An Enduring Legacy is a comprehensive survey of the career of Peter Callas, an internationally renowned artist, and master of the Anagama kiln wood-firing process. Callas considers the Anagama kiln, “the centerpiece for experimentation that records the passage of time.” The exhibition showcases Callas’ experimentation and innovation over 30 years of creative production and includes expressionist ceramic sculptures, abstracted container forms, intimate tea bowls, and works on paper. A film about the artist will also be on view.

Born in New Jersey in 1951, Peter Callas graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. Callas traveled to Japan in the 1970s, visiting ancient kiln sites and exploring wood-fired glazing techniques. While there, he also helped build a traditional Anagama wood kiln. His visit to Japan inspired him to build the first Anagama kiln used in North America in 1976, an early career accomplishment. Numerous accomplishments followed throughout his 50-year career. Callas worked with Peter Voulkos in the 1980s and 90s, producing some of the most important ceramics of the twentieth century. Callas has exhibited extensively in Museums around the world including at the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art (Japan), The Powerhouse Museum (Australia), and the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. His work can be found in over 30 international collections, including the Gotoh Art Museum (Japan), the International Museum of Ceramic Art (Hungary), and the Minneapolis Museum of Art. He’s also the recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2018 and 2021) and the Windgate Foundation (2018).

Peter Callas: An Enduring Legacy is organized by the American Museum of Ceramic Art. An accompanying catalog, funded in part by a Windgate Foundation grant, includes essays by Jo Lauria, Glenn Adamson, and an artist biography by Glen Brown.

Star School came to me in the middle of the night. In a flash, I saw a new series of paintings filled with stars and the intricate structures used to view them. I imagined color, line and shape creating huge spatial distance in a bright outer space, all in the language of my work. In the morning the vision was still alive so I started painting.

This series came to me right as I was thinking about a content shift in my work. I wanted to move away from an autobiographical narrative and focus on color, form, and material. As I started this series, I realized a story will always be present in my work, it just doesn’t have to be my personal story. Star School is a fantasy novel infiltrating an imaginary school text book. In previous work I was writing a memoir, but here I am a fiction writer.
– Ky Anderson, 2020

After living and working in Brooklyn NY for over 15 years, the pandemic of 2020 prompted Ky Anderson, as it did so many artists, to relocate. Anderson always maintained strong ties to Kansas City community where she grew up and attended school. She graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1995. In 2020, she moved back to KC and transitioned from a small NY studio to an expansive warehouse loft. Her Kansas City studio allows her the space to expand and explore paintings and drawings with a new freedom. Anderson’s light filled, abstract color harmonies echo architecture, sculpture and the figure and read as poetry not prose.

Ky Anderson’s work is exhibited across the country including New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Anderson recently completed a public commission for a series of twelve paintings for the new Cambridge Tower at the University of Kansas Hospital, KC, KS.

Jane Chu’s 51 drawings of every US state (and the District of Columbia) emerged from her travels as the eleventh Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts. During her four-year tenure, Chu made more than 400 site visits to meet with artists, arts and civic leaders, philanthropists and the general public, and was influenced by places, signage and closeup aspects of public buildings. Her pen-and-ink drawings build upon layers of hatching and cross-hatching to create depth and a range of light and dark values.

Prior to the National Endowment for the Arts, Chu served as the founding president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

Jane Chu straddles multiple cultures, having been born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and raised in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She received bachelor’s degrees in piano performance and music education from Ouachita Baptist University, as well as a master’s degree in piano pedagogy from Southern Methodist University. Additionally, Chu holds an associate degree in visual arts from Nebraska Wesleyan University, an MBA from Rockhurst University, a Ph.D. in philanthropic studies from Indiana University, and five honorary doctorate degrees.

During First Friday between April to October be sure to check out the local artists who set up along one of the beautiful Art Alleys between Baltimore and Wyandotte from 18^th Street to Southwest Blvd.