On first Friday, September 1 Jessalyn Mailoa will lead the Belger Glass Annex crew to create an original glass artwork. The glassblowing demonstration is from 6pm to 8pm at the Belger Glass Annex (1219 E. 19^th St., KCMO).

Jessalyn Mailoa was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Glass and Graphic Design, and studied psychology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Afterwards, Mailoa moved to Norfolk, Virginia, to join a studio assistantship program at the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio. Currently, she is a studio assistant at the Belger Glass Annex in Kansas City.

ARTIST STATEMENT

What do you long for? Is it a person, an object, a place, or an emotion? In my life, I have longed for many things; a sense of belonging, a healthy mind, and intimacy to list a few.

Longing is an intense yet delicate emotion. On one end it can cause us to get caught up on the negative; embarking us on a downwards spiral of frustration and insecurities. On the other end, it can create a sense of hope and focus towards a positive goal. My work explores the emotion of longing in relation to the various facets of my identity including culture, gender, and disability.

I create videos and objects that incorporate glass because I am interested in the parallels of this material to human nature. Much like people, glass is fragile yet resilient, moldable yet rigid, familiar yet unpredictable.

A native New Yorker, Terry Winters graduated from Pratt Institute in 1971, focusing on painting. Through the 1970s, while studying nature, especially molecular level life forms, Winters honed his craft as a drawer and a painter until he was ready for his inaugural exhibition in 1982 at the prestigious Sonnabend Gallery. Later that same year he began his first foray into printmaking at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) on Long Island. Winters became one of the leading printmakers in the U.S. At first, he was leaving his Manhattan studio one day a week to work with the master printers at ULAE, and that later escalated to up to four days a week. As art historian Richard Axsom wrote in “The Philosophers’ Stone: The Prints of Terry Winters:”

Printmaking is a forum whose procedures and collaborative protocols have allowed Winters to explore the expressive nature of his drawings. For an artist whose cardinal subject is protean form, printmaking encourages a changing image through the various proofing phases that lead to an editioned print. A print reflects a progressive history of alterations. It is a record of mutation, an accumulation of discrete changes that has no exact counterpoint in drawing or painting.

Over the years, Winters’ paintings, drawings, and prints have been featured in major retrospectives at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This show is a group exhibition featuring the talented artists and creators who work downstairs from us at King G! Their works range in medium from textiles and design, to jewelry, ceramics and painting — even music! Alongside these pieces will be works by our usual suspects here at Upper Level, interpreting King G (Gambrinus, the king of beer!) in their own recognizable styles.

King G Bar & Deli will be celebrating their two year anniversary this month (Sept 10th to be exact!) and we wanted to show our gratitude to our amazing neighbors. We’ve weathered a lot together, including the partial collapse of the building back in 2018! Ever since its inception, owner Eric Flanagan knew that he wanted to support the artists who helped transform the East Crossroads into a mural-rich landscape. The building proudly boasts an exterior mural by Rif Raf Giraffe and the now iconic two-story indoor mural by Sebastian Coolidge; even the deli sports a four part painting by Xmas Viper! This embrace of the arts has in turn drawn many other artists and makers to this establishment so as we’ve gotten to know the exceptional people who make up the team at King G over the years, we wanted to take this time to highlight and celebrate their diverse talents also!

Featured Artists Include:

Alex Eickhoff, Bed Fundy, Compost Pile, Jeni Lynn, Madison Jones (Go Figure Studio), Nia Marie, Old Boy, Phybr, Rif Raf Giraffe, Ryleigh Hightree (R Designs), & Xmas Viper

Music (Sept. First Friday):

Tica Felise — Ukulele Set

Wrker — Electronic Set

In Nest: A Collection, we invite you to witness selections of artist Jenna Bauer’s work from 1999 — present. The exhibition includes several distinct styles that have emerged in her work over the years, such as meditative landscapes, abstract process paintings, color grid explorations, and conceptual works. The exhibit also includes reflections of the artist’s daily life, such as a poignant checkerboard installation of to-do lists from the period of time when she was a caregiver for her father. Nest offers an intimate glimpse of the evolution of an artist’s life and work as she has moved through time, and the results range from restrained and thoughtful to joyful and energetic, creating spaces of respite for all who engage them.

Beco Gallery is pleased to present, Disconcerting Present… or was that a dream?, an off-site group exhibition hosted by Bunker Center For The Arts featuring Kristina Gabuardy, Adams Puryear, Sam Dybeck, Chelsea Smith, Lily Erb, Will Preman, and Sophie Stebbins, six artists living in the Kansas City region and one from the Chicago area. The exhibition features a wide variety of mediums, ranging from sculpture, painting, lit ceramics, and a site-specific installation by Lily Erb. The exhibition spans between two rooms, one with more reality and representational works, alluding to real life, heavy with a sense of anxiety and over- consumption. The other room departs from reality, with blue lights and works that seem out of a strange dream.