Lila York debuted Celts at Boston Ballet – a year before Michael Flatley’s Riverdance became a sensation – and is a stunning fusion of Irish folk dance and ballet. Set to the music of The Chieftains and more, this celebration of Irish culture has brought audiences to their feet with its choreographically intense jig and captivating energy. Celts is the featured work in this “mixed rep” production. It opens with two short ballets, then followed by the, featured “headline” act.

Edwaard Liang’s Wunderland opens the show and is a gorgeous ballet washed in red and inspired by a giant snow globe.

George Balanchine’s Serenade is set in moonlight and is known as Balanchine’s most romantic ballet, an ode to the classic ballets Swan Lake and Giselle.

FEATURING

Celts
Choreography: Lila York
Music: The Chieftains, William J. Ruyle, Bill Whelen, Mason Daring

Serenade
Choreography: George Balanchine
Music: Peter I. Tchaikovsky
Performed by Kansas City Symphony

Wunderland
Choreography: Edwaard Liang
Music: Philip Glass

Single tickets will go on sale Aug. 30. https://kcballet.org/events/celts/
To purchase a subscription, visit http://www.kcballet.org/performances-tickets/subscribe/

Meighan Morrison was born in Chicago in 1966 and studied fine art at Boston University before transferring to Parsons School of Design in NYC, now The New School. She currently lives and maintains a studio in Bridgeport, CT.

She spent the last decade devolving from representational art into a simple abstract language. She works on the floor (which adds a physicality to her process) on oversized rolls of linen or paper. While dominant forms and basic composition are generally pre- determined she is relaxed with the brush, inviting the accident and then rerouting course to accommodate it.

Her interest in opposites, how they meet and determine each other – black/white, large/small, past/future – remains a constant in her work. The large scale of her stretched paintings amplify the relief found in simplification. The basic nature of the materials and a limited palette speak to the essential.

She hopes that her work might serve as a temporary panacea for the exponential convolution that is our modern lives and perhaps also as a small rebellion against it.

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Blue Gallery is thrilled to present Meighan Morrison’s solo exhibition, REMEMBER THE FUTURE?. Please stop by the gallery to see this stunning exhibition in person.

If you wish to set up an appointment to view the exhibition, either in the gallery or via FaceTime, please give us a call at #816.527.0823, or email kellyk@bluegalleryonline.com

Hope to see you soon!

Kelly + David

At the Threshold
KU Graduate Arts Association
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Group Exhibition
June 3 — August 14, 2021

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Featured Artists

Dora Agbas
Debbie Barrett-Jones
Mark ‘Fitz’ Fitzsimmons
Sadie Goll
Tiana Nanayo Kuuleialoha Honda
Allison Ice
Hannah Lindo
Tristan Lindo
Dillen Peace
Sarah Pickett
Sophia Reed
Kirsten Taylor
Jenny Welden

“Thresholds are dangerous places, neither here nor there, and walking across one is like stepping off the edge of a cliff in the naïve faith that you’ll sprout wings halfway down. You can’t hesitate or doubt. You can’t fear the in-between.”― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Wolfe Brack | We’ve Met Before

Join us for the Opening Reception and Artist Talk for our June exhibition, Wolfe Brack, “We’ve Met Before”

More info

Kris Schmolze has been working as a full-time visual artist and musician since 2016. Drawing inspiration from science, technology, and nature. Kris’s recent work is investigating abstract painting through the exploration of color relationships derived from imagery found in the natural world.

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It has been quite a year for however long. So many things happened and yet nothing did. Distancing, dying, isolating, masking, vaccinating, and all the while I was creating. Initially, I was paralyzed as COVID-19 kicked off. Elective surgeries were canceled as a fistula festered in between my mouth and sinuses from a botched dental extraction. I was granted two life-saving procedures by a pair of surgeons. My partner, our pet, and I decided to flee Kansas City as mask holes moseyed about.

We found safe harbor with her parents in her hometown for a few weeks until a derecho decimated Cedar Rapids. I had started the architectural portrait in pencil of the A T Averill house prior and painted it post in Grandview for three weeks at her grandmother’s home until power and internet returned. A room in the Averill house became my studio for this artwork and sheltered us from the storm.

Spent the remainder of the summer, autumn, winter, and into the spring working with color and composition wishing to open up into exploring abstraction. Once the new studio space was set up I began building dozens of large canvases just before another surgery to repair my foot from a car wreck. This put me on my duff for several months so I began drawing with alcohol-based markers filling whole sheets of archival paper.

It is usually good to have an idea to explore with your work while searching for multiple answers to questions you find interesting. Looking at images from electron microscopes and images from deep space telescopes I found these tiny and gigantic worlds enveloping our lives while reaching far from the world we live on. I found the coloring choices scientists make of these black and white images fascinating by helping to define these pictures of creatures and landscapes more clearly.

I explored how colors relate to each other through designs and patterns. Warm colors versus cool colors. Positive space versus negative space. The paints I use are fluorescent at times; some glow under black light and most have an ultraviolet light resistance, which allows them to remain vivid for decades. Initially, I was working very tight on smaller canvasses. Eventually, I became more comfortable opening up to the space provided by larger surfaces. Finally, things began to integrate and overlap.

No matter how bad I thought a drawing or painting was going I forced myself to complete it and then move on. Every one of these artworks went through a period of time where I felt it was ugly or not working out. It can be as frustrating as it is rewarding to make art. Not everything you make will be great. As an artist, you do not know how people will respond. Pieces I feel are strongest for me may not be the same for anyone else. You never know until you put it out there. Stopping when things are difficult assures your work will never get better. So why quit if you are behind when you can just keep making art and see where you end up instead?