizontal and diagonal divisions of the colors that constitute the ellipses’ environments.

In making these works, Rosser has focused primarily on the organization of the elliptical forms: “how do they meet, overlap, conjoin, slip by each other, collide, and pull apart?”1 Rosser thinks of the paintings in terms of the transmission of information, and likens their forms to “hand signals (sign language), musical notations, or, perhaps, the layered readings of hieroglyphics,” which can be variously

From 1998 to early 2004 Rosser worked

interpreted—just as any language can be.2

with high-keyed colors, creating bold and

Interested in the relation of his paintings to

exuberant paintings. In mid-2004 he

time-based media such as film and music,

reduced his palette to a subtle range of

Rosser has even arranged for the musical

grays, using bright colors only to outline the

interpretation of his art, inviting Dwight

occasional ellipse on the surface of the

Frizzell and Thomas Aber of newEAR to

painting. Instead of declaring themselves

perform in direct response to his paintings

loudly and emphasizing rapid transmission,

in galleries in Kansas City; St. Louis; and

as did the earlier paintings, Rosser’s recent

Brookings, South Dakota.

pictures speak softly and invite us to slow down—the better to savor their subtle, embedded complexities.

—David Cateforis 1. Warren Rosser, artist statement, 2006.

2. Ibid.

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Tailspin, 2003 acrylic on canvas 88 x 133 inches Courtesy Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City

WARREN ROSSER 113

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ERIC SALL

Painter Eric Sall emerged on the Kansas City art scene while still an undergraduate at the Kansas City Art Institute. Since graduating in 1999, he has rapidly risen professionally, while his art has steadily gained in power and maturity, offering up increasingly intense surprises, pleasures, and challenges.

A committed abstractionist, Sall relishes the bold and inventive manipulation of oil paint and the construction of strong spatial

In recent years Sall’s work has grown more

and figure-ground relationships. He draws

ambitious, daring, and complex. With some

inspiration from disparate abstract styles of

exceptions—there is no such thing as a

the past, bringing together seemingly

typical Eric Sall painting—he continues to

irreconcilable elements of Abstract

focus each composition on a mass of

Expressionism, Hard-edge and Color Field

assertively variegated, clustered, and

abstraction, and Op art to create

layered colors, forms, and patterns.

audaciously original nonrepresentational

Sometimes centered, sometimes entering

paintings, often large and physically

the picture from the side, these

imposing.

agglomerations of color and shape may be

Sall’s paintings of the early 2000s tend to feature hulking, centralized forms suggestive of tottering pieces of furniture or lumbering animals, their interiors filled with brightly colored, thickly painted stripes, dots, squiggles, or smudges, their edges more crisply defined. The contrast between the treatment of edges and

planted at the base of the composition or hang suspended within luminous grounds, against flat color bands, or amid motley painterly environments. Each painting is different, yet they all vibrate with Sall’s unique artistic sensibility—energetic, adventuresome, and boundlessly inventive.

—David Cateforis

interiors creates a productive tension between spontaneous and controlled paint handling—the former redolent of the Abstract Expressionist gestural style of Willem de Kooning and Hans Hofmann, the latter of the Hard-edge mode of Ellsworth Kelly and Jack Youngerman. Sall’s heavy, central forms—the paintings’ protagonists, as it were—occupied environments of more delicately applied, subtly modulated color, typically divided into different zones, with a solid band at the base of the composition suggesting a horizon line. Although generated through the process of pure painting, without reference to real-world objects, Sall’s canvases conjured weird creatures or structures inhabiting abstracted landscapes or architectural spaces, making art seem, paradoxically, to be figurative and nonrepresentational simultaneously.

Teeth and Tentacles, 2005 oil on canvas 96 x 78 inches Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Johnson County Community College Overland Park, Kans.

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Judith Sanazaro is not about to give up the pleasures of applying gloppy oil paint straight from the tube onto canvas with her fingers. But she is equally compelled to complicate, and at times very deliberately

These paintings led into Sanazaro’s most

undermine, anything that might be

recent work, which further engages the

conceived as resting easily within the realm

wall, and now floor, too, as active sites

of Abstract Expressionism, or any other

where an interplay of contrary forms and

genre. As a woman painter and critical

objects may occur. “My new work pits Pop

thinker, Sanazaro is acutely aware of

art against AbEx; surrealism is abutted with

confinement by categorization. Her

modernist design and architecture; the

response, increasingly, is one of embracing

corporeal coexists with the simulacra while

the expressive capacities and rewards of

digital imagery commingles with finger

gestural painting while situating it within a

painting,” writes Sanazaro.2 Playing up the

larger framework, where various

sentencelike quality of these compositions,

components interrupt, counter, and delimit

she has incorporated shaped canvases,

one another while at the same time

painted black, that serve as literal

reverberating in concert. Challenging the

punctuation marks: periods, colons, etc. In

authority of any single mode of expression

addition, underline bars have become a

while exploiting the capacities of many,

recurrent tool for locating emphasis,

Sanazaro wants to have her cake and eat it

playing up tensions within the overall

too. And why not?

compositions, or demarcating one zone

At the time she received the Charlotte Street Award (1998), Sanazaro was immersed in a body of work she regarded as intensely feminist. She created extremely thick, dense, visceral paintings through a highly physical process—painting directly with her hands onto linen panels sized in relation to her reach, and employing “sludge” scraped off other

from another. Found objects are finding their way in as well, placed on the ground in front of her paintings to yield a sense of upward movement, suggesting passage from earth to ether, reality to release.

—Kate Hackman 1. See Alice Thorson, “The Beauty of Abstract Angst,” The Kansas City Star, March 31, 2000.

2. Judith Sanazaro, artist statement, 2006.

unfinished paintings that she termed “canned angst”—that might be regarded as a performative reclaiming of “macho” action painting.1 A body of these paintings, which she refers to as hermaphroditic, were exhibited under the exhibition title

prima facie at Kansas City’s former Joseph Nease Gallery in 2000.

Sanazaro then experimented with multipanel paintings, in which the gaps between panels began to assume an integral role in the overall compositions.

This strategy emphasized the objecthood of the individual canvases as well as the contingency of each panel upon the collective context for meaning. Reading as sequences of events unfolding in real time, with trails of amoeboid forms connecting one canvas to the next as if stringing words in a sentence, the paintings suggested the influence of comic strips, video games, and film, all executed in a pop culture palette of nail polish pinks and oranges and electric blues.

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Balance Beam, 2006 oil on linen, gray gesso on canvas, seven granite squares 79 x 96 x 12 1/2 inches Courtesy of the artist

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JUDITH SANAZARO

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MARK SCHWEIGER, a.k.a. GEAR

Land of the Me, Home of the Slave, 2003 spray paint 264 x 192 inches Courtesy of the artist

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Graffiti artist, or as he prefers to be called, graffiti “writer,” Gear has more than just tagging on his mind. Since the early 1980s, his work has evolved into a complicated visual language that incorporates myriad

Most recently, Gear’s work has been driven

audiences and conceptual readings of

by concern for “a world where technology

graffiti itself. Whereas most street artists in

makes us slaves.”3 Meditating upon the

this vein tend to talk about their work as

emergence of a generation in which an

“bombs” in the environments in which they

alarming amount of human interaction is

are dropped, Gear asserts, “I do bugs. It’s

mediated by machines—television, cell

about being a carrier of viruses.”1

phones, multiple-player video games, the Internet, and instant messaging—his work

Recently the thought-viruses that he has sought to spread in the Kansas City area relate to his concerns about suburban sprawl and isolation, technology and fear. In his 2002 Balance and Flow exhibition at the

has taken on a distinctly dystopian feel even as he is clearly invested in the notion that his unruly, truly public medium might have the power to interrupt these channels.

Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Gear

—Maria Elena Buszek

analyzed and responded to the gallery’s

1. Elisabeth Kirsch, “Spray-Can Statements” (unidentified clipping, artist’s archives, n.d.).

2. Gina Kaufmann, “Really Old School: Graffiti artists take over the retirement home,” The Pitch, December 12–18, 2002.

3. Gear, artist statement, May 15, 2006.

seemingly idyllic Overland Park setting with the wall piece Evolve: a gigantic, multiheaded insect meant to suggest the monstrous “evolution” of the nation’s suburbs. Anticipating the gallery audience’s likely prejudices toward graffiti itself, let alone the message of the piece, the artist stated, “People in the suburbs might look at me and say graffiti is wrong … it’s a menace to society. And I’d say back to them, cutting down forests and putting up houses is wrong … it’s a menace to society. … What you’re doing is what I’m doing.”2

Untitled, 2004 spray paint 120 x 180 inches Courtesy of the artist

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In 1999, the Charlotte Street Awards celebrated Michael Sinclair’s beautiful photographs documenting forays into the curious realms of leisure pursued by mainstream middle-class American society.

Sinclair’s participation in the exhibition that year was an introduction and held the promise of what was yet to come; the artist has continued to present a confident body of photographic work marked by the insightful eye of a consummate image maker whose flair for recognizing the beauty of uncelebrated moments has delighted the many viewers of his work.

Anne’s Wedding, Overland Park, Kansas, 2000 digital color coupler print 20 x 24 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

Sinclair’s grace with capturing public scenes and spectacles exudes a quiet integrity. Similarly, his skill at creating the perfect, convincing composition goes almost unnoticed as the viewer can easily imagine the scene as if they themselves were present, able to sense the climate and gritty texture of the moment and hear the soothing or cacophonous sounds that accompany the visual image.

The years Sinclair has spent using his camera to document the meticulously designed architectural environment of the city have found a compelling equal in the images he creates independent of commission. Sinclair’s vision considers the social landscape and its unique fabric, revealing moments lived and mostly forgotten, played out in rural, suburban, and urban settings; and, more recently, poetic glimpses of mostly unseen and certainly undocumented natural landscapes. The subjects of Sinclair’s photographs are not compelling or distinguishable because of their inherent beauty, but because of the artist’s spirit of generosity and the uncompromising yet democratic vision. The beauty of his photographs is a result of his passion for photography and his respect for the power of the photographic image to convey with honesty something of value about the world and the communities we inhabit.

—Raechell Smith

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Squaw Creek #1, Mound City, Missouri, 2005 digital color coupler print 48 x 60 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

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Jesse Small is best known for his steel and ceramic interpretations of war machines, weapons, and equipment. Creatively manipulated to deprive them of their function, Small’s bombers, jeeps, tires, and helmets, operate simultaneously as antiwar statements and compelling aesthetic objects.

Small’s military-themed art took on added resonance in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the fall 2004

Childhood conversations with his

Contemplating War exhibition at Johnson

grandfather, who served in World War II

County Community College, Small

and Korea, prompted Small’s interest in the

presented Hard Candy, a wall-mounted

military.1 The grandfather’s vivid war

installation of more than one hundred

stories instilled in Small both a fear of and

candy-color porcelain helmets,

fascination with war. Channeling those

embellished with graffiti or encrusted with

feelings into art, Small for his first solo

flowerlike decorations, and a group of

exhibition crafted a series of toylike clay

similarly encrusted porcelain tires. Small

and metal war vehicles based on various

explained the titular reference to candy in

military prototypes, simultaneously

terms of war’s function as an “opiate,”

whimsical and menacing.

while the tires, resembling artifacts

For Checkpoint, his memorable contribution to the 2000 Avenue of the Arts exhibition in downtown Kansas City, Small parked on the sidewalk a battered old

dredged from the sea, he imagined as memorials from a future without war.

“Army tires need to be stopped. Their rolling brings no good to the world.”5

United Nations–style jeep, its body panels

Departing from military themes, Small’s

laser-cut into decorative openwork designs.

2005 MFA thesis show featured colorful

“They’re feminine, light, lacy, open,” said

ceramic slabs based on architectural

Small of the decorations. “The vehicle itself

cornices and ceramic sculptures merging

is rugged, masculine, scary.”2 Nearby,

fragmented tires with the shapes of

Small placed on the pavement several

pedestaled urns, ribbons, and other objects.

seven-foot-long steel plates cut into the

A year-long residency in China (2005–06)

silhouettes of Stealth bombers. He

generated new creations, including a

explained the concept in terms of a simple

whimsical series of colorfully decorated

dichotomy: “In function those steel plates

porcelain Talk Bubbles and another of

heal the street, but the form is a destructive

porcelain Ghosts, the former based on the

machine that makes holes in the street.”3

ubiquitous cartoon speech balloon, the

At the 2000 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition, Small presented smaller steel silhouettes of Stealth bombers, their surfaces opened into a decorative pattern of arcs, spokes, and continental outlines derived from the UN logo, and similarly perforated UN helmets. Curator James Martin wrote that the decorative skill displayed in these artworks signified “sophistication, while the subject of war embodies barbarism.”4

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latter on characters from the popular

Pac-Man video game. Small made these works in part to breach the language barrier he felt while in China, noting, “I could communicate with my work—things like the ghost and the talk bubble … are kind of like a universal language.”6 —David Cateforis 1. Jeffrey Spivak, “After Terrorist Attacks, Artist’s Military Themes Sometimes Stir Unease,” The Kansas City Star, December 26, 2001.

2. Jesse Small, quoted in Alice Thorson, “It’s One Small Fete for KC150: Decorated Jeep is Key Component of Jesse Small’s ‘Checkpoint,’” The Kansas City Star, May 20, 2000.

3. Ibid.

4. James Martin, Charlotte Street Awards, exh. brochure (Kansas City: Charlotte Street Foundation, 2000), n.p.

5. Small, quoted in Meghan Dailey, Contemplating War, exh. brochure (Overland Park, Kans.: Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, 2004), n.p.

6. Small, telephone interview with the author, February 20, 2007.

Pretty Jeep, 2000 1980 Ford Bronco, found metal objects, unfired ceramic approximately 77 x 80 x 180 inches Courtesy of the artist

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Like Buddy, 2006 porcelain, low-temperature glaze 34 x 31 x 19 inches Courtesy of the artist

JESSE SMALL

Blue Vine Talk Bubbles, 2005 porcelain, low-temperature glaze, gold luster 7 x 7 x 14 inches each Courtesy of Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York

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BRIDGET STEWART

For many years Bridget Stewart has been known as an advocate for young artists. She earned this reputation through her work at the Kansas City Artists Coalition and through her teaching both in high school and at the college level. During this time, she was also building a large, impressive body of work consisting of prints and highly layered paintings on paper.

Throughout her career, and dating back to her graduate work at the University of Iowa, Stewart has worked in series. Her series 60 Days in Rwanda (installation detail), 2001 monoprint, beeswax on muslin 16 x 12 inches Courtesy of the artist

have often dealt with difficult issues: the genocide in Rwanda, the events of 9/11, and the suicide bombings in the Middle East.

One of her most recent series of meaningful, haunting works is titled White

Butterfly after the effect that can be seen in the chest x-ray of someone who has died from a bomb blast. Apparent only after death, the ghostly image of a white butterfly forms in the victim’s collapsed lungs.

Naming of the Parts is Stewart’s newest series, begun in 2005 and inspired by British poet Henry Reed’s 1942 war poem of the same title. Both the poem and Stewart’s work deal with war, irony, and transition from one element to another. In the poem, a military instructor calmly names a part of the rifle, while the poet/narrator completes the stanza with poetic lyricism. Like the poet, Stewart builds imagery in much the same way—playing one element off the next. Stewart’s work is beautiful and complex, built up of layers that create a rich context for contemplating meaning.

—Mark J. Spencer

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White Butterfly: Device, 2004 monoprint, stamp print, Xerox transfer on muslin 60 x 38 inches Courtesy of the artist

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CRAIG SUBLER

Museum #22, 2006 pencil, watercolor, gouache on velum 8 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches Courtesy of Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City

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Craig Subler, a Midwesterner his whole life, is one of the most widely traveled and visually educated artists working in Kansas City. His international wanderlust and deep Midwestern roots make for a very interesting combination. Louis Pasteur famously said, “In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind,” and in Subler’s case, one might add the prepared eye.1 As a curator, professor, administrator, and artist, Craig Subler is well prepared indeed.

For many years, Subler’s paintings and prints focused on the highly detailed natural world of gardens and dark forests.

Although he states that the world he envisioned comprised gardens, the constructed spaces in his images also take on a deeper, more humid atmosphere like that of the lowest level of a rain forest.

Subler’s work relating to the garden is quite unlike Dale Chihuly’s recent forays into botanical gardens. Subler’s paintings seem to have much more in common with the imagined landscapes of Alexis Rockman, which, like Subler’s work, are realistically painted yet are clearly not of this world.

Subler’s vision is to understand and put into context, while rarely, if ever, preferring to directly represent the natural world.

Subler’s newest work deals with the spaces and social conditions found within museums. Given his desire to learn more and more, see more and more, it is no surprise that his newest work breaks fresh ground. Certainly no stranger to the

Museum #28, 2006 pencil, watercolor, gouache on velum 10 1/4 x 7 3/4 inches Courtesy of Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City

museum world, as both curator and visitor, Subler offers a thoughtful and lively view of this highly specialized humanmade space.

In his carefully constructed yet playful collagelike drawings and paintings, sculptures are intermixed with gift shop items, and museum visitors become works of art in their own right. While realistic in appearance, the imagery carries a range of associations and meanings that extend far beyond the realist’s fixed gaze. Subler’s work has never been easily defined within the context of modern and contemporary art, and this newest body of work is no exception.

—Mark J. Spencer 1. Translated from the French, “Dans les champs de l’observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés.” The first time Pasteur used this expression may have been his December 7, 1854, lecture at the University of Lille in France.

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KATI TOIVANEN

Identity informed by childhood experience is a key theme in the art of Kati Toivanen.

Through photography, digital media, sculpture, and installation, Toivanen examines intensely personal, intimate experiences and memories to create work that speaks to a range of social, cultural, and political issues.1 For the 2001 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition at the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Toivanen created an immersive, interactive installation comprising elements from her First Rite Games series, in which she was able, for the first time, to merge her interests in photography and sculpture into a cohesive, interactive installation. Photographic images of old, battered baby dolls inserted within reinvented games and toys provoked viewers to critically consider the feminine form and its role in the formation of female identity.

Toivanen’s work within gallery and public contexts has continued investigating selfimage, value systems, gender, and the enduring effects of prevailing societal and cultural pressures and beliefs on an individual. As an adult remembering her own childhood, and now as a mother observing her son’s development, Toivanen persistently challenges entrenched Indian #1 (from the series The Wild Frontier), 2005 digital color coupler print 16 x 12 inches Courtesy of Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City

societal boundaries and expectations through her multifaceted work.

Safe (2005), a site-specific video and sound installation, captured the act of an infant (her son) nursing. Projected within an old walk-in safe, the video could be viewed only voyeuristically, from outside the closed gate. Simultaneously evoking notions of nurture, imprisonment, comfort, and unease, Safe also heightened one’s awareness of sociocultural biases regarding public versus private behavior.

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Cherries in the Sand (from the series Battle Wounds), 2006 digitally composed color coupler print 30 x 41 1/2 inches Courtesy of Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City

Several new series include themes related to the experience of reading stories, specifically Finnish fairy tales, to her son;

The Wild Frontier, a recent series of digital photographs, indicates Toivanen’s shift into imagery stereotypically linked with boys.

Evoking the influence of David Levinthal’s photographs as well as decorative relief sculpture, Toivanen’s shadowy silhouettes of toy cowboys and Indians emerging from ambiguous grounds are both alluring and menacing. By subversively using haunting images of dolls or toy soldiers, Toivanen attempts to debunk damaging sociocultural myths instilled into children, regardless of their sex.

gardening; and the absurdity of war.

Revealing both beauty and darkness, attuned to her own life while jettisoning an autobiographical impetus, Toivanen’s work is emblematic of a new paradigm for creative women who navigate and commingle complex, seemingly irreconcilable facets of life—as mothers and artists—in courageous and meaningful ways.

—Heather Lustfeldt

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MAY TVEIT

Does anybody speak English?; Expensive; What do you want?, 2006 from the series Global Speak wood and lacquer 45 1/2 x 91; 45 1/2 x 52; 43 1/2 x 80; inches Courtesy of the artist

The multifaceted interests and gifts of artist, designer, and educator May Tveit intertwine in her politically charged sculptures and installations. An industrial designer and design professor who has studied, worked, and taught internationally, Tveit puts issues of corporate globalization, capitalism, and consumption at the forefront of her practice. While she infuses her work with a sense of whimsy—as she did in the candy-color hay bale sculptures she exhibited in 2002 as a Charlotte Street Award recipient—this playfulness generally serves as a seductive entry to its critical underpinnings.

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This strategy beautifully served Tveit’s 2002

Retail Therapy installation at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, for which she developed a streamlined solution to frame her competing concerns as an American artist in the aftermath of 9/11. Shaken by President Bush’s 2001 call for the American public to combat terrorism by spending money, and confronted by the overpowering landscape of big-box retail stores in which Village Shalom is nestled, Retail Therapy was born of Tveit’s desire to question the government’s plea that in this time of profound crisis we “fulfill our civic duties: to shop, to consume, and to buy.”1 The gallery was given over completely to plastic display shelves, packed floor-to-ceiling with large, translucent balloons (in red, white, and blue, naturally) that satirically suggested one could purchase the patriotic ideals printed in eye-catching fonts across their surface: not just “security,” “normalcy,” and “relief,” but even “life,” “liberty,” and “happiness.”

United/Divided (installation view), 2004 table, 5,000 embroidered nametags, 104 work stools 30 x 936 x42 inches Courtesy of the artist

More recently, Tveit turned her attentions away from consumption to instead address production. In her multimedia

United/Divided exhibition (2004), the artist focused on the history of Kansas City’s United Metal Spinning Company to demonstrate the impact of globalization upon local economies. Tveit converted workspace in the family-owned business into a meandering labyrinth of tools, shop smells, and video screens documenting the company’s history and recent decline through outsourcing and new technologies.

The installation was bracketed at one end by the business’s spinners at work—cleverly elevated as artisans/artworks on small pedestals at their workstations. At the other end in a garage bay, a long table was covered by a runner of embroidered nametags combining language from the NAFTA preamble with the array of “stock names” those tags generally feature today—with “John” and “George” being replaced by “Ali” and “José.” In work such as United/Divided, Tveit continues to deftly combine the personal and the political in ways that urge her audiences to do the same.

—Maria Elena Buszek 1. May Tveit, Retail Therapy, artist statement, January 13, 2002.

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SEAN WARD

Portrait Painting #1, 2003 oil on canvas 71 1/4 x 102 1/4 inches Private collection

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Sean Ward is nostalgic for the past. Not days, weeks, or decades, but centuries— even millennia—gone by. While most of us long for some element of the past, Ward is unequivocal about his desire to be living in “some other time.”1 Knowing this offers a way into Ward’s work, which unapologetically culls from and often purposely conflates distant moments in the visual history of humankind. Ward’s references range from Grecian busts in his Baphomet series (forty-five ceramic heads individually painted and decaled) to mummies, monsters, and medieval weaponry.

The ease with which Ward moves between subjects and media can make individual works seem jarringly disparate, and Ward likes it that way. Where others look for cohesion and order, Ward uses the chaotic, the disruptive, and the irrational as generative strategies for art making. In an untitled video from 2000, Ward enlists two male friends to join him in a twenty-fourminute-long ceremonial hump of a giant foam head. What begins as a lowbrow prank eventually devolves into a brutal, bestial orgy of masculinity. On the same tape, a short, almost sentimental video titled Western Thought Kitty Litter Box (2000) shows Ward’s cat using a customdesigned kitty commode modeled after a Grecian temple.

Among his artist-heroes, Ward cites Edward Hopper, the beloved Depression-era painter; Franz Kline, whose sweeping black stains ingrained “a lesson about intimidation;” and Robert Longo, whose

Baphomet #2 (in a series of 45), 2006 ceramic 22 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy of the artist

command of the starkly foreboding is echoed in Ward’s paintings of domestic interior settings.

Ward emphasizes that while he currently spends the bulk of his time painting, he can foresee a day when he might decide to move on from it entirely. Until then, Ward satisfies himself in the domain of uncanny and unrealized images. “I try to look at the gamut,” says Ward, “and find pictures that haven’t been painted yet.”

—Stacy Switzer 1. This and all subsequent quotations are from Sean Ward, interview with the author, July 7, 2006.

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DAVIN WATNE

Nanny Goat, 2006 gouache and spray paint on paper 44 x 30 inches Courtesy of Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City

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Davin Watne has been a constant figure in the contemporary art scene in Kansas City since he and Leo Esquivel opened the Dirt Gallery in the mid-1990s. The Dirt Gallery closed in 2003 after eight years in the West Bottoms, but many of the performances and exhibitions there helped provide a focus for young artists in Kansas City. Throughout the years, Watne’s interests have extended beyond visual art into the worlds of music,

Watne’s current interest in smaller scale

fashion, advertising, and cars. A recent

papier-mâché sculpture still carries the

series of silkscreen prints that graphically

enjoyment of angst-ridden humor. New

combine animals and vehicles in crash sites

pieces combine two birds in a

provides an excellent opportunity to see

choreographed fight scene where one bird

Watne at his best, blending irony,

clearly dominates. Viewers may bring their

violent upheaval, and wit. Like these prints,

own issues to this power struggle played

much of Watne’s work incorporates or

out in the simple colors of black and white.

references a motor vehicle of some sort:

Similar to his silkscreens clearly exalting

from the memorable pink Dodge Charger

the traditionally weak animal as the victor,

piñata to his recent public art commissions,

Watne has returned his focus to the

Watne is literally on a roll.

colliding worlds of Man versus Nature.

Watne’s interest in piñata-like, papiermâché pieces dates to 2002 when he made

Gently (a full-size, tricked-out 1974 pink Dodge Charger) specifically for the Charlotte Street Awards exhibition that year. At the exhibition opening, Watne smashed the front corner of the car, spilling candy on the gallery floor. Watne later used Gently in an even more destructive performance when he set the paper car on fire as part of the 2004 Mardi Gras festivities in the East Crossroads.

Watne gives strength to Nature and empowers it to fight its own battles—a battle in which he seems to be rooting for Nature every time. Mankind is left to sort through the rubble.

—Mark J. Spencer

Gently, 2002 papier-mâché and cardboard 84 x 216 x 48 inches Courtesy of the artist

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As a 1997 Charlotte Street Award recipient, Mary Wessel was in the first group of artists to receive the award. Her work in that year’s Award exhibition combined disparate elements such as childhood toys, animal figurines, and kitchen items into cohesive, finished photographs. At times throughout her career, Wessel’s photographs have been associated with feminist art, but have never rested in that genre. While pieces such as Firemouth (1994–95) and Protect

Her (1997) have indeed addressed domestic issues, Wessel’s vocabulary has extended well beyond that of the home.

Wessel’s photograms of the past five years are colorful and ambiguous. Created in the darkroom without a camera, Wessel’s photograms often get their color and form from colored LP albums.1 Part drawing and part photograph, the final look of the photogram depends on its connection to the hand of the artist. Full of beautiful smoky colors, flowing shapes, and mass, the work literally and figuratively blurs photography’s traditional associations with capturing reality. Unlike the early photograms of Man Ray and others, which used household objects to create direct shapes on the paper, Wessel’s work disguises her working method. Her untitled photograms from the Blindnesses series (2001) are sensual and formless, charged with color. Wessel describes Pandemonium (2005–06), her newest series of unique color photograms, in broad naturalistic terms that summon up images of weather, seashells, handwriting, and the universe. Clearly, in these foglike images, Wessel wants to expand our imagination and make us look through the colorful haze that she presents to us.

—Mark J. Spencer 1. Alice Thorson, “Shifting Colors,” The Kansas City Star, September 29, 2002.

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MARY WESSEL

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Untitled, 2005–06 color coupler print, unique color photogram 20 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist

Untitled, 2005–06 color coupler print, unique color photogram 20 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist

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James Woodfill’s poetic investigations of light, color, sound, and motion activate space and challenge conventional thinking.

His art is alive in the world. Its modulating blue light illuminates the night sky above the Sulgrave building on the Country Club Plaza. Its white bars of light rotate like propellers in the parking lot terminal stair towers at the Kansas City International Airport. Its flashing lights animate the parking area surrounding the Freight House. Its pedestrian-activated light and sound arrays enliven the stairwell atria at the George E. Wolf parking structure in downtown Kansas City. Whatever its location, its playful eloquence transforms both the site and the lives of those who come upon it.

Woodfill arrived in Kansas City in 1978, graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1980, and never looked back.

For the past twenty-eight years, he has been a key player in the city’s contemporary art scene. Stylistically, he is a Minimalist, intent on distilling form and content to their essences. Yet he is first and foremost an asker of questions, whose curiosity and

Pulse (2003) and Deuce (2004) are Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission One Percent for Art projects. Designed in collaboration with el dorado inc architects, for the parking structure at Eleventh and Oak Streets, Pulse is visible from a distance, but becomes dynamic and auditory only as people move through the stairwells where it is situated. At that moment, these passersby become cocreators of the work. Deuce, Woodfill’s three-part airport installation, is a nod to Russian Constructivists Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, as well as to American Minimalist Dan Flavin. Slowspinning and propeller-like, Deuce is hard to rush past, even when arriving late for a flight. These and Woodfill’s other sitespecific works succeed because they are based on thoughtful analyses of the architected spaces and the movement patterns through them. The effect of such seamless mergers of art and site is pure magic.

inventive mind lead him to experiment in fresh ways. Woodfill’s conceptual agility is

—Jan Schall

evident in his mechanical and electrical applications. Using ordinary light bulbs, radio components, rotators, switches, and cords, he fashions whirling, wobbling, humming, and pulsing sculptures that puzzle and delight.

JAMES WOODFILL

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Tone Spools (installation view), 2002 garden hose, steel, motors, hardware dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

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Signal: Third Rig (installation view), 2004 box fan frames, light bulbs, sign flasher, hardware 78 x 80 x 18 inches Courtesy of the artist

Untitled Signals (installation view), 1998 light bulbs, sockets, motors, steel dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist 139

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For Aaron Wrinkle, art making is a way of connecting with, reordering, and reconstituting the world into dominant discourses and languages through physical and symbolic interventions. In his paintings, photos, billboards, and mixed-media sculpture, Wrinkle often takes playful aim at real or imagined seats of power, exposing vulnerabilities and questioning the legitimizing structures of art, politics, and popular culture.

“My work is what I say it is, and that’s bottom line these days, ” asserts Wrinkle, Top to bottom: Faux Stump, 2006 bucket, masking tape, plaster, acrylic 30 x 10 x 10 inches Courtesy of the artist

deliberately and ironically echoing the absolutist language of today’s political talking heads.1 Encountering a new body of work in Wrinkle’s studio, though, inclines one to take him at his word. On a sunny day

Meteorite (detail), 2006 aluminum foil and watercolor on paper 72 x 42 inches Courtesy of the artist

in June, a series of “instant sculptures” neatly line one wall of the artist’s studio.

Among them, a single McDonald’s Fancy Ketchup packet pierced at a right angle with a still-in-its-wrapper soda straw, and next

Darth Vader billboard (detail), 2005 acrylic, tape, paper on billboard 72 x 60 inches Courtesy of the artist

to that, the artist’s own heavily worn pair of blue Vans sneakers, with a foot-long wooden dowel extending vertically from inside the heel of the left shoe. “I’ve been working on a series of non-communicative antennae,” the artist says with a grin. And that’s what they are, exactly.2 Along with his own castoffs, Wrinkle uses recyclables, dumpster finds, and readymade multiples combed from the aisles of Home Depot to build the lexicon of everyday objects and images that comprise his work. Wrinkle is prolific, and his recent projects range from a billboard painting of Darth Vader mopping up his own waste, to text paintings of “Kansas City” and “Los Angeles,” to a paparazzi-style photograph of Zach de la Rocha (former lead singer of Rage Against the Machine) in Venice Beach.

If Wrinkle’s project seems inclusive, it is, and so it must be for an artist engaged in the process of world making. Perhaps perceiving the enormity of such a task, Wrinkle has also stated that he is “always open for suggestions.”3 —Stacy Switzer 1. Aaron Wrinkle, artist statement, May 2006.

2. Wrinkle, interview with the author, June 29, 2006.

3. Wrinkle, artist statement, May 2006.

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Make Trash My Art History; Shit, Make My Art for Me (a disregarded object), 2005 tempera on found Day-Glo painted board 48 x 84 inches Courtesy of the artist

AARON WRINKLE

Contemporary Cultural Based Analogs (installation detail), 2006 found and collected objects, mixed media sculptures dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist

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AWARD RECIPIENTS

32 5

2 16

21

4

44

38 1

45

6 23 37

49 42 35 19 40

39 56

43

41

55 33 27

50 142

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53

22 46

51

30

28

29 7

13

15 26 17

34

47

31

3

12

54

9

10

11 24

18

8

14 48

25 20

52 36 143

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ARTIST INDEX

4. JAMES BRINSFIELD (b. 1949) 1997 Charlotte Street Award

1. TONY ALLARD (b. 1957) and 2. KRISTINE DIEKMAN (b. 1956) 1997 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1976 MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ill. 1974 BFA, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

Education TONY ALLARD 1985 MFA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

1981 BFA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

KRISTINE DIEKMAN 1983 MFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I. 1978 BA, Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Fossil Media/Super Ocho: Kristine Diekman and Tony Allard Video Retrospective, Project Space, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Future Gen, Peter Paul Luce Gallery, Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa Selected Group Exhibitions—Allard 2002 International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya, Japan; Resocialization Project, Beyond Baroque, Los Angeles, Calif.

2001 Art in Motion Festival, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Calif.

2000 European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck, Germany; World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1999 Experimenta Media Arts, Melbourne, Australia; From the Quotidian: A Destandardized Dictionary, Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, Ind. 1997 Electromediascope: An International Survey of Contemporary Work in Experimental Film, Video, New Media and Performance Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Third International Manifestation of Video and Electronic Art, Montreal, Canada Selected Live and Internet Performances— Allard 2006 Heckety, street performances, Normal Heights, San Diego, Calif.; Mobius Text, Kellogg Library, California State University, San Marcos, Calif.

2005 Specflic, University of California, San Diego, Calif.

2004 Downstream, live Internet broadcast, California State University, San Marcos, Calif.; Prophet of @, Prognostications for 2004, Art around Adams, Normal Heights, San Diego, Calif.

2002 world_mix_nagoya, live Internet broadcast, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya, Japan 2001 WorldmixLA, live Internet broadcast, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Calif.

1999 Prophet of @, online performance, California State University, San Marcos, Calif.

1994 Corpse and Mirror, performance monologue, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.

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Selected Group Exhibitions—Diekman 2000 Artcinema Off-Off, Copenhagen, Denmark; Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain 1999 Electromediascope: An International Survey of Contemporary Work in Experimental Film, Video, New Media and Performance Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.; International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Greece; Transat Video, HerouvilleSaint-Claire, France; Vidarte, Barranca del Muerto, Mexico 1998 Pandemonium Festival of the Moving Image, London, England 1997 Images Festival, Toronto, Canada; Third International Manifestation of Video and Electronic Art, Montreal, Canada Selected Live and Internet Performances— Diekman 2005 Downstream: Media Remix, radio program, Kbeach Global Radio 2004 Downstream: BYOB, live Internet broadcast, California State University, San Marcos, Calif.; Downstream: Media, live Internet broadcast; Mother on Trial: Animation and Puppetry, Web project

3. ANTHONY BAAB (b. 1981) 2006 Charlotte Street Award Education 2004 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Zealothrone Mindfield, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Holy Mountains and Holy Craters, Old Post Office Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Built against Site, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; A Hairy Tail, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Boundary Creatures, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.; Ungood, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.

2000 Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 David Levik Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1992 Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1990 Anton Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1988 Anton Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1985 Asperger-Bischoff Gallery, Chicago, Ill. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 New Acquisitions, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1999 Perspective: Kansas City, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1997 Perspective: Kansas City, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1995 Fifty Years of Chicago Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Ill. 1982 New Figuration in America, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. Selected Curatorial Projects 2005 Y-topia, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Boundary Creatures, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

2002 Pre-Fab, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo.; SubLuna, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Filtered, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Poptones, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 A House Is Not a Home, Espten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Collections American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Ill. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Kirsch, Elisabeth. “James Brinsfield at Joseph Nease.” Art in America, February 2001, 149.

Lord, Roberta. “James Brinsfield.” New Art Examiner, April 1996, 51–52.

Von Ziegesar, Peter. “James Brinsfield at David Levik.” Art in America, July 1996, 94–95.

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5. CALLYANN CASTEEL (b. 1979) 2005 Charlotte Street Award

6. PATRICK CLANCY (b. 1941) 1998 Charlotte Street Award

Education 2002 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1967 MFA, BFA, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

1964 BS, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Burger Gore and the Backwater Nasties, Maiden Lane Exhibition Space, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, N.Y.; Death Scene, Garfield Park Art Center, Indianapolis, Ind. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Whoop Dee Doo, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Mo.; W.T.F.2, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Amarillo Biennial 600, Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, Texas; Good Work, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.; On the Tip of Your Tongue, Salina Art Center, Salina, Kans.; W.T.F, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Sloppy Slobbering Monster, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Hamburger Dance Party, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; We’re Desperate, Your Face, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Honors and Awards 2006 Art Omi International Artists Residency, Omi, N.Y. 2004 Studio Residency Program, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2002 The Writing Machine, Experimental Station, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Patrick Clancy: Photographic Assemblages, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.

1993 Haunted Maps, Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.

1992 365/360: The Plowed Field and The Crossroads, a performance with Kevin Cunningham, Gwen Widmer, and others, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, N.Y. 1985 Thoughts Forming Matter: 1) The Observatory (An instant in the remote future), 2) The Archive (Geometries of lost fragments), University of Colorado Art Galleries, Boulder, Colo.

1980 Atopia: No man’s land, Utica College, Utica, N.Y.; Marginal Works, Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y. 1979 Lingam/Yoni (Image Generator), Goodrich Gallery, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2000 American Photography: Recent Additions to the Hallmark Photographic Collection, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1985–86 Installation Video: An Exhibition of Diagrams, Documentation, and Video Installation, Hallwalls, Buffalo, N.Y. 1971 Works for New Spaces, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minn.; Pulsa Installations at Cal Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Calif.; Pulsa Video Installations at Automation House, New York, N.Y.; Music with Its Roots in the Aether, Mills College Center for Contemporary Music, Oakland, Calif.

1969 Electric Ear Series, Electric Circus, New York, N.Y.; Spaces, Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y. 1968 Pulsa Underwater Strobe Light/Sound Installation, Boston Public Garden, Boston, Mass.

Selected Projects and Honors 1993–present Electromediascope: An International Survey of Contemporary Work in Experimental Film, Video, New Media and Performance Art, co-curated with Gwen Widmer, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 The Writing Machine and Other Installations, residency at Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy 2000 Individual Artist Grant, Emerging Fields, Creative Capital Foundation in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation, New York, N.Y. 1995 Visual Artists Fellowship in Photography, National Endowment for the Arts Selected Collections Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Archias, Catherine. “Patrick Clancy at the Dolphin.” Review 7, no. 10 (September 2005): 54-55.

Burnett, Christopher. “Patrick Clancy’s 365/360 and the Simulated Voyage.” SPOT, Winter 1986.

Clancy, Patrick. “Telefigures and Cyberspace.”

Rethinking Technologies. Minneapolis, Minn: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Hill, Ed, and Suzanne Bloom. “Review: Patrick Clancy Installation at Houston Center for Photography, and Performance of the Crossroads at Diverse Works, Houston.”

Artforum, April 1987.

Lippard, Lucy R. “Pulsa.” Arts Canada, December 1968.

MacDonald, Scott. “Peliculas.” Afterimage, March 1986, 14–15.

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7. MICHAEL CONVERSE (b. 1968) 2004 Charlotte Street Award

8. DEANNA DIKEMAN (b. 1954) 2006 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1991 BFA, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kans.

1991 attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Ill. 1989 Yale Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk, Conn.

Education 1979 MS, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. 1976 BS, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Three Day Moment, 2005 Home Show, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Recent Work, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Bobo Cops a Feel, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Limited Engagement, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 klusterfudge, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Whoop Dee Doo, Rocket Projects, Miami, Fla. 2005 Art LA, Santa Monica, Calif.

2004 Stray Show, Chicago, Ill.; Ungood, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Loaded, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; Stray Show, Chicago, Ill.; You Are Here, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Culture Under Fire, Hobbs Building, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Look What Society Made Me Do, Red Chair Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Honors and Awards 2005 Art Omi International Artists Residency, Omi, N.Y.

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Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Draped, Wrapped and Flowing, Davis Gallery, Stephens College, Columbia, Mo.; Wardrobe, Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Relative Moments, University Gallery, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kans.

2001 Deanna Dikeman and Seth Thompson, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Ore. 2000 Home alone in the middle of the day, Rogers Gallery, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 1999 Deanna Dikeman Photographer, University Gallery, Baylor University, Waco, Texas 1997 ho(me), Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Relative Moments, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa 1993 Photographs, Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, La.

Selected Publications Fotophile 49 (2005): cover, 20–27.

Lustfeldt, Heather. “Studio Visit: Mundane Mysteries.” Art Papers, September/October 2001, 12.

NOON (2005): 41–65.

Photo Review (Summer 2001): 21.

EGAWA + ZBRYK 9. RIE EGAWA (b.1960) 10. BURGESS ZBRYK (b. 1964) 2004 Charlotte Street Award Education RIE EGAWA 1983 BFA, Pratt Institute, New York, N.Y. BURGESS ZBRYK, self-taught

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Domestic Diaries: Photographic Viewpoints, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, Ill.; Selections from the Contemporary’s Flat Files, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, Mo. 2004 Current Works 2004, Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Sub Urbia, Hinsdale Center for the Arts, Hinsdale, Ill. 2002 Big and Beautiful, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.; Vivid, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, Calif.

2001 Best of Show, Gallery 1401, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pa.; Pierogi Flat Files, Pierogi 2000 Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Seating Arrangements: Innovative Twentieth Century Chair Design, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Living Spaces: American Design, Supreme Trading, Brooklyn, N.Y. 2004 WOW Design, Fellissimo Design House, New York, N.Y. 2003 Conduit National Design Competition, Lyonsweir Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Downtown at the Chelsea Hotel, New York, N.Y.; Milan Salon, TDB Offsite Exhibit, Milan, Italy; Stockholm Furniture Fair, Sputnik Exhibit, Stockholm, Sweden; Transformations: New International Design, Parsons School of Design, New York, N.Y. 2002 London Designers Block, Sputnik Exhibit, London, England 2001 Tokyo Designers Block, Idee Exhibit, Tokyo, Japan

Selected Honors and Awards 2006 Watching Theron 5/03 and Watching Theron 6/01, St. Louis Metro 2D Arts in Transit, St. Louis, Mo. 2002 Midwest Photographers Project, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Ill.; Leaving and Waving, 7/02, Project wall, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute,Mo. 1996 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship

Selected Honors and Awards 2003 Top 10 Finalist, Conduit National Design Competition, New York, N.Y. 2001 Casa da Abitare Award, Emmanuel Babled Award, James Irvine Award, Jon C Jay Award, Tokyo Designers Block, Tokyo, Japan; Design Distinction Award, ID Magazine Annual Design Review; First Place, Puzzle Screen, Idee Design Competition, Tokyo, Japan; Top 10 Finalist, Pod Lamp, Idee Design Competition, Tokyo, Japan

Selected Collections Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellows Collection, Princeton University, N.J. American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Ariz.

Corporate Communications Group, Overland Park, Kans.

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Ill. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Byars, Mel. “New Chairs.” Chronical Books, 2006: cover, 64–65.

Millward, Simon. “Five Looks at the Way Things Look.” Wall Street Journal, European edition, April 7, 2006.

“Puzzle Screen.” ID, August 2001, 140.

Stahl, Julie Muller. Dish: International Design for the Home. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005: 86–89.

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11. LORI RAYE ERICKSON (b. 1967) 2002 Charlotte Street Award

13. KEN FERGUSON (1928–2004) 2001 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1989 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1958 MFA, Alfred University, Alfred, N.Y. 1952 BFA, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Recent Works, Gallery 8, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Mixed Media, Jacqueline B. Charno Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Trudy Labell Fine Art, Naples, Fla. 2004 Daddy Says …, Green Door Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Livewires and Pacifiers, Green Door Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Twenty-Third Annual Juried Competition, River Market Regional, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Anticipating Cherry, MoMo Studio, Kansas City, Mo.; National View at Grandview, Atlanta Artists Center, Atlanta, Ga. 2003 Inventory, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Smaller than Life, Matrix Gallery, Sacramento, Calif.; Third International Open, womanMADE Gallery, Chicago, Ill.; A Woman’s Touch, Impact Artist Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y. 12. LEO ESQUIVEL (b.1972) 2003 Charlotte Street Award Education 1995 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2002 Pillow Talk, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 The I-70 Series: Kansas City, Cecille R. Hunt Gallery, St. Louis, Mo. 2005 Decentralizing the Center, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Born Again! Modern Madonnas and Contemporary Christs, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Indelible, Green Door Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Art Positions, Miami, Fla.; Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 2001 Ten Strong, Floor Four Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Group Show, Hobbs Building, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Third Annual Art Exchange Show, New York, N.Y. 1994 X Marks the Spot, Diverse Works Art Space, Houston, Texas

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2003 Garth Clark Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1999 Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.

1998 Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1997 Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.

1995 Ken Ferguson: Retrospective, NelsonAtkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1988 Esther Sakes Gallery, Chicago, Ill.; Manchester Craft Guild, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1982 Hadler/Rodriguez Gallery, New York, N.Y. Selected Group Exhibitions 2003 Twenty-First Century Ceramics, Canzani Center Gallery, Columbus College of Art, Columbus, Ohio 2001 Heroes: Ken Ferguson, Karen Karnes, David Shaner, Garth Clark Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1995 Keepers of the Flame: Ken Ferguson’s Circle, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1989 Fragile Blossoms, Enduring Earth: The Japanese Influence on American Ceramics, Everson Museum, Syracuse, N.Y. 1986 Crafts Today: Poetry of the Physical, American Craft Museum, New York, N.Y. 1983 Ceramic Echoes: Historical References in Contemporary Ceramic Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1980 Porcelain Invitational, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 1979 A Century of Ceramics in the United States 1878–1978, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, N.Y. 1972 Salt Glaze Ceramics, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, N.Y. 1968 Objects U.S.A., Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Selected Collections .

Brooklyn Museum, New York, N.Y. Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa. Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, Wis. Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, N.Y. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Calif.

Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, N.C. Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, Canada Museum of Arts & Design (formerly American Craft Museum), New York, NY. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Shigaraki Museum, Shigaraki Cultural Center, Japan Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England Selected Publications Bracker, C., et al. “Ken Ferguson: A Remembrance.” Ceramics Monthly, March 2005, 66–67.

Degener, Patricia. “Celebrating Ken Ferguson.” American Craft, October/November 1995, 64–69.

Ferguson, Ken. “Ken Ferguson.” Studio Potter 27, no. 2 (June 1999): 63–65.

Katz, Milton, et al. “Ken Ferguson’s Legacy.”

Ceramics Monthly, June/August 1996, 58–61.

Rowland, Ted. “Remembering Ken Ferguson (1928–2004).” Studio Potter 33, no. 2 (June 2005): 92–93.

Von Ziegesar, Peter. “Kenneth Ferguson.”

American Ceramics 10 (Winter 1993): 18–27.

Selected Honors and Awards 2002 Charles Fergus Binns Medal for High Achievement in the Field of Ceramic Art, Alfred University, Alfred, N.Y. 2001 Voted one of the top 12 outstanding potters in the world, Ceramics Monthly 1998 Gold Medal Award, American Craft Council Annual Awards Ceremony, St. Paul, Minn.

1997 Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, College Art Association of America, New York, N.Y. 1996 Kansas Arts Commission Governor’s Arts Award, Topeka, Kans.

1973 National Endowment for the Arts Grant

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14. RUSSELL FERGUSON (b. 1955) 1997 Charlotte Street Award

15. JENNIFER FIELD (b. 1967) 2003 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1991 MFA, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

1988 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1995 BA, University of MissouriKansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Homecoming, Beth Allison Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 MacDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown, Ohio 2001 Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Trish Higgins Fine Art, Wichita, Kans.

2000 I Space, Chicago, Ill. 1999 Stauffacher Center for Fine Arts, Sedalia, Mo. 1998 Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. 1997 Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 1997 Bluebird Café, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Pocket Ranch Institute, Geyserville, Calif.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Winter Invitational, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Group Exhibition, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; New, Two: Kansas City Art Institute Faculty, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 2000 TFA, Wichita, Kans.

1998 Erman B. White Gallery, Butler County Community College, El Dorado, Kans.

1996 35 Artists 4 Years, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Public Commissions 2004 Scene design, Selkie Coterie and Nashville Children’s Theatre, Nashville, Tenn.

2000 Tea House, Viriditas, Cherry Creek, Colo.

1999 Red Hat Shrine, Topeka Public Library, Topeka, Kans.; Scene design and costume arena, Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Gates of the Mountains, American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Collections McDonaugh Art Center, Youngstown, Ohio Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

University of Western Sydney, Australia

Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Local Hitters, Zone Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Love, Chiro Studio and Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Urban Suburban, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

2004 20 Artists, Pi Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Born Again! Modern Madonnas and Contemporary Christs, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Mo.; The Gun and Knife Show, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Frozen Treats, MoMo Studio, Kansas City, Mo.; Stray Show, Chicago, Ill.; You Are Here, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Rare Visions, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Collections Berkowitz, Feldmiller, Stanton, Brandt, Williams & Stueve, Kansas City, Mo. Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Tivoli Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.

16. DAVID FORD (b. 1964) 2001 Charlotte Street Award Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2007 I’m Ready, Review Exhibition Space, Kansas City, Mo. 2006 Gold Standard, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Welcome, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 It’s OK, Gallery HQ, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Memories of an Alternative Past, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 American Homes, Fluxus Gallery, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico 1998 Standard Homes, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 Miedo, Museo Na Bolom, Chiapas, Mexico 1990 La Selva, Museo De Maya, Quintana Roo, Mexico 1988 Twin Gods, Site Specific Warehouse, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Review Studios Group Exhibition, Review Exhibition Space, Kansas City, Mo.; Summer Exhibition, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 2004 Born Again! Modern Madonnas and Contemporary Christs, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Art on the Boat, Navy Pier, Chicago, Ill.; The Gun and Knife Show, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; New American Paintings, Open Studio Press, Boston, Mass.; Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 1999 Perspective: Kansas City, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1998 Pretty Big Show, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1989 10 American Folk Painters, Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, Okla.

Selected Honors and Awards 2005 Review Studios Fund Award, Linda and Brad Nicholson Foundation, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Tanne Foundation Award, Boston, Mass.

Selected Publications Cain, Marcus. “David Ford, Welcome, at LeedyVoulkos Art Center.” Review 8, no.4 (February 2006): 58–60.

Rubinstein, Raphael. Perspective: Kansas City.

Overland Park, Kans.: Johnson County Community College, 1998. Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “David Ford at Dirt.” Art in America, April 2002, 158–59.

Von Ziegesar, Peter. “Kansas City’s West Side Story.” New Art Examiner, November 1990, 31–34.

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17. NATE FORS (b. 1955) 1999 Charlotte Street Award

18. JUSTIN GAINAN (b. 1981) 2006 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1979 BA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Education 2004 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 EVOLution, Dolphin, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 loops, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 infinite jest, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Full Blown, Byron C. Cohen Gallery of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Inflation, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.

1996 GovernMental, Cohen Berkowitz Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 Know Idea, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.; Ornerymental, Dorry Gates Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1992 Einsteins, Sunflowers, Ready Maids, Dorry Gates Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1991 Nate Fors, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Horizons Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Summer Exhibition, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Fantasies + Revivals: Kansas City’s Urban Future, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 A House Is Not a Home, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

2000 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 In the Absence of Color, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Perspective: Kansas City, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1996 Visual Gestures: Abstraction in the Permanent Collection, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 Radcliffe Bailey/Nate Fors/Ken Kelly/Emilio Torti, David Beitzel Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1992 Debut: 1992 (Nate Fors/David Kapp/Jim McShea), Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.

Selected Collections American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Taco Bell Corporation, Los Angeles, Calif.

Selected Publications Anderson. Isabel. “Requisite Readymades.”

Artweek, May 5, 1994, 36.

Muchnic, Suzanne. “Nate Fors, Ruth Bachofner Gallery.” ARTnews, September 1994, 180.

Rubinstein, Raphael. Perspective: Kansas City.

Overland Park, Kans: Johnson County Community College, 1998. Exh. cat.

Scott, Deborah. Nate Fors. Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991.

Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “Nate Fors at Byron Cohen.”

Art in America, January 2000, 124–25.

Von Ziegesar, Peter. “Nate Fors, Dorry Gates Gallery.” New Art Examiner, January 1991, 46.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2004 Drawings and Installations, Lynn Foundation, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 City Fields for Now, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Inaugural Port Side Artist Residency Exhibition, Yellow Warehouse Location, Corpus Christi, Texas; June Group Exhibition, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; KCAI Corporate Partnership Exhibition, McCownGordon Construction, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 November Group Exhibition, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 The Next Wave, Opie Gallery, LeedyVoulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Residencies 2005 Inaugural Port Side Artist Residency, Corpus Christi, Texas Selected Publications Buszek, Maria Elena. “Surface Design Association ‘Hands On’ Conference: Six Exhibitions.” Surface Design Journal 28, no. 3 (Spring 2004): 46-49.

Verbeek-Cowart, Pauline. “What Draws Young People to Fiber.” Fiber Arts 30, no. 2 (September/October 2003): 28–32.

Selected Honors and Awards 2003 lllooppi, commission for Leawood, Kans.

2001 Avenue of the Arts installation toss cited as one of the 23 best public art installations in Art in America 1992 Missouri Visual Artists Biennial Fellowship 1989 National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship 1988 Visual Artist Residency Fellowship, Vermont Studio Colony, Johnson, Vt.

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19. ARCHIE SCOTT GOBBER (b. 1965) 1998 Charlotte Street Award

20. LESTER GOLDMAN (b. 1942–2005) 2001 Charlotte Street Award

21. ELIJAH GOWIN (b. 1967) 2006 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1988 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1966 MFA, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 1964 BFA, Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, Pa.

Education 1996 MFA, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M. 1990 BA, Davidson College, Davidson, N.C.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Ready or Not, Review Exhibition Space, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Mission Accomplish, The Writers Place, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 I’m Archie Scott Gobber and I Approve This Mess, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Archie Scott Gobber Is Not Guilty, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 Don’t Come, Left Bank, Kansas City, Mo. 1992 Archie Scott Gobber, Eric Lindveit, Gallery V, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Lawrence Lithography: 26 Years of Collaboration, Gallery 210, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Mo.; Review Studios Group Exhibition, Review Exhibition Space, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Artists Interrogate: Politics and War, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. 2003 Sex & Chocolate, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Who Cares?, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Paper View, Cohen Berkowitz Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Alternative History, Left Bank, Kansas City, Mo. 1989 I’m No Jack Kennedy, Gallery V, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Honors and Awards 2005 Review Studios Fund Award, Linda and Brad Nicholson Foundation, Kansas City, Mo.; Port Side Residency, Corpus Christi, Texas 2004 Project wall, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 2003 Artist in Residence, Missouri State Fair, Sedalia, Mo. Selected Collections Belger Foundation, Kansas City, Mo. H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Mananna Kistler Beach Museum, Manhattan, Kans.

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

St. Louis University Museum of Art, Mo. Selected Publications Auer, James. “Working Stiffs’ Photos Counter Activists’ Protests.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 26, 2004.

Thorson, Alice. “Archie Scott Gobber at Dolphin.” Art in America, May 2005, 176–77. von Ziegesar, Peter. “Missouri Reviews Archie Scott Gobber, E. Lindveit.” New Art Examiner, October 1992, 37.

———“Report from Kansas City: Art in the Heartland.” Art in America, June 1995, 55.

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Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2003 Boxcar: The Paintings, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Welcome to the Rag Ball, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Recent Paintings, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Wombshot, Grand Arts, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Kabalival, Contemporary Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 1989 55 Gallons of Blue Laughter, Contemporary Art Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Censorship and the Holocaust, Athena on Broadway, Kansas City, Mo. 1987 Otto, Oak Peeler, Bowery Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1985 War Games: Hat and the Egg, Gallery Karl Oskar, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2003 Is /Was, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Space Oddity, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Insite: Constructing the Johnson County Community College Collection, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1997 Group Show, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Installation, Midwest Invitational, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Neb. 1987 Looking at New Work, Rosa Esman Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Works on Paper, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 1979 Artists Choose Artists, University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1977 Six Painters, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Mo. 1971 American Realist Painter, Galleria II Fante di Spade, Rome, Italy Selected Honors and Awards 1989 National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship for Painting 1986 National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Painting 1981 Fellowship, Hand Hollow Foundation Selected Publications Lord, Roberta. Wombshot. Kansas City, Mo.: Grand Arts, 1996. Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “Lester Goldman at Jan Weiner.” Art in America, February 1999, 116–17.

Welcome to the Rag Ball. Kansas City, Mo.: Hammerpress, 2001. Exh. cat.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, Va.; Ellen Curlee Gallery, St. Louis, Mo.; Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, Vt. 2005 Photo Gallery International, Tokyo, Japan 2002 Light Factory, Charlotte, N.C. 2001 Corcoran Museum School of Art, Washington, D.C.; Houston Center for Photography, Houston, Texas; Robert Mann Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2000 Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburg, Pa. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Made in the Shade, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, N.Y.; New4, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Still Live and Stilled Lives, Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2004 Common Ground: Discovering Community in 150 Years of Art, Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.; Contemporary Art from the Hometown of Edgar Snow, Beida University, Beijing, China 2003 Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Rocks and Stones, Eugenio de Almeido Foundation, Evora, Portugal 1999 Some Southern Stories, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, Ill. 1997 Backyards, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, N.Y. Selected Honors and Awards 2000 Fellowship Grant, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburg, Pa. 1998 Light Work Residency Grant, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. Selected Collections Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Ariz.

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Calif.

Michener Museum, Doylestown, Pa. Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas Princeton University Museum of Art, N.J. Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, R.I. Selected Publications Brookman, Philip, ed. Common Ground: Discovering Community in 150 Years of Art. London: Merrell Publishers, 2004, 16.

Calado, Jorge, ed. Rocks and Stones in Photography. Evora, Portugal: IFT Press, 2003. Exh. cat.

Hymnal of Dreams. New York: Robert Mann Gallery, 2001. Exh. cat.

Searls, Alexandria. “Elijah Gowin: Hymnal of Dreams.” Art Papers, May/June 1998, 57.

Stanley, Michael, and David Moos, eds. Do We Think Too Much? I Don't Think We Can Ever Stop: Lonnie Holley: A Twenty-Five Year Survey. Birmingham, UK: Ikon Gallery, 2004. Exh. cat.

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22. TOM GREGG (b. 1959) 2000 Charlotte Street Award

23. MARCIE MILLER GROSS (b. 1958) 2002 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1987 MFA, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

1981 BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I.

Education 1990 MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

1982 BFA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Knots and Unknowns, George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2003 New Paintings, George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2001 New Paintings, George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1999 Apples and Oranges, George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Works by Tom Gregg, Art and Design Gallery, Missouri State University, Springfield, Mo. 1996 Him, Her, and Other Paintings, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Winter Group Exhibition, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.

2004 Peninsula Show, Schlosberg, La. 2002 Invitational Group Exhibition, D’lan Contemporary ArtSpace, Brisbane, Australia 2001 Post Realism, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Dealer’s Choice, Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, Mich.

1998 Art Exchange Show, 2 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 1997 First Street Gallery, N.Y. 1996 Dorry Gates Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Thirty-Eighth Chautauqua National Exhibition, Chautauqua Art Association, Chautauqua, N.Y Selected Honors and Awards 1994 Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship Award 1991 Residency at the Yaddo Colony, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. 1987 The Elizabeth Canfield Hicks Award, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

1984 Residency at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, N.H. Selected Collections American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kansas City, Mo. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. H&R Block, Kansas City, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Harvard University, Boston, Mass.

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Pfizer Corporation, New York, N.Y. Sasktel Corporation, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Marcie Miller Gross: Density, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 foldoverfold, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Recent Works, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Collecting, sorting, dredging, folding …, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; To Fold, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Field Investigations, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Points of Departure: Marcie Miller Gross & Judi Ross, Salina Art Center, Salina, Kans.

1996 Body- Earth Project: Sculpture and Photographs, Zone Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 Marcie Miller Gross, Drawings & Constructions, The Writers Place, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Review Studios Group Exhibition, Review Exhibition Space, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Moving In Moving Out, Flex Storage Systems, Topeka, Kans.; SlopArt, University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls, Iowa 2002 Daum Museum Acquisitions Collection, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. 2001 Poptones, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo.; Space Oddity, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Seventh International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, Manoa Art Gallery, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 1999 Kyoung Ae Cho, Marcie Miller Gross, and Charlene Nemec-Kessel, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, Ill.; Wild Woman Salon, Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Drawing into the ’90s, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas

Selected Collections Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kansas City, Mo. Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. DST Corporation, Kansas City, Mo. George K. Baum and Company, Kansas City, Mo. Investors Fiduciary Trust Company, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Publications Bitterman, A. “A Place Where It Connects: The Art of Marcie Miller Gross.” Review 8, no. 6 (April 2006): 38–43.

Hackman, Kate. “Marcie Miller Gross, Joseph Nease Gallery.” Sculpture, May 2002, 68–69.

Hickman, Pat. “Awarding Talent.” American Craft, April/May 2005, 48–51.

Lustfelt, Heather. “Reviews-Central: Overland Park, Kansas.” Art Papers, March/April 2003, 46–47.

Stern, Karen.“Honorable Mention Award, Environments, Moving In Moving Out.” International Design Annual Design Review 2005, July/August, 2005, 131.

Thorson, Alice. “Marcie Miller Gross at Joseph Nease.” Art in America, June/July 2004, 187.

Selected Honors and Awards 2005 Allied Arts & Craftsmanship Award with el dorado inc., Kansas City/American Institute of Architects, Kansas City, Mo.; Review Studios Fund Award, Linda and Brad Nicholson Foundation, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Lillian Elliott Award for Excellence in Textiles 1994 Ragdale Foundation Artist Residency, Lake Forest, Ill. 1993 Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award

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24. RACHEL HAYES (b. 1977) 2004 Charlotte Street Award

25. ADRIANE HERMAN (b. 1966) 2000 Charlotte Street Award

26. PEREGRINE HONIG (b. 1976) 2000 Charlotte Street Award

Education 2006 MFA, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va. 1999 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1997 MFA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wis. 1988 BA, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

Education 1994–98, attended Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Mixed Baggage, Western Exhibitions, Chicago, Ill.; RG ReSolutions Presents: thinking small, The Map Room, Portland, Maine 2002 Palette Cleanser, Rowe Gallery, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, N.C. 2000 Sampler, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 à la carte, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1998 Mixed Media and Other Recipes, Slop Art Shop, Kansas City, Mo. 1997 Adriane Herman: Works on Paper, Wakeley Gallery, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Ill. 1996 Focus Group: Recent Photographs by Adriane Herman, Etherington Fine Art, Vineyard Haven, Mass.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2007 Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.; Gescheidle, Chicago, Ill. 2006 Whiskers for Prada, Aruba Ballroom, Las Vegas, Nev. 2005 Albocracy, Jet Artworks, Washington, D.C. 2004 Mint Forest Drawings, Gescheidle, Chicago, Ill.; New Work, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Patriot Acts, Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.

2003 Boys and Veils, Dwight Hackett Projects, Santa Fe, N.M. 2000 Alphabeta, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, Wash.

1998 Hopscotch, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Special Exhibitions 2006 In the Studio, ADA Gallery, Richmond, Va.; Overshadow, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va. 2005 Rachel Hayes, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Scriminism, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va. 2003 New Work, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, N.M. 2002 Sheer Suppression, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Constant Chameleon, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 In Practice, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, N.Y.; Pulse: 2006, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, Va. 2005 Come Together, Studio Aiello, Denver, Colo.; Over the Top and Under the Rug, SICA, Long Branch, N.J.; Radius 250, Artspace, Richmond, Va.; Sweet Substitute, California Institute of Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.

2004 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo.; Chromoerotic, FAB Gallery, Richmond, Va.; Looking Glass, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Slanted and Enchanted, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Awards and Residencies 2005 Textile Study Group of New York, Nancy and Harry Koeningsberg Award; Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture 2004 Studio Residency Program, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Roswell Artist in Residence Program, Roswell, N.M. Selected Publications Hackman, Kate. “Formalizing Desire, Suspending the Surface.” Review 4, no.5, (May/June 2002): 41.

Lustfeldt, Heather. “Avenue of the Arts.” Art Papers, September/October 2004, 52–53.— —— “Sheer Suppression.” Art Papers, May/June 2002, 49.

MacMillan, Kyle. “Ingenuity’s in the Weave.”

Denver Post, July 16, 2004.

Shields, Becky. “Lost in Translation.” Style Weekly, May 10, 2006, 33.

Tucker, Joyce. “Artist of the Month.” Vision, August 2003, 5–7.

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Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Biennial, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, Maine; Humor Me, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 2005 Domestic Policy, Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.; Eat Sugar, Spend Money, Newsense Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio; MECA Faculty Exhibition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Maine 2004 Boston Printmakers North American Print Biennial, 808 Gallery, Boston University, Boston, Mass.; She Said, Susan Teller Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2003 Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 2000 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Honors and Awards 2004 Boston Printmakers Award, Boston, Mass.

Selected Collections Adobe Systems, San Francisco, Calif.

American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minn.

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y. Selected Publications Daniel, Jeff. “Consumed.” Saint Louis Dispatch, February 2, 2003.

Fabricant, Florence. “Food Takes a Spin in Political Prints.” New York Times, August 8, 2001.

Krajewski, Sara. “Slop Art: Pump House Regional Arts Center.” New Art Examiner, April 2001, 59–60.

Sutherland, Amy. “Wear This Book (But Return It by Friday).” The New York Times, April 23, 2006.

Thompson, Chris. “The Map Room, Portland, Maine.” New Art Examiner, December 2005/January 2006, 26.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Nova, Chicago, Ill.; Poignant Perceptions, Karolyn Sherwood Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa; Refined, Lyons Wier Ott, New York, N.Y.; Scope New York, N.Y. 2005 Cupcake, Plush Gallery, Dallas, Texas; Draw, Dwight Hackett Projects, Santa Fe, N.M.; Identity-Sexuality-Gender: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Thomas Robertello, Kinsey Institute Gallery, Bloomington, Ind. 2004 Animal Farm, Rocket Projects, Miami, Fla.; National Biennial Watercolor Invitational, Parkland Art Gallery, Parkland College, Champaign, Ill.; The Random and the Ordered: New Prints/2004 Winter, International Print Center, New York, N.Y. 2002 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Honors and Awards 1994 Congressional Art Award, U.S. Congress, San Francisco, Calif.

Selected Collections Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

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Selected Publications Buszek, Maria Elena. Pin Up Grrls. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006: 231–32.

Collins, Tom. “The Buzz is Back.” Albuquerque Journal, April 15, 2005.

Dawson, Jessica. “Peregrine Honig, Drawing Away in Fear.” Washington Post, October 2005.

Lustfeldt, Heather. “Kansas City, Peregrine Honig,” Art Papers , March/April 2002, 49.

Solomon, Charles. “Cartoons Storm the Gallery Gates.” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2004.

Thorson, Alice. “Peregrine Honig at Byron C. Cohen.” Art in America, July 2001, 109.

Wasserman, Krystyna. Book as Art XIV: Temptations. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2002.

Exh. cat.

27. SETH JOHNSON (b. 1979) 2004 Charlotte Street Award Education 2001 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Dead Void Heretic, Cactus Bra Space, San Antonio, Texas 2004 Thanks for Not Being a Zombie, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 The Muscled Calf of Reason among the Caves of Delusional Men, Your Face, Kansas City, Mo.; Tears of a Dude, George Caleb Bingham Gallery, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Scope New York, New York, N.Y.; Whoop Dee Doo, Rocket Projects, Miami, Fla. 2005 Scarab, Lump Gallery, Raleigh, N.C.; Scope Miami, Miami, Fla.; What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Rare Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2004 Born Again! Modern Madonnas and Contemporary Christs, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Mo.2003 Dear Diary, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Out of the Nursery, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Strange Comfort: Sharing Myths in the Midwest, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, Calif.

Selected Publications McGraw, Hesse. What’s the Matter with Kansas?. New York: Rare Gallery, 2005.

Exh. cat.

Peck, Jon, and Jaimie Warren. Whoop Dee Doo: Kansas City’s Big Night on the Town.

Miami, Fla.: Rocket Projects, 2006. Exh. cat.

Robinson, Walter. “Scope Miami.” Artnet.com, December 8, 2004.

Swenbeck, Paul, and Clint Takeda. Scarab.

Raleigh, N.C.: Lump Gallery, 2005. Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “Prime Time Art Scene: KC Artists Are Getting National Profile.” The Kansas City Star, March 13, 2005.

Walworth, Catherine. “Art Capades.” San Antonio Current, June 9, 2005.

28. LEEAH JOO (b. 1971) 2001 Charlotte Street Award

29. TAMMI KENNEDY (b. 1966) 2002 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1996 MFA, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Conn.

1994 BA, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.

Education 2002 MS, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, Mo. 1989 BA, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Vignettes: Paintings by Leeah Joo, DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind.; Window Tales, Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago, Ill. 2003 New Paintings, Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kans.; Recent Works, Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, Kans.

2002 Window Paintings, Dennis Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Kansas Cityscapes, Michael Cross Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Observations from Portugal, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kans.; Paintings from the Attic, Michael Cross Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Fountain Street Paintings, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Conn.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2004 Hung Jury, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, Calif.; Truth or Fiction: Young Korean Overseas Artist Exhibition, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Art Center, Seoul, Korea 2003 Landscape Unlimited, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, Ill. 2002 Gathering Influences, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.; New Talent, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa.; Perceptual Experience: A Decade of Contemporary American Figure Drawing, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Wash.; Urban Nomads, Courtland Art Center, Courtland, Kans.

2001 Small Packages, Wood Street Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Chicago, Ill. 1999 Supermarket 1999, Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas 1998 Women in Visual Arts, Erector Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2003 Head Games, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Artistic Liberty, Stocksdale Gallery of Art, Liberty, Mo. 2004 The Gun and Knife Show, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 2003 You Are Here, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; Winter Invitational, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Subluna, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Artists as Teachers, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, Mo.; A House Is Not a Home, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.; Summer Invitational, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Collections Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Honors and Awards 2006 Pollock/Kranser Grant 2004 George Sugarman Foundation Grant 1996 Helen W. Winternitz Award, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Conn.

Selected Collections Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Artner, Alan G. “Leeah Joo’s Stortytelling Works.” Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2005.

Kim, Young-Jin. “Adventures from Foreign Lands.” Misulsegae, July 2004.

Moon, Teggi. “Six Korean Artists Selected.”

Korea Times (L.A. edition), October 7, 2004.

Lundin, Norman. Perception of Appearance: A Decade of Contemporary American Figure Drawing. Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press and Frye Art Museum, 2002.

Truth and Fiction: Young Korean Overseas Artists. Seoul, Korea: Seoul Art Center and Hangaram Art Museum, 2004. Exh. cat.

Yun-Mee Lee, “Young Artists’ Truth and Fiction.” Herald Media, July 2004.

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30. MAX KEY (b. 1973) 2005 Charlotte Street Award

31. KE-SOOK LEE (b. 1941) 1999 Charlotte Street Award

32. JIM LEEDY (b. 1930) 2003 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1996 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1982 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 1966–67 attended University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 1963 BFA, Seoul National University, South Korea

Education 1959 MA, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.

1958 MFA, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill. 1957 BFA, Richmond Professional Institute, College of William and Mary (now Virginia Commonwealth University), Richmond, Va.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Max Key and Chris Teasley, Dot Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 Max Key, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Max Key, Graphic by Nature D.E.N., Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Ambient Structures, Red Chair Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2004 Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 2003 10-10, West Bottoms 1321 W. Thirteenth Terrace, Kansas City, Mo.; You Are Here, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Art for the Masses, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Filtered: An Exhibit of Kansas City Art, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo.; The Vegas Show, El Torreon, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Poll, Old Post Office Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Multimedia Group Show, M Studio/Light Box Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Collections Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Miller, Andrew. “To the Max: The Fahrenheit Gallery Gets all Key-ed Up.” The Pitch, May 20–26, 2005.

Thorson, Alice. “Painting Nature in His Own Images: Max Key’s Multipatterned Works are ‘Living Wallpaper.’” The Kansas City Star, July 24, 2005.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2007 George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2005 Collective Stitching, George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Seed Pods, George Billis Gallery LA, Los Angeles, Calif.

2004 Notes from the Garden, The Writers Place, Kansas City, Mo.; Stitches in her Garden, Snyderman Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa. 2003 Sowing Seeds, George Billis Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2002 Galerie Lefor Openo, Paris, France 2001 Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Celsius Smith Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Lawrence Gallery, Rosemont College, Pa. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Fifth International Fiber Biennial, Synderman-Works Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa.; Threads of Memory, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Project, Long Island City, N.Y. 2005 Affordable Art Fair, New York, N.Y.;Fiber: A New World View, National Craft Gallery of Ireland, Kilkenny, Irish Republic.

2004 SOFA, New York, N.Y; Works on Paper & Works of Paper, Snyderman Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa. 2003 Round, George Billis Gallery, New York.

Selected Honors and Awards 2004 Fellowship, Kansas Artists Commission Individual Artist Grant, Kans.

2003 First Place in New Media and Installations, Fourth Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy Selected Collections American Century, Kansas City, Mo. Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Kansas City, Mo. H&R Block, Kansas City, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Japanese Consulate General, Kansas City, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Publications Ahn, Yoohoi. “Art in Bloom with ‘Korean Woman’s Daily Life.’” Los Angeles Joongang Daily, November 5, 2005.

Rice, Robin. She Waits in Her Garden.

Philadelphia, Pa.: Rosemont College, 2000.

Thorson, Alice. “Ke-Sook Lee at Dolphin.” Art in America, January 2002, 116.

Weltge, Sigrid Worthmann. “Ke-Sook Lee between Cultures and Generations.”

American Craft, December 2004/Jannuary 2005, 32–35.

Wilfong, Tara N. “Impressive Showing.” Art & Antiques, March 2004, 39.

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Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 2004 Weisspollack Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2003 Gallery 465, Sedona, Ariz.; Oklahoma State University Gallery, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Okla.

2001 Jim Leedy: Artist across Boundaries, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Wis. 2000 Jim Leedy: New Paintings, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; War: The Earth Lies Screaming, Grand Arts, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Jim Leedy: Crossing Boundaries, a Retrospective, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. 1997 International Cultural Museum, Himeiji, Japan 1993 Clay People, National Academy of Art and Design, Bergen, Norway Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Beth Allison Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 At That Moment I Was an Artist, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, Md.; Export China, Centerstage, Baltimore, Md.; Taste of Master, International Ceramic Fair, Jingdezhen, China 2004 Move, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minn.; Raw, Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe, N.M.; SOFA, New York, N.Y. 2003 Now & Now, Second World Ceramic Biennale, Inchon, Korea; SOFA, Chicago, Ill.; Standing Room Only, Sixtieth Scripps Ceramic Annual, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Claremont, Calif.

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Selected Public Commissions 2005 Large-scale ceramic fountain sculpture, Sanbao-Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Sanbao, Jiangxi Province, P.R. China; Tozan Tea Garden sculpture, University of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Ariz.

2004 Millennium Wall, Jingdezhen Porcelain Millennium Celebration, Sanbao-Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Sanbao, Jianxi Province, P.R. China 2001 Large-scale ceramic sculpture, Taipei County Yingko Ceramics Museum, Yingko, Taipei County, Taiwan 1992 Ceramic Mural and Column Project, Works Festival, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Wichita Art Center Mural, Wichita Art Center, Wichita, Kans.

1988 Earth, Wind, Fire, Sky Power, Himeiji International Museum, Himeiji, Japan 1987 As the Phoenix Rises from Its Own Ashes, So Can Man, Pori International Jazz Festival, Pori, Finland 1985 Sky Art, Lubbock, Texas Selected Collections Arabia Museum, Helsinki, Finland Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. Himeiji International Museum, Himeiji, Japan J. B. Speed Museum of Art, Louisville, Ky. Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, Texas Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Calif.

Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minn.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, Calif.

Taipei County Yingko Ceramics Museum, Yingko, Taipei County, Taiwan Selected Publications Catto, Patricia, and Michael Cadieux. “Jim Leedy: the Re-enchantment of Clay.”

Ceramics Monthly, February 1995, 57–60.

Kangas, Matthew. Jim Leedy, Artist across Boundaries. Kansas City: Kansas City Art Institute, 2000.

———“Jim Leedy: Prehistoric Modern.”

American Craft, June/July 1990, 32–39.

NCECA: Clay National 1991. Tempe, Ariz.: NCECA, 1991.

Peebles, Debra. “The Bad Boys of Clay.”

Ceramics Monthly, December 1994, 10.

Thorson, Alice. “Jim Leedy at Grand Arts.” Art in America, July 2000, 116.

33. ANNE LINDBERG (b. 1962) 1998 Charlotte Street Award

34. ART MILLER (b. 1961) 2003 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1988 MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

1985 BFA, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

Education 1983 BFA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 bird/cloud, Dennos Museum, Northeastern Michigan State University, Traverse City, Mich.; Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 air/mass, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb.; silences, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 lineage, Meadows Gallery, University of Texas, Tyler, Texas 1999 land/lines, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 of freckles, Moreau Galleries, Saint Mary’s College, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind. 1990 built of the sky, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, Ill. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Decelerate, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.; From the Ground Up, Linda Ross Contemporary at PF Galleries, Clawson, Mich.

2005 Black and White, Linda Ross Contemporary at Next Step Studio, Ferndale, Mich.; FALA, Tucson, Ariz.

2003 Going Forward, Sybaris Gallery, Royal, Oak, Mich.

2002 Awakenings, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. 2001 Small Stone, Plaza Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2000 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo; Pertaining to Line, Synderman Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa. Selected Collections Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, Mich.

H&R Block, Kansas City, Mo. International Collection, Aichi Shibori Research & Study Archive, Nagoya, Japan Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Mitsubishi Corporation, Detroit, Mich.

Niwako Kimono Company, Nagoya, Japan State of Iowa Art in Buildings Program, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Habana Series, ATM Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1999 Art Miller/Photographs, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2002 Summarize/Summer Eyes, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Full Frontal, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Selected Photographs: The Permanent Collection at Johnson County Community College, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1998 KRATES Traveling Exhibition, Salina Art Center, Salina, Kans.

1997 Kansas Triennial, Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kans.

1996 River Market Regional Exhibition, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Photospiva ’93, Spiva Art Center, Joplin, Mo. 1988 New Landscapes 1985–1988, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. Selected Collections American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Corporate Communication Group, Overland Park, Kans.

DST Corporation, Kansas City, Mo. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Kansas City Municipal Art Commission, Mo. Spiva Art Center, Joplin, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Aletti, Vince. “Photo: Art Miller.” The Village Voice, April 13–19, 2005.

Holiday, Frank. “Cowpokes after Hours.” Gay City News, April 28–May 4, 2005.

Kennerley, David. “A Room with a View.”

Genre, March 2005, 87.

Selected Publications Brown, Tim. “Kemper East Gallery Opening with ‘flock.’” Des Moines Register, July 4, 2004.

Dunbar, Elizabeth. Decelerate. Kansas City, Mo.: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005. Exh. cat.

Hackman, Kate. Awakenings. Sedalia, Mo.: Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002.

Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “Deliberate Deceleration.” The Kansas City Star, January 8, 2006.

Wallace, Lori. “Avenue for the Arts Foundation.” Sculpture Magazine, January/February 2001, 14–5.

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35. DEAN MITCHELL (b. 1957) 2003 Charlotte Street Award

37. WILBUR NIEWALD (b. 1925) 1999 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1994 MFA, Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio 1980 BFA, Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio

Education 1953 MFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 1949 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Bryant Galleries of New Orleans, La. 2005 Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Miss.

2004 American Jazz Museum, Kansas City, Mo.; Gadsden Arts Center, Quincy, Fla. 1999 Strecker Gallery, Manhattan, Kans.; Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, Old Lyme, Conn.

1998 Margaret Harwell Art Museum, Poplar Bluff, Mo.; National Academy 173rd Annual, New York, N.Y. 1997 Berger Sandzen Memorial Gallery, Lindsborg, Kans.

1994 Lemoyne Art Foundation, Tallahassee, Fla.; Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, Ala. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Masters of the American West, Autry National Center, Los Angeles, Calif.; Southern Watercolor Society Exhibition, Cultural Arts Center, Glen Allen, Va. 2002 Black Romantic, Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, N.Y.; Random Acts of Beauty, Foothills Art Center, Golden, Colo.

1999 American Art at the Brink of the Twentyfirst Century: Outward Bound, Meridan International Center, Washington, D.C. 1996 Watermarks, Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kans.

1994 Churches and Symbols of Community, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, N.M. 1992 Beyond the Innocence, African American Invitational, St. Louis Artist Guild, St. Louis, Mo.; People, Places, Things: An African American Perspective, Columbus Museum of Fine Art, Columbus, Ohio Selected Honors and Awards 1998 Gold Medal, American Watercolor Society 131st Annual Exhibition, New York, N.Y. 1993 Gold Medal, Allied Artist of America 82nd Annual Exhibition, New York, N.Y. 1992 Newington Award Best Painting, American Artist Professional League Sixthfourth Grand National Exhibit, New York, N.Y. 1990 Gold Medal, Watermedia, Allied Artist of America Seventy-ninth Annual Exhibition, New York, N.Y. 1981 First Prize, T. H. Saunders International Artist in Watercolor Competition, London, England

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Selected Collections Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Ark. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. The King Center, Atlanta, Ga. Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, Kans.

Mississippi Museum of Art , Jackson, Miss.

National Parks Foundation, Washington, D.C. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Sears, Chicago, Ill. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Xerox Corporation, Columbus, Ohio Selected Publications Berk Jiminez, Jill. Backbone: Dean Mitchell Images of African American Men. Jackson, Miss.: Mississippi Museum of Art, 2005.

Exh. cat.

The Legacy of Achievement. Film. Produced by Joan Holman. Plymouth, Minn.: Joan Holman Production, 1993.

Mason, Marilynne. “How Dignity Colors a Canvas.” Christian Science Monitor, April 12, 1993, 16–17.

The Living Canvas. Film. Produced by Danny Schechter. New York: Global Vision, 1993.

36. MILES NEIDINGER (b. 1976) 2005 Charlotte Street Award Education 2000 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2004 Trajectones, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; We Are Exquisitely Passionate, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Disindistinguish, Your Face, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 What’s the Matter with Kansas? Rare Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2004 Moving In Moving Out, Flex Storage Systems, Topeka, Kans.; Ungood, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Flexinestraw, Cochise College, Sierra Vista, Ariz.

2002 Poptones, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Window installation, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. 2001 Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 1995 Dorry Gates Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; New York Studio School, New York, N.Y. 1992 Retrospective exhibition, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery at KCAI, Kansas City, Mo. 1987 Ingber Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1969 Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. 1967 Grand Central Moderns, New York, N.Y. 1966 Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 National Academy of Design, New York, N.Y. 2003 A Fine Line: Drawings by National Academicians, National Academy of Design, New York, N.Y. 2001 Serial Thinking, a traveling exhibition, Zeuxis, New York, N.Y. 1994 Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1990 The Artist and the Land, Patrick King Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, Ind.; Objects Observed: Contemporary Still Life, Gallery Henoch, New York, N.Y. 1987 Works on Paper, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 1985 Survival of the Fittest, Ingber Gallery, New York, N.Y. 1982 The Artists’ Choice, Swain School of Design, New Bedford, Mass.

Selected Honor and Awards 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, New York, N.Y. 1994 Elected to National Academy of Design, New York, N.Y. 1988 Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, College Art Association of America 1972 Artist in Residence, Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz.

Selected Collections Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. Commerce Bancshares, Kansas City, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. H&R Block, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y. National Academy of Design, New York, N.Y. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. UMB, Kansas City, Mo.

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38. JAY NORTON (b. 1968) 2004 Charlotte Street Award

39. MICHAEL REES 1999 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1994 JD, University of Kansas School of Law, Lawrence, Kans.

1991 BA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Education 1989 MFA, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

1982 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Raze: a declaration of independence, MoMo Studio, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 something bad is about to happen, MoMo Studio, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Tetanus: Pretty Nightmares, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Born Again! Modern Madonnas and Contemporary Christs, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Frozen Treats, MoMo Studio, Kansas City, Mo.; Winter Invitational, Telephonebooth Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Art for the Masses, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Artpoint, Art Basel Miami, Miami, Fla.; Stray Show, Chicago, Ill. 2001 No Sweat, The Late Show Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Post No Realism, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Publications Braverman, Rebecca. “Burning Man.” The Pitch, June 30–July 6, 2005, 18.

Hackman, Kate.“Making Art That Reads Like a News Bulletin.” Review 2, no. 11 (September 1999): 17.

Lustfeldt, Heather. “Disparity at Dirt Gallery.”

Review 3, no. 5 (March 2001): 37.

Trafton, Robin. “Question Realism.” The Kansas City Star, March 2, 2001.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Putto 2x2x4, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Putto 4 over 4 (1/3), MARTa Museum, Herford, Germany; Putto 4 over 4 (2/3), DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Mass.; Symbolic Logic: The Sculpture of Michael Rees, Panorama Art, Koln, West Germany 2004 Large and Moving, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Conn.

2003 Sculpture: Large, Small and Moving, Bitforms Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2002 Project room, Gorney Bravin + Lee, New York, N.Y.; ten, Universal Concepts Unlimited, New York, N.Y. 2000 Artificial Sculpture v.5, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 1999 Artificial Sculpture, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 The Hedonistic Imperative, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, Texas 2005 Group Exhibition, Bitforms Gallery, Art Koln, Germany; More Better Future, Reinberger Gallery, Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio; Sculptural Information, Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, Calif.; Unrelated, Artists Space, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. 2004 The Domino Effect, Santa Fe Art Institute, N.M.; Group Exhibition, Silver Mine Arts Space, New Canaan, Conn.

2001 BitStreams, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y. 1995 The 1995 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y.

Selected Collections Edelman Foundation, Lausanne, Switzerland Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Pembroke Hill School, Kansas City, Mo. The Science Museum, London, England Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y. Selected Publications Artificial Sculpture. St. Louis, Mo.: Forum for Contemporary Art, 1999. CD-ROM exh. cat.

Cotter, Holland. “Art in Review: Dead Fit Beauty.” The New York Times, February 28, 1997.

Denson, G. Roger. “Spotlight Michael Rees.”

Flash Art, October 1991, 136.

Dudek, Peter. Dead Fit Beauty. New York: Hunter College Gallery of Art, 1997.

Exh. cat.

Fifield, George. “Michael Rees, A Diagram of Forces.” Sculpture, September 2004, 34–39.

Jana, Reena. “Streetcred/Book.” Wired, September 2001, 164.

Kertiss, Klauss. 1995 Biennial Exhibition. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995. Exh. cat.

Nahas, Dominique. “Michael Rees.” New Art Examiner, April 1998, 49–50.

Paul, Christiane. Digital Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003.

Pollack, Barbara, “Back to the Future with ‘BitStreams.’” Art in America, September 2001, 60–63.

Rinder, Larry. BitSteams. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2001. Exh. cat.

Selected Honors and Awards 2001 Creative Capital Grant, New York, N.Y. 1999 National Endowment for the Arts for the exhibition Artificial Sculpture 1989 Schickle Collingswood Award, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

1983–84 Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Dusseldorf, Germany

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40. DONALD ROSS, a.k.a. SCRIBE (b. 1975) 2003 Charlotte Street Award

41. JUDI ROSS (b. 1954) 1998 Charlotte Street Award

42. WARREN ROSSER (b. 1942) 2000 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1993–94 attended Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1995 MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

1991 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1965 NDD, Cardiff College of Art, South Wales attended Goldsmiths College, University of London

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 judiross: Aciano, Difusión y Divulgación Galería, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico 2005 Aciano–judiross, Galería Punto y Línea, Arte Contemporáneo, Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico; How Does Your Garden Grow?

Manhattan Art Center, Manhattan, Kans.

2000 judiross, Willard Gallery, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kans.; Presence/ Present, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 judiross, SUA Gallery, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

1997 Points of Departure: Marcie Miller Gross & Judi Ross, Salina Art Center, Salina, Kans.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Hide and Seek, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, Mo. 2004 To Be Continued, South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, S.D. 2003 Lucy Series, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Parade: Parallel Tracts, University of Leeds, Leeds, England 2001 Counterpoint, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.; Repeat Offender, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Mo. 2000 Alternate Tracking, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Neb.; Hybrid View, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Reading between the Lines at the Petting Zoo, Cube at Beco, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Like Minded, Linda Schwartz Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio 2002 Balance and Flow, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

2000 Profetik Postmen, Red Chair Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 DF Idiots on Parade, PowerHouse Factories, Jim Amann Gallery, Covington, Ky.; RedLetter, Red Letter 1, Miami, Fla. 2004 Art Chicago, Linda Schwartz Gallery, Chicago, Ill.; Creatures of Habit, Embryo Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio 2003 Bomb Pop, C-Pop Gallery, Detroit, Mich.; Depth Funnel, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 The Body in Fiber, Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Ill. 2005 Exposición Colectivo de Obra Gráfica, Galería Punto y Línea, Arte Contemporáneo, Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico 2003 Viewpoint: Works by Illinois and Missouri Textile Faculty, William & Florence Schmidt Art Center, Southwestern Illinois College, Belleville, Ill. 2002 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 en response, The Writers Place, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 4Tangents, alternative art space, el dorado inc., Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Cranbrook Academy of Art, John Wilson Center Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Material Poetry, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.

Selected Collections Curry Association Management, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. I.F.T.C./State Bank, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Publications Amidon, Catherine S. “Is There Still a Place for Fiber Arts?” Fiberarts, November/ December 1997.

Cascos Hernandez, Pedro. “Una instalación que respire.” Imparcial, el mejor diario de Oaxaca, July 11, 2005.

Hackman, Kate. Awakenings. Sedalia, Mo.: Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002.

Exh. cat.

Hardy, Saralyn Reece. Points of Departure: New Work. Salina, Kans.: Salina Art Center, 2000. Exh. cat.

Johnston, Roy. The Collection of George and Carmen N’Namdi: Selected Works.

Ypsilanti, Mich: Ford Gallery, 1999. Exh. cat.

Newport, Mark. Material Poetry, Minneapolis, Minn: University of Minnesota, 1995.

Exh. cat.

Rau, David. Intersections and Interstices, Project in Pontiac. Bloomfield Hills, Mich.: Cranbrook Museum, 1995. Exh. cat.

158

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Large Scale Abstraction, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. 2003 Lawrence Lithography, Paula Brown Gallery, Toledo, Ohio; Progressive Proof, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Exhibition, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich.

2002 Hibrida Exhibition, Bradford City Museum, Bradford, England; Subluna, Shaw Hoftra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Universal Abstraction 2000, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 The Language of Abstraction, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kans.; Mental, Visual, Manual, University of Wisconsin, Eau Clair, Wis.; Vital Heat, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, S.D. 1992 Missouri Visual Artists Biennial Traveling Exhibition, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Mo., and Gallery Center of Contemporary Arts, St. Louis, Mo. 1990 Midlands Invitational 1990: Painting and Sculpture, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Neb. Selected Commissions 2002 SLIPPAGE, art-music collaboration with Dwight Frizzell and newEar, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Mo. 1992 Arrival of the Travelers, Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission One Percent for Art program, Kansas City, Mo. 1980 KCFD, 2039 Hardesty fire station, Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission One Percent for Art program Kansas City, Mo.

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Selected Collections Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa Edwin A. Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kans.

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Neb. Memorial Union Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. National Arts Council of the United Kingdom, London, United Kingdom National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, South Wales Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Osaka University, Osaka, Japan Sheldon Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. Welsh Arts Council, Cardiff, South Wales Selected Publications Cateforis, David. To Be Continued. Brookings, S.D.: South Dakota Art Museum, 2004.

Exh. cat.

Fanning, Leesa. “Warren Rosser.” New Art Examiner, December 1999, 58.

Fitzgerald, Shannon. Repeat Offender.

St Louis, Mo.: Forum for Contemporary Art, 2002. Exh. cat.

Moos, David, and Dan O’Kane. Alternative Tracking. Omaha, Neb.: Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, 2000. Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “Warren Rosser at Jan Weiner.” Art in America, March 2000, 136.

43. ERIC SALL (b. 1976) 2001 Charlotte Street Award

44. JUDITH SANAZARO 1998 Charlotte Street Award

Education 2006 MFA, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va. 1999 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. attended School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ill.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Darkish, ATM Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Light Pollution, Peeler Art Center, Greencastle, Ind. 2005 New Paintings, ADA Gallery, Richmond, Va.; The State I Am In, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 The RAIR Paintings, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, N.M.; Something amidst Nothing, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 More Real than Real, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Preview in Three Parts: Part III Mobile Unit and Other Movable Part, Marion Arts Building, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 New Order, Jeanne d’Arc Building, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 s p a c i n g, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 prima facie, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1994 New Work, KC SITE Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Judith Sanazaro, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 ATM Art Fair, ATM Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Summer Group Show, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 NADA Art Fair, ATM Gallery, Ice Palace Film Studios, Miami, Fla.; From The Root to the Fruit, Alona Kagan Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Y-Topia, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Chromo-Erotic, FAB Gallery, Richmond, Va. 2003 Is/Was, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 A House Is Not a Home, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.; Space Oddity, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2002 Floorlength, Faculty Show, Kansas City Art Institute, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 2001 Space Oddity, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Karma, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1997 Group Show, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Four Year Anniversary Show, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 4 Men 4 Women, David Levik Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Honors and Awards 2006 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Program Award, Richmond, Va. 2004 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant Program Award, New York, N.Y. 2003 Studio Residency Program, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Roswell, N.M.

Selected Publications Hackman, Kate. “The Spaces in Between.” The Kansas City Star, February 8, 2002.

Thorson, Alice. “The Beauty of Abstract Angst.” The Kansas City Star, March 31, 2000.

Selected Collections Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, N.M. Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Publications Lustfeldt, Heather. “A House Is Not a Home.”

Art Papers, May/June, 2001, ———“Visual Play in the Paintings of Eric Sall.” Review 3, no. 2 (December 2000): 34.

Thorson, Alice. “Art Attack: Five Artists You Should Know About.” The Kansas City Star, November 17, 2000.

———“Color Explosion.” The Kansas City Star, September 28, 2005.

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45. MARK SCHWEIGER, a.k.a. GEAR (b. 1968) 2003 Charlotte Street Award

46. MICHAEL SINCLAIR (b. 1952) 1999 Charlotte Street Award

47. JESSE SMALL (b. 1974) 2000 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1993 attended Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 1988–89 attended Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley, Kansas City, Mo.

Education 1974 BA, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Ill.

Education 2005 MFA, Alfred University, Alfred, N.Y 1997 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Photographs, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Not Only You, I Art Bank, Shenzhen, China 2005 The Freaks Come Out at Night, PWS Experimental Gallery, Jingdezhen, China; In Country, Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred, N.Y. 2004 After the Heat, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Duds, 1305 Union Street, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Flotillas, 1305 Union Street, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 May Day, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1997 Standard Issues, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2004 Monkey Text, Cube at Beco, Kansas City, Mo.; New Theatre Restaurant, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Balance and Flow, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

2000 Profetik Postmen, Red Chair Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Step into the Arena, Green Door Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Stylebiters Part II, Creative Arts Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Terminal Groove Expo, Springfield, Mo. 2005 Attention Orange, Troy Swangstu and Alex Whitney Studio, Kansas City, Mo.; Fulcrum, The Gild, New York, N.Y.; History in the Making, Part II, Aurora Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Newrotica, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Stylebiters, The Brick, Kansas City, Mo.; Tetanus, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Murals 2006 Foxx Equipment Company, Kansas City, Mo.; Smoky Hill River Festival, Salina, Kans.

2005 The Mercy Seat, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 City Nightclub, St. Joseph, Mo. 2000 Science City at Union Station, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Salvation Army Youth Center, Garden City, Kans.

1998 Mexicali Alley, Olathe, Kans.

1997 AKKA Karate Dojo, Kansas City, Mo.; Zowie, Kansas City, Mo. 1996 Bartle Hall Convention Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Evolution Audio, Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Big Dude’s Music City, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 The Metropolis View, Art Directors Club, New York, N.Y. 2005 What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Rare Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2004 Contemporary Photography from the Hometown of Edgar Snow, Beida University, Beijing, China; Forwarding Address, Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Photo Show, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Beyond Bounds, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

2001 Pierogi Flat Files, Pierogi 2000 Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y. 2000 Photo Forum 2000, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Project wall, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Selected Collections Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, Kansas City, Mo. CBIZ Corporation, Kansas City, Mo. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus PC, Kansas City, Mo. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, Kansas City, Mo. Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, Kansas City, Mo. Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Publications Hall, Peter. “Sheet Metal Magicians.”

Metropolis, November 2005, 113–19.

McGraw, Hesse. “Mega-Life in the Midwest.”

Dots and Quotes 1, 1–6.

Nobel, Philip. “Goodbye Columbus.”

Metropolis¸ July 2006, 100.

“Portfolio: Downtown Kansas City.” Review: Urban Planning and Architectural Annual, 2005, 48–59.

Rich, Motoko. “Saying Goodbye to California Sun, Hello Midwest.” The New York Times, November 3, 2005.

160

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Bourgeois Reservation, secret studio, Jingdezhen, China 2005 Grand Opening, Harvey-Meadows Gallery, Aspen, Colo.; Itchy Tickle, c2 Gallery, Shanghai, China 2004 Contemplating War, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

2003 Opposite Attraction, Untitled Gallery, Oklahoma City, Okla.

2002 Curator’s Choice, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.; Invitational Ceramics Show, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo.; Territorial, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Rare Visions, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Commissions 2005 Bird Screen, Riverfront Heritage Trail, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Bollards, McAllen, Texas; Shadow, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. Selected Collections Alfred University, Alfred, N.Y. Belger Cartage Service, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Corporate Communications Group, Overland Park, Kans.

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

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48. BRIDGET STEWART (b. 1958) 1999 Charlotte Street Award

49. CRAIG SUBLER (b. 1948) 2005 Charlotte Street Award

50. KATI TOIVANEN (b. 1964) 2001 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1988 MFA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 1986 MA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 1982 BAE, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

1981 BFA, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Education 1975 MFA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 1974 MA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 1972 BFA, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio

Education 1992 MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ill. 1988 BFA, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Craig Subler: One-Person Exhibition of Paintings, Missouri Western State University Gallery of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. 2004 Selections from the Enola Gay Suite, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. 2003 Urban Terrorist/Sub-urban Terrorism, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Craig Subler: New Work, Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1991 New Icons. Prints and Drawings by Craig Subler, Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kans.

1988 Trouble in the Garden, Prints by Craig Subler, Kansas City Artists Coalition. Kansas City, Mo. 1981 Gallery 333, Dayton, Ohio 1979 Blind Date, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2003 Connect the Dots: A Decade of Making Memories, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo.; First Rite Games, Gallery 1912, Emory & Henry College, Emory, Va.; Whirl, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Living Dolls, Stocksdale Gallery of Art, William Jewell College, Liberty, Mo. 1999 Woven Treasures, FotoCircle Gallery, Seattle, Wash.

1996 Kati Toivanen, Zone Gallery, Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio 1995 Riddles Revealed, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, Ill. 1989 Photomontages, Atwood Gallery, Worcester, Mass.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Perilous Peridea, Billington Library, Overland Park, Kans.

2003 Stewart/Thompson, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

2000 Collateral Damage, Massman Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Both Are Naked: None Are Safe, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Bridget Stewart: Mixed Media, Campanella Gallery, Park University, Parkville, Mo. 1996 Fragments, Carnegie Arts Center, Leavenworth, Kans.

1995 Observances, Parkville Gallery, Parkville, Mo.; Refuge/Refugee, Jacqueline B. Charno Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Bridget Stewart: Current Works, Gallery at St. Mary’s, Leavenworth, Kans.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Duets: a Collaboration of Artists and Writers, University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2005 American Prints in Troubled Times, American University and Opera Metro House Gallery, Cairo, Egypt; Goodbye to Hollwood, Bellevue University Gallery, Bellevue, Neb. 2004 Abstract 8, Merriam Gallery, Merriam, Kans.

2003 Civil Rights/Human Rights, Kim Kirk Arts, Richmond, Va. 2001 Road Show, St. Louis Art Guild, St. Louis, Mo. Selected Collections American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Consulate of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand Kansas City Power and Light, Kansas City, Mo. Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

Stowers Institute of Medical Research, Kansas City, Mo. University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kans.

Selected Publications Goddard, Stephen, ed. Handprint Press Tenth Anniversary Portfolio. Lawrence, Kans.: UMKC Press and HandPrint Press, 2003.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 The Printed Image, Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. 2004 Third Lessedra World Art Print Annual, Sofia, Bulgaria 2003 Venice, Gallery 226, Venice, Italy 1999 Baltimore Museum Print Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md. 1998 Inked in Time, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 1997 Washington Printmakers 1997, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 1994 52nd Annual Juried Exhibition, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa 1984 Manhattan National Print, Monotype and Relief Prints, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum, Manhattan, Kans.

1982 Invitational, Noho Gallery, New York City, N.Y. Selected Collections Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kans.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Kansas City, Mo. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa Washington University Museum of Art, St. Louis, Mo.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Conditions of Sound, Boley, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Body Politic, Fotofiesta, Medellin, Colombia, South America; Double-Clicks to DPI: Digital Media in Contemporary Art, Dowd Fine Arts Gallery, State University of New York College, Cortland, N.Y. 2002 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo.; Out of the Nursery, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Musings: Contemporizing Tradition, Gallery 312, Chicago, Ill. 2000 Invitational Group: Game Show, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Wash.; Sitegeist, Porter Troupe Gallery, San Diego, Calif.

1998 Photography’s Multiple Roles: Art, Document, Market, Science, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Ill. 1997 Techno-Seduction, Cooper Union, New York, N.Y 1996 ADA: Women in Technology, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, Ill. Selected Collections Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. The Artists’ Association of Finland, Helsinki, Finland Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Ill. Refco Group, Ltd. Collection, Chicago, Ill. The State of Finland Selected Publications Fox, Catherine. “The Computer as Canvas: Digital Art Comes of Age in Agnes Scott Show.” Atlanta Journal, March 1999.

Mullin, Diane. “ADA: Women in Technology.”

New Art Examiner, May 1996, 46–47.

Photography’s Multiple Roles: Art, Document, Market, Science. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 1998. Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. Art in America, January 2004, 111.

Todd-Raque, Susan. Review. Art Papers, July/August 1999, 37–38.

“Woven Treasures.” Kuva-Visuaalisen Kulttuurin Lehti, May/June 1998, cover, 35–39.

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51. MAY TVEIT (b.1966) 2002 Charlotte Street Award

52. SEAN WARD (b. 1975) 2005 Charlotte Street Award

54. MARY WESSEL (b. 1952) 1997 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1991 Masters of Industrial Design, Domus Academy, Milan, Italy 1989 BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I.

Education 2000 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 1992 MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. 1976 MA, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1974 BA, Rutgers University, Douglass College, New Brusnwick, N.J.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2004 united/divided, United Metal Spinning Company, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 retail therapy, Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, Kans.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Globalspeak, Review Exhibition Space, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Fantasies and Revivals: Kansas City’s Urban Future, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; A Supermarket of Fine Art, UNI Gallery of Art, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa 2003 Big Works, Arts Incubator, Kansas City, Mo.; River Market Regional Exhibition, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Big and Beautiful, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.; Three Ring Circus: A Curatorial Spectacle, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2001 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo.; Newality, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Publications McGraw, Hesse. “America After: Bargaining for Meaning.” Review 4, no. 4 (March/April 2002): 30–31.

Thorson, Alice. “May Tveit at Gallery at Village Shalom.” Art in America, November 2002, 164–65.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Rare Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2000 Art Is Not My Friend, It Hurts Sean Ward’s Feelings, Kelvin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Beth Allison Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Scope New York, New York, N.Y.; Whoop Dee Doo, Rocket Projects, Miami, Fla. 2005 Fat Monks Baby Rabbits, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo.; Sloppy Slobbering Monster, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; What Is Your Conceptual Continuity?, Rare Gallery, New York, N.Y.; What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Rare Gallery, New York, N.Y. 2004 Make Your Own Fun, Guild and Greyshkul, New York, N.Y.; Thanks for Not Being a Zombie, Paragraph, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; We Are Exquisitely Passionate, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Tears of a Dude, George Caleb Bingham Gallery, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.

53. DAVIN WATNE (b.1972) 2002 Charlotte Street Award Education 1994 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo. Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 1998 Current Works, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1993 Faces on the Street, Broadway Café, Kansas City, Mo.; Street Portraits, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 CannonBall Press, Mad Art, St. Louis, Mo.; Decentralizing the Center, thirtyninehotel, Honolulu, Hawaii, and The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.; I-70 Series, Hunt Gallery, St. Louis, Mo. 2004 Art Point, Miami Basel, Miami, Fla.; Dangerous Art, New Visions Gallery, Salt Lake City, Utah; The Gun and Knife Show, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Kansas City Flat Files, H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.; Stray Show, Chicago Ill.; White, Mikorp Gallery, San Francisco, Calif.

2001 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo.; Phenomena: Where Art and Science Converge, Kansas City, Mo.; Poptones, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Commissions 2005 Uplifted Arms, Art in the Loop, Public Art Commission for Downtown Kansas City, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Collections Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

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Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2003 David Hilliard + Mary Wessel, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2000 Domestic Terror: Photographs by Mary Wessel, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind. 1992 Flesh to Bone, University of MissouriKansas City Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Group Exhibitions 2004 Refresh Print Biennial 1, Lawton Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wis. 2003 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Body Politic, Delaware Center for the Creative Arts, Wilmington, Del.; ColorLove, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.; Photorama: Survey of Contemporary Photography, Trish Higgins Fine Art, Wichita, Kans.

2001 Poptones, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo.; Second International Photography and Digital Image Biennial Exhibition, Wellington B. Gray Gallery, East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C.; Stare: Photographic Survey, Mesa Contemporary Arts, Mesa, Ariz.; Works on Paper 2001: Recent Drawings, Prints and Photographs, Louisiana State University Union Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, La. 2000 Traveling Exhibitions Program, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Ariz.

1999 Missouri #1 x 3, Gallery FAB, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Mo.; Toledo Friends of Photography Fifth Biannual Exhibition, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio Selected Honors and Awards 2001 Award of Excellence, Photographic Processes III, Period Gallery, Omaha, Neb. 1976 Andrew Mellon Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. Selected Collections American Century Investments, Kansas City, Mo. Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kans.

Sprint Nextel Art Collection, Overland Park, Kans.

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55. JAMES WOODFILL (b. 1958) 2000 Charlotte Street Award

56. AARON WRINKLE (b. 1978) 2006 Charlotte Street Award

Education 1980 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Education 2004 BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2006 Approximate Place, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo. 2002 Wichita Lure Project, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kans.

2001 Active Mode, Spaces, Cleveland, Ohio; Harmony, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1999 Whirl, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Tailor Made, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, La. 1997 3D-KC, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Mo.; New Signals, el dorado inc., Kansas City, Mo. 1995 Stations, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. 1991 Signals, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2005 Never Eat Soggy Waffles, Lynn Foundation, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Map and Model with the Added Theme of Nirvana, Opie Gallery, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Critics Select 2006, Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts, Long Branch, N.J. 2005 Conditions of Sound, Boley, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Moving In Moving Out, Flex Storage Systems, Topeka, Kans.

2002 Awakenings, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Mo. 2001 Avenue of the Arts, temporary outdoor site-specific installations, Kansas City, Mo. 1998 Perspective: Kansas City, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kans.

1992 Pulse (People Using Light, Sound and Energy), Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kans.

1990 Constructs, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Publications “2003 in Review: Public Art.” Art in America 92, no. 7 (August 2004): 60–61.

Cameron, Dan. Perspective: Kansas City.

Overland Park, Kans.: Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, 1996.

Exh. cat.

Castro, Jan Garden. “Shaun Cassidy, D. F. Miller, Michael Shaughnessy, and James Woodfill.” Sculpture 16, no. 10 (December 1997): 72–73.

Hackman, Kate. Awakenings. Sedalia, Mo.: Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002.

Exh. cat.

Lustfeldt, Heather. “Reviews Central.” Art Papers, March/April 2001, 48.

Raverty, Dennis. “Kansas City.” Art Papers, January/February 2000, 52.

Rubinstein, Raphael. Perspective: Kansas City.

Overland Park, Kans.: Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, 1998.

Exh. cat.

Thorson, Alice. “James Woodfill at Joseph Nease.” Art in America, April 2003, 149.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 City Fields for Now, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Whoop Dee Doo, Rocket Projects, Miami, Fla. 2005 A Hairy Tale, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Port Side Residency Exhibition, Yellow Freight Warehouse, Corpus Christi, Texas; Urban Culture Project Residency Exhibition, The Bank, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 The Gun and Knife Show, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Ungood, Shaw Hofstra and Associates, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Installations 2005 Cat Stevens Was Here Period, Usuf Islam Google Me, Dankeshon, Teddy Bears, Darth Vader with Mop and Bucket, and Don’t Even Bother, Dolphin Gallery billboard, Kansas City, Mo. 2004 Dead Punk Love, Dolphin Gallery Window Front, Kansas City, Mo.; The Nirvana Basement Drawings, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center Basement, Kansas City, Mo.; Nuthin Left, Yeah Right, Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, Mo. Selected Honors and Awards 2005 Port Side Residency Program, Corpus Christi, Texas; Studio Residency Program, Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Mo.

Selected Public Commissions 2004 Deuce, Kansas City International Airport, Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission One Percent for Art program, Kansas City, Mo. 2003 Pulse, collaboration with el dorado inc., George E. Wolf Parking Structure, Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission One Percent for Art program, Kansas City, Mo. 1997 Freight House Signal Project, Kansas City Freight House, Kansas City, Mo.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are not enough thanks that can be expressed to those who have driven and supported CSF over the first ten years. Katie Lazar and Cort Sinnes, who had moved to Kansas City from the Bay Area in the mid1980s, were hugely meaningful to me in matters of art and spirit. They introduced me to their dear friend, John Puscheck, for whom Charlotte Street was later named. In the early days, John O’Brien, Mark Spencer, Deborah Scott, and Craig Subler helped bring ideas to fruition, with special thanks to John and Mark.

In the middle and recent years, thanks are due to Raechell Smith (big thanks!), Bruce Hartman, Stacy Switzer, Melissa Rountree, and Sean Kelley. In recent years, Kate Hackman joined CSF half-time as my partner in crime. Kate is a curator/writer (and now also an administrator/grant writer, to her horror) who has elevated our thinking and all we do. In addition, she has been a catalyst for the arts community overall since moving here from NYC. Thank you, Kate. Thanks also to Jared Panick and Jeff Burgess, current and former CSF programs administrators, who have calmed our technology and operational phobias to keep us running smoothly.

The original community advisors for CSF helped launch our efforts into the general community, and formed the nucleus of our new board. Huge thanks are due for the endless requests we lay at their feet: Jay Tomlinson (current board chair) has provided firm but sensitive leadership; Aaron March (former board chair) got us organized and going as a board; Dennis Hudson, and current board members Raechell Smith, Mary Lou Brous, Gary Gradinger, Ellen Wolf, and Jan Rasmussen bring smarts and so much passion to what we do.

Venues for the CSF Awards annual exhibitions have played a significant role in our growth: H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute (Raechell Smith, Heather Lustfeldt, Jaimie Warren, Jared Panick); Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art (Bruce Hartman, Art Miller, Whitney Gameson); Grand Arts (Margaret Silva, Stacy Switzer, April Callahan, Seth Johnson); UMKC Gallery of Art (Craig Subler); Kansas City Artists Coalition (Janet Simpson); Loft 122 (Suzie Aron).

Deepest thanks to you all, as well as to our brochure essayists Peter von Ziegesar, William Easton, Raechell Smith, Kate Hackman, Randall Griffey, Heather Lustfeldt, Stacy Switzer, Becca Ramspott, Maria Buszek, Janet Simpson, and James Martin … and to Ralph Myers of Mpress for help with our printing.

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Artists Tom Gregg, Nate Fors, and James Brinsfield were the initial UCP artist-curators for our first spaces. (Brinsfield commented in one of our first meetings, “You are going to have to get an awful lot of people to say yes to make this work.” He sure got that right.)

Together with architects Brad Satterwhite (Paragraph and UCP Project Space), Rohn Grotenhuis and Laura Pastine (Retail and Boley), Cary Goodman (Downtown), and Jay Tomlinson (The Bank), we had innumerable meetings over coffee to launch UCP—with brilliant results for our spaces. Thanks to Rafael Garcia, Steve McDowell, and Jay Tomlinson for turning their talent loose on this new crazy scheme. The entire UCP curatorial committee, particularly Barry Anderson, Porter Arneill, Rebecca Dolan, Daven Gee, Tom Gregg, James Jordan, Heather Lustfeldt, Oz McGuire, Phil Schaeffer, Davin Watne, Chadwick Brooks, and Jaimie Warren, has guided our thinking and programming magnificently. Adam Jones and John Navarre were our first volunteers as UCP started and helped keep me from talking to the walls. Thanks also to Clint Blew, David Immenschuh, Mike Koon, Jim Leedy, John O'Brien, and Steve Taylor for their help on a space and concept that did not come to fruition.

Hesse McGraw (now at Max Protetch in NYC) founded and directed programming for UCP’s Paragraph gallery for more than two years and to much critical acclaim. A big, huge thank you, Hesse, for your sharp eye, intellect, and dedication.

Artist-curators, actors, dancers, and musicians have all inspired us with exhibitions and performances.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The larger creative community must be hugely thanked for their support and major contributions: Architects Kathy Achelpohl and Brent Bonham (Jenkins); Josh Shelton (La Esquina); Bob Bernstein, Phylis Stevens, and their crew of designers and Webmeisters: Anthony Magliano, Frank Oveido, Brandon Wilson, and Sarah Nelson, who have created the UCP and CSF graphics as well as the UCP and soon-to-be new CSF Web sites. Designers Shawn Sanem, Jeffrey Mau, John Dretzka, Zack Shubkagel, Paul Villasi. Julie Weeks and John McDonald at Boulevard Brewing Company, without whom fewer would be attending our openings. Karl Hayes and Mick Warner for helping with our endless requests for video and lighting equipment. Bruce Bettinger for lending his video equipment.

John O’Brien, Robin Beard, Dan Younger for our wall panels and suspended video boxes in Boley. Keelan Whitmore and Anthony Magliano for creating the music and dance extravaganza called Quixotic. Logan Pachciarz, Josh Christopher, Andrew Lamar, Mica Thomas, Ernie Williams, Tyler Miller for their extraordinary carpentry work in creating our stage and lighting. Tom Mardikes and his colleagues and students at the UMKC Department of Theatre—thank you for your innovative productions in store windows! John “Moose” Kimball for theatrical and lighting consultations for our spaces and performances. And Derek Porter and Anne Lindberg for lighting advice and assistance on projects. Thanks to Jeff Church, Joette Pelster, Jim Woodfill, and Anne Winter for help and programming consultations.

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Early summer evening outside Urban Culture Project’s The Bank gallery.

Callyann Casteel’s studio at Urban Culture Project’s Studio Residency at The Bank—formerly a bank, though the space had been deserted for years.

UCP never could have happened if enlightened building owners had not taken a chance with us. (As artist Oz McGuire commented, “Can you imagine turning part of your building over to a bunch of art kids?”) To Copaken White & Blitt’s Sharon Ko, Dave Kent, Anne Lemon, John Whitt, Jon Copaken; Colliers Turley Martin Tucker’s Michelle Fink, Colleen Sliffe, Kelly Masten, as well as Greg Fowler, James Estrada, Dale Schulte, Roger Buford, Lou Trigg, Todd Vasko, Rick Green, Tom Levitt, Beth Kubicki, Tuck Cowee; and for our newest spaces: Ryan and Leah Gale; Dick Ahsmuhs, Mariner Kemper, Bebe and Crosby Kemper— we are most appreciative. Time Equities’ Phillip Gesue provided outside validation, important encouragement, and a link to New York’s Art Omi. Brad Nicholson and Shaul Jolles have recently found us free office space!

Thanks to the Downtown Council and staff Bill Dietrich, Sean O’Byrne, Anne Holiday, and especially all the wonderful Ambassadors for all your help and support. Thanks to Judy Hadley and Ron Lemon of Regulated Industries at the City and Joe Hodgin at the State Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, for your patience and help in getting us through the paperwork. To Rick Usher, Gary Marker, Greg Franzen, and their folks at City Hall for guiding us through the zoning, codes, and inspection processes.

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Some similarly enlightened construction firms partially donated their services to bring our spaces up to code, including McCownGordon, Mid-America Contractors, Taylor Kelley, C & G Construction, as well as Service Electric, PCI Dahmer, FDC Contract, Holmes Drywall, Mark One Electric, and electrician Harry Anderson.

Legal beagles Marc Russell, Aaron March, Becky Ziegler, Bruce Davison, and Jerry Wolf have helped keep us out of trouble. Similarly, accountants Bob McGuire, Deb Herbert, Teresa Sperry, and Randy Clark have watched over our books—all pro bono. Administratively, it has taken a village for our care: Jennifer Wilson, Roxanne Ruisinger, Joan Horvat, Debra Claar, Sharon Trinastich, Carolyn Clark, Pat O’Brien, Emily Eddins, Rita Littlejohn, Dustin Swartz, Vanessa Severo, Judy Brewster, Allyson Weber, Lisa Galchick, Carolyn Dawson. Eric Solberg has battled SBC and ATT for phone and Internet on our behalf.

The whole staff of Helix Architecture + Design deserves our thanks for being the CSF home away from home (and prior to Helix, it was White Goss Bowers March Schulte and Weisenfels). Helix received the 2007 Business Committee for the Arts Partnership Award for its leadership support of CSF, Kansas City Ballet, and Young Audiences.

As CSF has broadened its efforts through the Visual Arts Consortium, Creative Capital Foundation Professional Development Workshops, and LINC’s national network of creative communities, big thanks are due to Paul Tyler, Joan Israelite, Terri Harmon, David Oliver, and Bill Lyons at the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City for their groundbreaking partnerships with us. These initiatives simply would not be possible without your participation. Huge thanks also to Karen McCarthy for her vision and complete funding of the Creative Capital workshops, and to Karen Holland for her help in facilitating this funding. To Kevin Pistilli for donating hotel rooms; MidAmerica Arts Alliance for donating space for the workshop. Creative Capital panelists Saralyn Reece Hardy, Porter Arneill, Jeff Church, Lisa Cordes, James Jordan, Bobby Watson, James Mobberley, Gwen Widmer—thank you all. Sincere thanks to the forty original members of the Visual Arts Consortium (see www. charlottestreet.org/vac for a list) for your help in creating a forward-thinking agenda for the arts community. To Dodie Jacobi for help in facilitating meetings, and to Professor Mike Frisch and his students at the UMKC Department of Architecture, Urban Planning, and Design for your help with our survey of the arts community. The first implementation project of the Visual Arts Consortium, a Web site tailored to the visual arts in Kansas City, is moving forward with help from Jan Schall, Bruce Hartman, Lara Kline, Margaret Keough, Janet Simpson, and Paul Tyler.

Quixotic Performance Fusion at Urban Culture Project’s temporary 1814 space in the Crossroads.

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With the tenth anniversary of CSF upon us, this book has been a huge undertaking. Our hope, in publishing it, is that this effort will help the awards recipients from the past ten years, and that it might also assist the arts community overall by focusing on and documenting the people—the living creators in our midst—raising their visibility to leaders and the general public. Our deepest thanks go to Mary Lou Brous, designer and CSF board member, for her leadership on this publication. Current and former advisors John O’Brien (especially!), Stacy Switzer, Mark Spencer, Raechell Smith, and Kate Hackman (hugely!) have assisted immensely from concept through execution. Writers Matt Wycoff and Peter von Ziegesar (both of whom attended the Kansas City Art Institute and now live in New York) present astute reflections and compelling commentary. Michelle Bolton King has edited gracefully and calmed our “book fears.” Sarah Mote took care of many biographical details. Mike Sinclair’s wonderful eye has brought images of our city’s buildings and studios to life. E. G. Schempf reshot problematic images and our cover. Scott Anderson, Robin Beard, and Emily Eddins assisted with mock-ups of covers and inside pages. Essayists Jan Schall, Mark Spencer, David Cateforis, James Martin, Elisabeth Kirsch, Maria Elena Buszek, Stacy Switzer, Raechell Smith, Heather Lustfeldt, and Kate Hackman have made the artists come alive on our pages. We have been pleased to work with Emily O’Shea locally to print our book. Gayle Goudy, as well as essayists and curators, helped with our national and local hit lists for distribution. Kirsten Wiegmann—as an intern and volunteer—has helped with numerous projects in our anniversary year.

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The Charlotte Street Foundation, its awards, spaces, exhibitions, performances, and this book would not be possible without the generosity of many funders. First and foremost, sincere thanks go to Bill Lyons and Mary Jo Browne of American Century Foundation, for sharing my vision for this new arts program and nurturing its growth with unwavering support. Crucial support along the way has been provided by Michael Fields, Jonathan Kemper, Spence Heddens, Margaret Silva, Tom McDonnell, Joan Horan, Jan Kreamer, Laura McKnight, Larry Jacob (Larry, whom I did not know at the time, was on one of the first tours of possible UCP spaces; upon leaving the tour, he handed me a business card and said: “This is interesting—call me.”), Jean-Paul Chaurand, George Bittner, Christy Weber, Whitney Gee, Don Hall, Bill Hall, Jeanne Bates, Karen Bartz, Brenda Calvin, Brad Nicholson, Dave Lady, Julia Irene Kauffman, Amy Clark, Chrissy Wichman, Scott Francis, Jerry Kitzi, Lyn Knox, Jim Koeneman, Grant Burcham, Bob Puff, Bob Jackson, Chuck Duboc, Jon Zindel, Wendy Welte, Dennis von Waaden, Bill Bates, Randy Williams, Ralph Reid, Dick Belger, Elizabeth Danforth, Dave Miles, Bob Bloch, Morton and Estelle Sosland, Jan Leonard, Bebe and Crosby Kemper, Mariner Kemper, Sandy Kemper, my parents Dee and David Hughes, as well as numerous individual supporters and contributors. So many of you have been steadfast in support of our vision; we thank you deeply.

Special thanks are due to Hamza Walker, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Paul Ha, and Gregory Volk for venturing to the heartland to join in our fun. To Yona Backer and Pamela Clapp of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, for your support and encouragement, thank you. Larry Rinder (California College of the Arts), Phillip Yenawine (VUE), Alexander Gray (Alexander Gray Associates), Frank Sanchis (Municipal Arts Society), Jenny Dixon (Noguchi Museum), Elisabeth Akkerman (Francis Greenburger Collection), Francis Greenburger (Time Equities), Blaire Dessent (Art OMI), Richard Armstrong (Carnegie Museum of Art), Anne Pasternak (Creative Time), Ruby Lerner and Ken Chu (Creative Capital), Steven Evans (Dia:Beacon), Rod Frantz (Richard Florida Creativity Group), and Sam Miller (Leveraging Investments in Creativity) have all provided thoughts and guidance from afar.

Founder/Director David Hughes Jr. and artist Gear at Urban Culture Project’s Paragraph gallery.

Big thanks are due to art critic Alice Thorson for her never-ending interest and thoughtful support (and criticism) of artists and the arts community. Likewise to Mike Miller (hugely!), Marcus Cain, Review magazine and staff for all you have done for artists and the arts community. To David Ford and the YJ’s crew— for all you do—and for keeping me fed most days. Thanks also to everyone associated with the Kansas City Art Institute—without you, none of this would be happening in our town.

And to Jim Leedy, our fearless leader and mayor of the Crossroads. We also pause to remember Ken Ferguson, Lester Goldman, Carolyn Clark, Myra Morgan, Dorry Gates, and Johnny Puscheck.

Yes, there have been many cups of coffee. It is overwhelming to look at this list of individuals who have played such key roles in making all this happen. Thank you all so very much. I apologize to any I have omitted.

Finally, our most profound thanks go to the artists of Kansas City—visual artists, dancers, actors, musicians, filmmakers, writers— without whom our world would be a much darker, duller place. The success that Charlotte Street Foundation has achieved to date—for the Awards, Urban Culture Project, Visual Arts Consortium, Creative Capital, and LINC—is due in huge degree to the hearts and minds of all the artists and arts professionals who have driven these ideas. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Let’s keep the conversations going.

—D.H. 167

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CONTRIBUTORS MARIA ELENA BUSZEK is a critic, curator, and professor of art history at Kansas City Art Institute. She is the author of the book Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture and her writing has appeared in such journals as Art in America, Woman’s Art Journal, TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, and Kansas City’s Review. Dr. Buszek is also a regular contributor to the popular feminist culture magazine Bust.

DAVID CATEFORIS is associate professor of art history at the University of Kansas. An active scholar, critic, and curator, he has lectured and published widely on American, modern, and contemporary art. He has written essays for numerous exhibition and museum collection catalogues, has published criticism in Review and Art Papers, and has organized exhibitions for the Mills College Art Gallery (Oakland, California), Salina Art Center (Salina, Kansas), and Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, Kansas).

KATE HACKMAN is assistant director of the Charlotte Street Foundation and director of the Art in the Loop Foundation, a non-profit organization commissioning public artworks for downtown Kansas City. From 2000 to 2003, Kate served as editor in chief of Review, during which time she also launched and edited two editions of the Review Architecture and Urban Planning Annual. Her involvement in the Kansas City art community includes extensive writing about local artists as well as curating and teaching. Prior to relocating to Kansas City in 1998, she was assistant director of Exit Art in New York, NY. DAVID HUGHES JR. is the founder and director of the Charlotte Street Foundation. Prior to devoting himself full time to CSF, he worked in marketing for American Century Investments; in government affairs and public relations for Hallmark Cards; and in financial analysis for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., a small private bank in New York. His long-standing interest in the nonprofit sector includes more than twenty years of board service for numerous visual art, theater, and dance organizations, including the Kansas City Art Institute.

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ELISABETH J. KIRSCH has worked as a contemporary art curator, administrator, historian, and critic since 1976. She has curated more than one hundred exhibitions of photography, contemporary and American Indian art, in Kansas City and New York City.

Her exhibitions have been reviewed in The New York Times, Art News, Arts, Artforum, and The Kansas City Star. She has written ten art catalogues and more than two hundred articles for regional and national publications.

HEATHER LUSTFELDT is assistant curator at the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, where she curated the 2003 Charlotte Street Awards exhibition, among many other exhibitions and projects. Also an independent writer and curator, Lustfeldt is a member of the Curatorial Advisory Committee for the Urban Culture Project, and has served on the editorial board for Review. She has contributed art criticism to The Kansas City Star and Art Papers.

JAMES MARTIN is curator of the Sprint Nextel Art Collection, one of the sixty finest corporate collections in the United States, according to the International Directory of Corporate Art Collections (2005). He was formerly assistant curator of modern and contemporary art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and has enjoyed professional involvement with The Kansas City Star, Johnson County Community College (Overland Park, Kansas), Park University (Parkville, Missouri), the Kansas City Artists Coalition, and the Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio), among others.

JAN SCHALL is Sanders Sosland Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the NelsonAtkins Museum of Art. She curated the threepart exhibition Tempus Fugit: Time Flies (2000), co-curated the five-part New Media Projects series (2005–06), and is currently at work on Trouble in Paradise: Contemporary Japanese Art (2007). Schall’s research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

RAECHELL SMITH has served as director and curator of the H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute since its founding in 1999. In 2004 she organized an exhibition of Kansas- and Missouri-based artists at Beida (Beijing) University in the People’s Republic of China. Smith has served on advisory panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Missouri Arts Council, and Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. She is a founding board member of the Charlotte Street Foundation and a member of a national consortium of contemporary art curators.

MARK J. SPENCER is the creative resource manager at Hallmark Cards. He has worked in the arts in the Kansas City area as an arts administrator and a curator for nearly twenty years, and was an advisor to the Charlotte Street Awards for nine years. As the director of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri, he organized exhibitions of the work of William Wegman, Lorna Simpson, and William Wiley. Spencer is a trustee of the Kansas City Art Institute, and is an active visual artist, exhibiting under the pseudonym Johnny Naugahyde.

STACY SWITZER is artistic director of Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. Her curatorial projects at Grand Arts have included GoodTime Mix Machine: Scrambler Drawings by Rosemarie Fiore, Nadine Robinson’s Conclusion of the System of Things, and Aidas Bareikis’s The Guard of Sorry Spirit. In 2005, she guest-curated an exhibition at the Salina Art Center (Salina, Kansas), which included the first installment of Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates project. Switzer is currently a curatorial advisor for the Charlotte Street Foundation.

PETER VON ZIEGESAR is a filmmaker, writer, and journalist living in New York City. His articles and essays on art and film have appeared in The New York Times, Art in America, and DoubleTake, among other publications. He received a PEN Fiction Award for his short story, “The Vegetarian,” and has written several feature screenplays. His 16mm films have been featured in many solo exhibitions, and his documentary feature, Prom Night in Kansas City (2002), co-directed by Hali Lee, premiered at Lincoln Center.

MATT WYCOFF is an artist, writer, freelance journalist, travel enthusiast, and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. Wycoff is the recipient of the 2004–05 Urban Culture Project Studio Residency. He was selected for the 2005 Avenue of the Arts project in Kansas City and a 2007 residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska. Most recently he is working on projects for both exhibition and print, while preparing for a solo exhibition at Rare Gallery in New York City.

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FUNDING AND IN-KIND DONATIONS Star Benefactors American Century Foundation Louis and Elizabeth Nave Flarsheim Charitable Foundation, Bank of America, Trustee Grand Arts Helix Architecture + Design Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation Karen McCarthy Charitable Fund Merchant, Merchant & Robinson Fund, Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, Trustee Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts, Commerce Bank, Trustee Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Benefactors Mary Lou and Tom Brous DST Systems, Inc. Francis Family Foundation Hall Family Foundation Dee and David H. Hughes R. C. Kemper Charitable Trust Vista Productions White Goss Bowers March Schulte & Weisenfels Patrons John & Maxine Belger Family Foundation Bernstein-Rein Advertising, Inc. el dorado inc H&R Block Foundation Copaken, White & Blitt Dolphin Gallery Hallmark Cards, Inc. Kansas City Power & Light Missouri Bank Bradley W. and Linda J. Nicholson Foundation William T. Kemper Foundation, Commerce Bank, Trustee Steven and Karen Pack Family Fund Sprint Foundation UMB Bank Donors Joan and Bert Berkley Boulevard Brewing Company Joni and Thornton Cooke II Barbara and Peter Gattermeir Pam and Gary Gradinger Nancy and Rick Green Shirley and Barnett Helzberg Foundation Ellen and Irv Hockaday Karen and Jack Holland Dennis and Carol Hudson David Hughes Jr. Stacey and Mike Koon Lathrop & Gage, L.C. Peggy and Bill Lyons Tinka and Harry McCray Robert E. McGuire, CPA Julie and Sam Meers Harold and Marilyn Melcher Foundation Lynne Melcher Joyce and Don Omer Marti and Tony Oppenheimer Jan Rasmussen Louis C. Rasmussen Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP Estelle and Morton Sosland Jeanne and Charlie Sosland George Terbovich Ellen and Jerry Wolf Annie and Rick Zander

Supporters Gloria and Richard Anderson Andrews McMeel Universal Foundation Cheryl and Porter Arneill Suzanne Aron and Joseph Levin Mary and Alan Atterbury Bartlett & Co. Foundation Constance and Ray Beagle Doug Curran Michael C. Davis Amy and David Embry Jo Ann Field Joan and Kirk Gastinger Gastinger Walker Harden Architects Gould Evans Kate Hackman Sandi and Larry Hackman Carol and Todd Haenisch Paget and Tom Higgins Sharon and John Hoffman Michelle Bolton King Elisabeth Kirsch Nancy and Herb Kohn Aaron March Joan and Alan Marsh Barbara Hall Marshall C. Stephen Metzler Mpress Lewis Nerman Margaret and Jerome Nerman Jeannette Nichols Derek Porter Studio Retro Inferno Beth A. Smith Sprint Nextel Corporation Elaine and David Stansfield 360 Architecture Jane Voorhees Contributors Barbara and Stephen Abend Heather S. Berger Lennie and Jerry Berkowitz Maureen and Bill Berkley Maria Elena Buszek Eileen and Byron Cohen Elaine P. French Steven R. Fuller Jean and Moulton Green Adele and Donald J. Hall Joanie and Paul Hamilton Leslie and Charles Herman Richard Hill Avery M. Hughes Martha and David Immenschuh Linda and John H. Johntz Jr. Pinky and Arthur Kase Lynn and Andrew Kauffman KEM Studio Flip and William P. Kline Kathryn Koslowsky Russell Leffel Wendy MacLaughlin Peggy and Mark McDowell Martha and Clyde Nichols Marilyn P. Patterson Jan Schall Michael Sigler Sandra and Mark Spencer Jarene and Lee Stanford Mary and Curt Watkins

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THE CHARLOTTE STREET FOUNDATION The Charlotte Street Foundation is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization and a component fund of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. Contributions are tax-deductible and may be sent to Box 10263, Kansas City, Missouri 64171; www.charlottestreet.org 2007 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jay Tomlinson, President Mary Lou Brous Gary Gradinger Aaron March Jan Rasmussen Raechell Smith Ellen Wolf STAFF Director David Hughes Jr. Assistant Director Kate Hackman Programs Administrator Jared Panick CURATORIAL ADVISORS 1997–2007 Paul Ha Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis Bruce Hartman Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas Sean Kelley Formerly Grand Arts, Kansas City John O’Brien Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City Valerie Cassel Oliver Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston Melissa Rountree Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City Deborah Emont Scott Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Raechell Smith H & R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute Mark Spencer Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City Stacy Switzer Grand Arts, Kansas City Hamza Walker Renaissance Society, Chicago Gregory Volk Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond

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Since 1997, Charlotte Street Foundation has supported artists in Kansas City.

We: Provide annual cash awards to visual artists; Provide free studios and performance and exhibition spaces to theater, dance, music, film/video, and visual artists for the creation and presentation of new work; Work on advocacy and planning for Kansas City artists and the arts community with philanthropic, business, and civic leaders; Work to engage national philanthopic arts leaders with Kansas City artists and the arts community.

We need your support!!

Contributions are tax-deductible and may be sent to: CHARLOTTE STREET FOUNDATION Box 10263 Kansas City MO 64171

www.charlottestreet.org

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Charlotte Street Foundation: 10 © 2007 Charlotte Street Foundation All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from Charlotte Street Foundation.

PHOTO CREDITS Pablo Aguinaco: 111 Amberlight Photography: 117 Nicole Cawfield: 61 Benny Chan: 91 Matthew Collins: 80 Tom Gregg: 87, 143 (29) Eric Grimes: 81 Bret Gustafson: 135 Tammi Kennedy: 143 (22) Pok Chi Lau: 131 Michael McClure: 143 (26) Mel McLean: 92 James Nedresky: 50, 51 Sandra Neidinger: 143 (36) Leslie Neth: 45 (top), 143 (7) John O’Brien: 20 Derek Porter: 94, 142 (33) Gayl Reinsch: 143 (46) Julie Robertson: 142 (35) Gary Rohman: 86, 88, 89 Eric Sall: 77 (bottom), 143 (24) E. G. Schempf: 36, 37, 39, 54–57, 63, 66, 67 (top), 68, 69, 74, 82, 83, 90, 95, 98, 99, 118, 130, 134, 141 (bottom), 142 (23), 143 (31) Michael Sinclair: 6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 18, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 33, 100, 139 (top) Colby Smith: 142 (16) Michael Spillers: 142 (55) Mary Ann Strandell: 142 (39) Al Surrat: 60 James Walker: 93 Jaimie Warren: 7, 9, 21 April Watson: 142 (21) Dan Wayne: 104, 105 Erica Wilson: 166 Jeff Young: 143 (48)

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ISBN-13: 978-0-9789995-0-6 Library of Congress Control Number 2007927722 Charlotte Street Foundation P.O.Box 10263 Kansas City, MO 64171 www.charlottestreet.org Designed by Mary Lou Brous Edited by Michelle Bolton King Proofread by Sarah Mote Printed by Spangler Printers, Kansas City, MO. Works of art © the artists unless otherwise noted

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Want ideas on how to support Kansas City artists and the arts community?

1.

Go to a gallery or studio and buy art.

2.

Subscribe to Review magazine (www.ereview.org).

3.

Attend live performances—go out!

4.

Give free studio spaces to artists in your underutilized real estate properties.

5.

Give generously to Kansas City Art Institute—the "engine" of our arts community; get to know faculty members and students.

6.

Hire an artist as a team member on larger real estate projects—listen to him/her.

7.

Read Richard Florida’s books on the creative class.

8,

A troubling statistic: 96% of the public value the arts; only 27% of the public value artists.

9.

Remember: we must support the arts and artists.

10.

10. Tell three others about these ideas.

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