ARTSPEAK RADIO with Warren Rosser, Literacy KC, Lawrence Arts Center, and Brent Watkinson

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Host/producer of ARTSPEAK RADIO, Maria Vasquez Boyd talks with artist Warren Rosser, Deputy Director/Chief Development Officer John Teasdale with Literacy KC, Gallery Director Ben Ahlvers with The Lawrence Arts Center and painter Brent Watkinson.

The Lawrence Arts Center announces its thirty-sixth annual benefit art auction and exhibit. Established by artists in 1981 to fund a not-for-profit gallery, the auction supports the Lawrence Arts Center’s exhibitions program, which provides free public exhibitions year-round, enriched by Art Talks, films, and more. The 2017 annual benefit auction will feature approximately 35 live auction works and over 100 silent works. Pieces generously donated by artists will be on exhibit in our galleries from March 10th until the live auction on April 8th at 5:00pm.

Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire St
Lawrence, KS 66044
785.843.2787
www.lawrenceartscenter.org
Tickets are available here: https://lawrenceartscenter.org/event/2017-benefit-art-auction/

Contact Heather Hoy, Director of Development, or Ben Ahlvers, Director of Exhibitions, for me details.

Ben Ahlvers began his role as Gallery Director at the Lawrence Arts Center in the fall of 2009. Prior to that Ben served as Associate Education Director at the Arts Center. Ben has curated exhibitions and coordinated symposiums that have been featured in international publications. He also is an active artist in his own right, exhibiting regularly around the country. Ben received his M.F.A. from Ohio University, in 2004, preceded by a B.F.A. from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

John Teasdale, Deputy Director/Chief Development Officer Literacy KC- Literacy KC began as a dream and grew out of a passion to help people. In 1985, a group of volunteers led by Catherine Mathews perceived a need and created a tiny organization to provide literacy tutoring for adults. They had become aware of several adults that struggled with literacy skills and felt that there was an answer to help them gain new skills and improve on the limited skills that they had.

For several years, the program was operated with an all-volunteer staff. As the program grew in numbers and funding was sec Literacy KC offers a welcoming community for adults and families to improve literacy skills and enhance quality of life. With support from volunteers, donors, partners, and the community at large, Literacy KC invests in Kansas City’s greatest asset – our people.
Literacy KC is revolutionizing the way adult literacy education is delivered:
INSTRUCTOR LED: Qualified instructors teach relevant, responsive, and level-appropriate curriculum.
TUTOR-DRIVEN: Trained volunteer tutors support the instructors and help meet individual student needs.
STUDENT-CENTERED: Each student identifies academic and personal goals and instructors design lessons to help them meet these goals.

Literacy KC
211 West Armour Boulevard
Kansas City, MO 64111
816.333.9332
www.literacykc.org

Warren Rosser is the William T. Kemper Distinguished Professor of Painting, recently retired as Chair of the Painting Department at the Kansas City Art Institute after 28 years. Born in South Wales in the UK, Rosser moved to the US in 1972. Although trained as a painter, for many years he made sculpture and mixed media constructions. In 1998 he returned to painting, which he views in the broadest sense. His work continues to explore constructed elements that can exist on the wall, but just as easily on the floor. Many of these constructed paintings utilize store bought fabric and carpet built dimensionally but still grounded by the wall or floor plane. More recently his work has returned to a more conventional form of oil paint on stretched canvas. The work examines an abstract language, exploring architectural forms and constructed space with particular attention being paid to color and its transitions and subtleties. Printmaking is a tool Rosser utilizes to explore different attitudes to form and, particularly in his most recent monoprints, the multi-layer of color transparences creating the deep implied space. Selected solo exhibitions have included: Parade: Parallel Tracks at University of Leeds, England, and Jan Weiner Gallery in Kansas City; Repeat Offender at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Counterpoint at Epsten Gallery, Kansas City Jewish Museum; Hybrid View at Albrecht Kemper Museum, St Joseph, Missouri; and AlternateTracking at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art at Omaha, Nebraska. Previously he has exhibited his work at the Tate Gallery, London, the KunstMuseum, Düsseldorf, Germany; the Galleria Del Cavallino, Venice, Italy; and at the Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Brent Watkinson received his BA at Missouri Southern State College in 1982. After working as a photographer for a year, he began interning and working as an illustrator. Two years later, Brent was represented nationally in Kansas City, Los Angeles, and New York City, and was an illustrator in private practice for twenty- three years.
In 1992, he was invited to become a member of the NASA Arts Program, and has since completed two paintings for NASA’s permanent collection. A few of Brent’s clients include: American Express, Contadina Products, Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, Geffen Records, NASA, Putnam Publishers, Science Magazine, Sony Music, U.S. Pentagon, William Morrow Publishing, Time/Warner, The Franklin Mint, Doubleday/Bantaam Books, and Random House. His work has been in the Society of Illustrators New York, the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, and Communication Arts. His digital work was featured in an article in Step-by-Step Electronic Design Magazine.
Brent served as part-time instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, and full time faculty and co-director at The Illustration Academy, as well as The Art Department. The Illustration Academy is a seminar program, based in Kansas City, but also based three years in Richmond, VA, at Virginia Commonwealth University, and five years in Sarasota, FL, at Ringling College of Art and Design.
Brent also was a computer programmer for a national company, writing web applications and algorithms for businesses in 2015 -2016. A licensed Apple Developer from 2011-2016, Brent had a total of eight iPhone and iPad apps in the Apple App Store. Brent has written several computer programs using code to produce images that are a type of cooperation between “human and computer”. The programs run based on inputs from Brent, but the computer is given permission to inject random elements of code and math to produce results that cannot be replicated by the human or the computer on their own. He now paints for galleries full-time.
[email protected]
http://brentwatkinson.com/
http://brentwatkinson.com/corp/
http://moonboyapps.com/
http://moonboybrand.com/

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