ARTSPEAK RADIO live with Sonié Ruffin, Arzie Umali, Michael Baxley, Paolo Porelli, & Jacob Canyon

Sonié Ruffin and Arzie Umali from the UMKC Women’s Center discuss CommonThreads: Anatomy of the Wound. Michael Baxley Gallery Manger Belger Craneyard Gallery and ceramicist Paolo Porelli join us live from the KKFI studio.

COMMMON THREADS: ANATOMY OF THE WOUND
This community art project features artwork created by artists and members of the community who have used art to transform the emotional wounds caused by recent violence in the world. Co-sponsored by the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center and UMKC Division of Diversity & Inclusion. Art can heal the wound.

Opening First Friday Sept. 2
Leedy-Voulkos Art Center 2012 Baltimore Ave. KCMO
www.leedy-voulkos.com

Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin is a renowned fabric artist, fabric designer, author, and lecturer. She has conducted workshops, lectures and exhibitions on African American quilting at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, New England Quilt Museum, Holter Museum of Art, Bethesda Medical Center Rotunda, Harvard, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Bates College, Lincoln University, Mulvane Museum, UMKC African American Culture House, Truman Medical Center Healing Arts Gallery and a host of quilt guilds, galleries, and museums in the United States, Europe and Africa… Her artwork is held in private, corporate, museum and gallery collections. Sonié is a Charlotte Street Visual Arts Fellow, Art Omi Fellow, Storyteller’s Inc.Fellow, Kansas Master, recipient of Arts KC Inspiration Grant, and Alliance of Artists Community Scholarship, she was a finalist for the Women to Watch National Women’s Museum in Washington, D.C.
Sonié is the curator for the American Jazz Museum located in Kansas City’s historical jazz district and serves on the Kansas City Artist Coalition board. She is the author of Soulful Art of African American Quilts and Opening Day. Her fabric collections have appeared in McCall’s, Better Homes and Garden Quilting and Quilter’s Quarters magazines. Her latest artwork to date is the public art design project with Helix Architectural firm and Arts Tech which appears on the front of the Leon Mercer Jordan East Patrol and Crime Lab Campus in Kansas City, MO.

Arzie Umali has been a passionate member of the Kansas City arts community exhibiting her art, organizing arts events, and volunteering for a number of local organizations for the past 20 years. Arzie’s paintings and collages reveal her command of color and texture (as well as her love of primates) and have been exhibited in galleries around Kansas City including the UMKC Gallery of Art, Mattie Rhodes Art Center, the Event Space at JavaPort, the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, La Esquina, and the Faso Gallery of Contemporary Art. Arzie has also donated her works to a number of local charitable organizations including the ACLU, AIDS Walk KC, and the Humane Society. Arzie currently serves as the Assistant Director of the UMKC Women’s Center where she founded the Her Art Project in 2010, a campus and community-wide initiative that addresses gender discrimination in the arts. Through this program she conducts research, develops programs, and lectures on the status of women in the arts. Arzie is also a certified healing arts facilitator and she offers workshops for the UMKC community that use art as a tool for healing and transforming trauma. As a volunteer, Arzie has served a number of local organizations including ArtsKC, the Municipal Art Commission of Kansas City, Missouri, One Percent for Art, Charlotte Street Foundation, InterUrban ArtHouse, the Arts Council of Johnson County, the Carter Art Center, the NAACP, and the ACLU. Arzie currently serves as the Secretary and Board Development Chair for the Friends of Art Leadership Council at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and has been a member of the museum for over 20 years. Arzie holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of Kansas and a Master of Public Administration degree in Organizational Behavior from the Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She makes her home in Kansas City, Missouri.

BELGER ARTS OPENS TWO EXHIBITS ON FIRST FRIDAY IN SEPTEMBER

First Friday in September will feature new exhibitions at both the Belger Arts Center and the Belger Crane Yard Studios. Renowned artist Dan Anderson of Edwardsville, Illinois, will take center stage at the Belger Crane Yard Studios (2011 Tracy Avenue). Concurrently, figurative sculpture from Paolo Porelli of Rome, Italy, will be featured at the Belger Arts Center (2100 Walnut Street). Both exhibitions run September 2, through December 17, 2016.

Dan Anderson’s solo show titled Mascots, Hearts of Love, and Proposals references large mid-western structures such as water tanks and corn cribs, along with the graffiti that can be found on these rural landmarks. Anderson says he has been fascinated with these edifices since he climbed his hometown’s municipal water tank when he was a teenager. The work that has been inspired by these structures can be found in exhibitions and collections throughout world. In addition to sculpture, Anderson plans to bring some of his signature teapots and tea sets to Kansas City.

Anderson taught at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville from 1970 – 2002 and has maintained an active clay practice since retirement. A wood-fire enthusiast, his anagama kiln in Edwardsville draws artists from far and wide for firings.

Paolo Porelli’s exhibit, Humankind: The Sublime and The Ridiculous features figurative sculpture. This body of work is a hybrid of ideas culled from mythological imagery, pop-culture references, and contemporary society to articulate the human behaviors – both good and bad.

Porelli created many of the exhibition works last winter during his Fellowship Residency at Belger Crane Yard Studios. Porelli came to the studio from Italy, where he has been running his own ceramics studio since 1990. In more recent years he and his wife, Lori-Ann Touchette, have operated c.r.e.t.a rome, an international art residency program.

BELGER ARTS CENTER 2100 Walnut, Kansas City, Missouri 64108 Wed – Friday: 10 am – 4 pm Saturday: 12 pm – 4 pm
816-474-3250 www.belgerartscenter.org

BELGER CRANE YARD STUDIOS 2011 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri 64108
Wed – Friday: 10 am – 5 pm Saturday: 10 am – 4 pm
816-474-7316 www.craneyardstudios.org

Jacob Canyon-WELCOME to SHOW and TELL
We are a group of people from multiple disciplines working together on a number of different projects. Some projects are more focused on the exploration of concept through fine arts and visuals, other projects are more research-based and practical. Our current collection of projects focuses on the utilization of the West Bottoms to inspire and fuel work.

Exhibition at the Bauer
September 2nd, 2016
115 W 18th St, Kansas City, MO 64108

On First Friday in September, we will be showcasing some of these projects in the Bauer Machine-works event space in the crossroads.

www.showandtellkc.org

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