Artspeak Radio

Kansas City Art Institute alumni/instructors; John Ferry, Jonah Criswell, Brett Chenowith, & Hé́ctor Casanova compare and contrast their experiences as a student on campus and returning as instructors. In the second half of the program, photograper, Suzanne Günther talks about her project that involved an open call for a photo shoot with the KC creative community . John Ferry received his B.F.A. degree from KCAI and his M.F.A. from School of Visual Arts, New York. He teaches illustration, drawing, and painting at KCAI, and has taught at the Maryland Institute, College of Art where he won a Trustees award for Excellence in Teaching. His work has appeared in mumerous corporate collections including Sprint, Stowers Institute, and H& R Block. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, The Wichita Center for the Arts and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art all have his paintings in their permanent collection. He’s been published in New American Paintings, Society o fIllustrators and International Painting Annual most recently. John lives and paints in Prairie Village, Kansas with his wife Amy and two daughters, Katherine and Paige. “Ferry’s works reveal the aesthetic beauty of the overlooked and forgotten urban environment and brilliantly portrays the cycle of change in…

Dennis Etzel Jr. discusses his latest book, My Secret Wars of 1984, released by BlazeVOX books, was a finalist of the 2012 1913 Press First Book Award, chosen by Rae Armantrout, a finalist of the 2013 SpringGun Press Open Manuscript Reading, a semi-finalist of the 2013 Subito Press Poetry Contest, and published in so many literary journals like 1913, DIAGRAM, Horse Less Review, Tarpaulin Sky, and Fact-Simile. In its entirety, My Secret Wars of 1984 is an alphabetized 366-sentence conceptual poetry-memoir collage, using texts from the year 1984 (Lyn Hejinian, Ronald Johnson, bell hooks, Marvel Comics, Dungeons & Dragons, President Reagan, etc.) with sentences of my own—within the context of political and personal struggles of that time (my mother coming out in the midst of living in a conservative Catholic neighborhood, the threat of nuclear war, the recession, etc.). www.dennisetzeljr.com To read My Secret Wars of 1984 is to ride an old wooden rollercoaster through a spacious gallery of stained-glass windows, all their colorful shards having been stolen, shattered, then chewed into shape: what we have here are gorgeous and wise assemblages of sharp, scavenged graffiti. Ricocheting from Pac-Man to Topeka to institutional structures to AIDS awareness to Reagan, Dennis…

MAKING MOVIES makes music that matters. Built upon a heavy foundation of Afro-Latino rhythms, they have created a bilingual (English and Spanish), psychedelic re-envisioning of the Latin American “son.” The band consists of four members: Enrique Chi (guitar/vocals), Juan-Carlos Chaurand …

Elizabeth Gault & Amy Kligman with the Charlotte Street Foundation, discuss Missouri Bank Art Boards. For 18 years, Charlotte Street has challenged, nurtured, and empowered thousands of artists, distributed over $1.1 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects, and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. Charlotte Street – with its community of artists – strives to be a primary catalyst in making Kansas City a vibrant, creative metropolis, alive with collaboration, passion, ideas, and surprise. For more in-formation about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.char-lottestreet.org or visit our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/CharlotteStreet. The Missouri Bank "Artboards" launched fall 2008, when the building's existing double-sided billboards were renovated and converted into a highly visible site for work by area artists as part of the Bank's purchase and renovation of the building to house its Crossroads Branch. Missouri Bank’s purpose for donating the Artboards to local artists isn’t about sales or promotion, but is solely intended to make the creative Crossroads community in Downtown Kansas City more interesting. The Charlotte Street Foundation, alongside Missouri Bank and with support from Out-front Media, are happy to announce the artist selections for…

Miles Neidinger joins us in the first half of the program to discuss art, his work, and upcoming projects. Miles Neidinger, graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2000 with a BFA in sculpture. His artistic visualization has been informed by his experience in the commercial and industrial electrical industry. As an electrician he has discovered real life functions for color-coding, tape, conduit bending, and installations, the utilization of trigonometry, algebraic equations, and geometric functions. These experiences drastically inform his artistic practice. Recent exhibitions include: The Anatomy of the Palace of Wisdom City Ice Arts in Kansas City MO, Art in the Pro Flatiron Building New York NY (presented by Sprint), Museum Interrupted Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park KS, An Associate Degree in Science Finch Gallery in Chicago IL, What’s the Matter with Kansas Rare Gallery in New York NY, Family Event Home for the Holidays Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City MO, Charlotte Street Fund Exhibition Johnson County Community Collage in Overland Park KS. Neidinger is an Arts KC and Rocket grant recipient, an Art Through Architecture participant, a Charlotte Street Foundation Award recipient and was granted a Vermont Studio Center residency in…

Filmmaker Dan Wayne talks with Maria via phone. He has spent the last three years criss-crossing North America, following his friend—World Champion taxidermist Ken Walker—as he searched for Bigfoot, researched sightings and, finally, made a life-sized re-creation of the fabled …

Kansas City Art Institute illustration students, Kelly Sparrow, Madison Crabtree, Katya Heisel and Ethan Tucker discuss the Scarritt Mural Project. Scarritt Elementary School at 3512 Anderson Ave.KCMO, has been closed and shuttered for several years; neighbors often complain about the …

Kansas City Art Institute illustration students, Kelly Sparrow, Madison Crabtree, Katya Heisel and Ethan Tucker discuss the Scarritt Mural Project. Scarritt Elementary School at 3512 Anderson Ave.KCMO, has been closed and shuttered for several years; neighbors often complain about the graffiti, vandalism and loitering that take place on the property grounds. The goal of the Mural Project is to use art to convert the Scarritt Elementary School (SES) building back into a positive visual landmark for the community; to reclaim it from blight and transform it into a unique example of urban art. This Fall, students from the Illustration department at the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) are working collaboratively to design and paint a new batch of murals for the panels covering Scarritt Elementary School's doors and windows. The Mural Project is led by instructor Héctor Casanova as part of the “US” class; a course focusing on the social roles and cultural responsibilities of illustrators, and the collaborative nature of art practice. The Project was started in the Fall of 2014, with students covering the northeastern façade of the school building. In the Fall of 2015, we are making murals that will address the Eastern façade of the building.…