Featured Artists

Debbie Barrett-Jones | Suze Ford | Kristin Goering | Jenny Meyer-McCall | 

Holly Swangstu

Chromatic Conversations showcases the work of five artists — Debbie Barrett-Jones, Suze Ford, Kristin Goering, Jenny Meyer-McCall, and Holly Swangstu — who explore the relationship between the use of color and form. The exhibition highlights each artist’s unique perspective and the profound impact of color in both art and everyday life.

In my studio practice, the work tends towards reflections on environments I grew up in. My visual vocabulary might include flaking linoleum, astroturf, wormy tendrils of shag carpet, fistfuls of paper confetti, and other bits of middle American detritus. The content and approach to making is reflective of a mix of influences: my mother’s folk-ish ceramics/floral arrangements and crafts, high/low culture clash, the complicated character of the American Midwest, and the personal and cultural weight of everyday objects.

In my work I am oscillating between the very mundane and the uncanny, seeking a reflection of the very strange against the very normal. It is a reflection of the time and place that I have experienced as a person, and that I see in the world I observe from a physical and metaphorical “middle”.

In the past couple of years, I’ve been branching out from painting…and lately have interest in layered site-specific wall works and installation. I am beginning to especially appreciate the conversation between tangible material and painting. I’m fairly sure that I have my curatorial experiments to thank for this, and so consider my artist-as-curator role part of my practice as well. As an artist-curator, my interest is in seeing artists realize their specific artistic vision, and drawing connections in that vision to broader dialogue in contemporary culture.

Belger Arts is pleased to present Materialize: Visualizing Climate Change, an exhibition opening Friday, February 7 at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery (2011 Tracy Avenue, KCMO).

Materialize: Visualizing Climate Change brings together the work of six contemporary artists who explore multiple aspects of one of the world’s most challenging topics.

The artists’ innovative use of materials and digital processes invite viewers to examine the impact of climate change on natural and human-made systems. Caroline Landau utilizes clear glass to memorialize a Bristlecone pine tree, a species threatened by climate change. Marie McInerney’s laser-etched graphite drawings illustrate data related to habitat disturbances such as landslides and fires. Lauren Shapiro combines ceramics and technology to depict fragile and endangered coral ecosystems. Steve Gurysh employs 3D scanning to recreate ash trees devastated by emerald ash borers. Tali Weinberg incorporates images of fire-scarred trees into weavings using petrochemical-derived materials. Anne Yoncha sonifies and materializes soil data from post-extraction peatlands in her installation titled, Peat Quilt 1.

Each artist asks viewers to consider how digital technologies transform disembodied data into experiences that engage our senses and emotions. In doing so, they raise critical questions to inspire change and cultivate environmental stewardship.

Two Cracked Pots showcases a remarkable collection of ceramic works created by Jim Leedy and Don Jahn over a decade of friendship and mutual inspiration. This exhibition not only displays the artistry of two ceramicists but also reflects the product of a fruitful friendship – launched by John O’Brien in 2012. The culture of creativity and community that emerged from Jim Leedy and Don Jahn’s collaboration imbues Two Cracked Pots with a genial quality.

Central to Jim Leedy and Don Jahn’s friendship and collaboration is a wood-fired train kiln, built by Jahn in the heart of the Ozarks in 2010. Across twelve years, the kiln — the bricks of which were harvested from Kansas City’s historic Stockyards power plant- has been fired 28 times. At their firings, Leedy and Jahn celebrated craft, camaraderie and collective effort. Drawing on a community of artists and friends who gathered to stoke the flames, cook meals, and prepare camp, the friend-collaborators invited others to share in the transformative process of woodfire ceramics. Jahn introduced salt glazing to the kiln in 2024 to add a distinctive texture and character to the ceramics, some of which are Leedy’s wares. In this way, their collaboration has carried on since Leedy’s death in 2021.

Jim Leedy’s studio served as a catalyst for experimentation and inspiration, where the creative dialogue between friends and fellow artists flourished. The years spent in Jim’s studio were among the most fulfilling in Jahn’s life, filled with camaraderie and inspiration. Every Thursday night, the studio transformed into a vibrant gathering of friends, artists, and musicians — a place where ideas, experiences, and creativity flourished.

Two Cracked Pots is as much about community and shared artistry as it is the artists’ final products. Each piece tells a story not only of skill and innovation but of friendship, celebration, and the love of ceramic arts.

Artist Statement: Donald M. Jahn

I am deeply fortunate to have spent the last half of my life working with and learning from some of the finest ceramic artists of our time. My journey in ceramics began at the age of forty under the mentorship of John Kudlacek at Emporia State University. This path led me to study with exceptional artists like Jim Estes, Stephen Hill, Victor Babu, George Timock, and Ken Ferguson, each of whom profoundly shaped my artistic vision and technical approach.

In the later years of my career, I had the privilege of collaborating with Jim Leedy, an opportunity made possible by our mutual friend, John O’Brien. Our partnership was one of creative synergy: I threw the forms, and Jim assembled them, resulting in works that embody both of our artistic voices. These years spent in Jim’s studio were among the most fulfilling of my life, filled with camaraderie and inspiration. Every Thursday night, the studio transformed into a vibrant gathering of friends, artists, and musicians — a place where ideas, experiences, and creativity flourished.

Since retiring in 2003, I’ve dedicated myself to my practice, building a wood-fired train kiln on my property in the Missouri Ozarks. My current work focuses on mid-range and high-fired ceramics, blending traditional techniques with personal exploration. Each piece is a testament to the relationships, collaborations, and creative energy that have shaped my life and practice.

Artist Bio:

Donald M. Jahn began his journey in ceramics at the age of forty, studying under his first mentor, John Kudlacek, at Emporia State University. He further honed his skills with Jim Estes at Missouri Western and was fortunate to learn from renowned ceramicists such as Stephen Hill, Victor Babu, George Timock, and Ken Ferguson during his time at the Kansas City Art Institute. In the later years of Jim Leedy’s life, Jahn had the privilege of working alongside him in his studio, an experience that profoundly shaped his artistic practice.

After retiring in 2003, Jahn built a wood-fired train kiln on his property in the Missouri Ozarks. This kiln has become a cornerstone of his creative process, producing mid-range and high-fired ceramics that showcase the unique effects of wood firing and occasional salt glazing. Beyond a tool, the kiln has also fostered a vibrant community of artists and friends who gather to participate in its firings, sharing meals and camaraderie.

Jahn’s work embodies a dedication to craftsmanship and exploration, reflecting both the technical mastery and the serendipitous beauty that define the ceramic arts.

BIOGRAPHY
Kate Hunt was raised in a town of 900 on the plains of Montana. It is “Big Sky” country. The subtle power of the landscape has influenced her work. Hunt’s work is object oriented. Her materials include steel, twine, boat building epoxy, encaustic, and newspaper.

She first started working with newspaper at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her teacher, Joan Livingstone, had her make a “chinese finger trap”, the kind found at carnivals that tighten as you try to pull your fingers out. From there she started building large weavings with newspaper. Her teacher, Dale Eldred, pushed her to think of her work as sculpture. 

Hunt graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has been awarded a Montana Arts Council Award, the Gottlieb Grant and Virginia Groot Foundation Grant. She has shown nationally and internationally and her work is in many prominent collections. 

She recently relocated full time to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I have a personal conversation with the concept, materials and the world around me. It’s a back and forth type exchange with me saying over and over, “what if.……“

If I was writer I could tell you about these conversations, but I am not, I am a visual artist. I can tell you that Opera and artists such as Chakaia Booker, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Mark di Suvero, Dale Eldred, and Ursula von Rydingsvard inspire me.

Once my conversation is done and the piece is in the gallery and front of the audience, it becomes their conversation.
-Kate Hunt


WORK DESCRIPTION

Hunt demonstrates a powerful command and intuitive sense of her materials. Through varnishing, chopping and binding, Hunt recasts this common material into the stuff of sculpture, often to stunning and surprising effect.
-Kate Hackman, The Kansas City Star.

I create sculpture using newspaper as my primary material. They are constructed through processes of stacking, cutting, gluing, wrapping, coating and burning. Ascribing to Levi- Strauss’ belief that when an artist knows her materials, new discoveries are possible, I have— through over four decades of experimentation – developed an intimate knowledge and command of the properties and capacities of newspaper that allows for infinite exploration, formal and conceptual. My intent is to create sculpture that feels essential and immediate, with an intense physical presence that can be felt first in the gut. Context is important, and there is meaning to be read into them, but those meanings are not proscribed. I want my sculptures to be complete in themselves. These are meant to be objects that meet you where you are, and address you back.

They are in significant part about the material itself – a physical substance, subject to gravity, vulnerable to burning and erosion, but also remarkably strong and persistent, able to weather the weather. Newspaper is a cheap and easily attainable material, with variable textures and densities, and I can use it to construct work of any scale. It is also a loaded one: a vehicle for communication and carrier of information, as relevant as the news of the day and then meant to be discarded. It fulfills this function at significant cost, consuming valuable resources then filling recycling bins and landfills where it can take many years to decompose, if at all.

I use other materials — bailing twine, steel, encaustic, gold leaf, inner-tubes — for formal, structural, and associative purposes. They bind, support, coat, allowing me to create both wall mounted and free-standing pieces including work that can live outdoors. They also bring texture and color — the exquisite golden-brown twist of sisal, the smooth, lush black of rubber, the delicacy and radiance of gilding, the crusty white of wax. There is a rightness I am seeking; I know I have gotten there when I’ve made something that feels like it might always have existed.

I began burning American flags during the Iraq war, and continue to make them now, having moved from Montana to Mexico, where they take on new meaning. My “Torringtons,” made of strips of newspaper bound to steel spines, take their name from Northwest Passage explorer John Shaw Torrington (1825 – 1846), whose exceptionally well-preserved body was exhumed 150 years later to try to determine the cause of death. My bowls are vessels – intimately scaled gestures, opening to the sky. At then there are large, stoic walls that divide the spaces they inhabit, and tall towers that threaten to topple, or which must be turned on their sides in order to fit into a room. Each piece is different and resolved entirely on its own terms, but in returning to certain core structures or themes, I am able fully focus on the nuances and subtleties of each specific piece.