Guest artists Roberta Eichenberg and Kale Stewart will be in Kansas City to lead the next free glassblowing demonstration at the Belger Glass Annex (1219 E. 19^th St., KCMO) on First Friday, December 1 from 6 to 8 pm.

Both artists have been collaborating for the past year on a body of artwork consisting of blown glass dresses adorned with sculpted glass appliques. They will lead the Belger Glass Annex team in creating the next dress in the collection. 

Roberta Eichenberg earned her MFA from The Ohio State University, taught at Pilchuck Glass School, and is currently Professor of Art Emeritus at Emporia State University. Kale Stewart is originally from western Kansas and earned a BFA from Emporia State University in Kansas and an MFA in glass at Illinois State University.

Robert O. Beach (1923 – 2005) was an incredibly gifted painter. He was, by trade, a medical illustrator who headed up the medical illustration department at the J. Hillis Miller Health Center in Gainesville Florida. He received his masters of fine art painting at the University of Florida in 1972 studying under Hiram Williams.

We have 8 of his large scale works in our inventory and they will remain available on public display from October through December.

It has been said that art imitates life. Joseph Broghammer’s art is based on his life, acting as a sort of diary that captures his minutes, his hours, and his days. Talking about the role art has taken in his life, it’s clear that being an artist has shaped Broghammer into who he is today. Art is so much more than something he just wakes up and does. It is part of him. Broghammer has developed into one of the region’s most original voices whose mark making can be traced from Bosch and Brueghel to Dali and Magritte and linked to the likes of John Graham and Tony Fitzpatrick.

Broghammer says. “I use symbols, icons, religious objects, and more to spell out something that happened to me, that interests me, or something that I can learn from or someone that I can learn from.”

While Broghammer creates quite a few pieces centering around birds, he says the works aren’t always about the birds. They are more of a symbol to him and sometimes have nothing to do with the story he is trying to tell. It is always the story that matters most to Broghammer. However, seeing as birds come in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and even textures, they make an enjoyable subject.

It starts with a creative impulse.

There is the allowing of nothing to become something

It proceeds mark by mark, shape by shape, color by color.

There is the merging with the rhythm and following the lead of what wants to go where.

What is inside and invisible is now outside and visible.

Artist Statement

I have been drawing, painting, collaging, designing, and stitching since childhood. Elaborate sand castles were the first source of inspiration. 

My art journey has been characterized by experimentation with process and materials and the search for a compelling communicative visual language. I have often felt as if I were a witness, watching my hands create something from nothing, then compelled to breathe as much life as possible into whatever has revealed itself.

Bio

Jason Pollen is an internationally acclaimed artist, designer, and educator. He has been on the faculty at the Royal College of Art in London, Parsons and Pratt in New York City, and Professor and Fiber Chair at the Kansas City Art Institute. He is Professor emeritus at KCAI, President emeritus of the Surface Design Association, and an American Craft Council Fellow. His work is in numerous prominent private national and international collections, including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Pollen had designed numerous collections of textile designs for Channel, Dior, Yves. St. Laurent, and Jack Lenor Larsen. He also created sets for the Kansas City Ballet.

Exhibition Statement

Scars to Stars is an exhibition of Dylan Mortimer’s work over the last several years. This body of work aims to stand in the tension between trauma and healing. Employing symbols that have been traumatic in his lived experience being born with a fatal respiratory disease and receiving two double lung transplants, he aims to transform and recontextualize those symbols. Scars, IV poles, cells, ambulances, and surgeries become beacons of hope and joy testifying both the darkness and the hope simultaneously. The aggressive joy rendered in layers of glitter evoke the absurd faith of hope in seemingly hopeless situations.

Artist Statement 

The symbols that collide in my work fuse anatomical, biological, and medical imagery with spiritual and religious themes. Shiny materials invoke the Baroque as a way of navigating a deadly diagnosis. My whole life has been an attempt to spread glitter over a seemingly hopeless situation. I aim to reference and navigate my own despair, transformation, and joy. It is my own leap of faith.

My work employs shiny, glowing, vibrant materials to evoke a transformation from a deadly disease I was diagnosed at birth. The transformation aims to provide a glimmer of hope in seeming hopelessness.

A variety of materials are used, from glitter suspended in resin, to lights, to colored glass. The aim is to collide a variety of discoveries into a contemporary manifestation of the baroque. Acknowledging pain and challenge, while simultaneously recognizing hope to overcome.