Jason McDonald Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 30, 6 pm at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery (2011 Tracy Ave., KCMO). McDonald will share about his passion for Venetian glass, his practice, and the topics he addresses in his work.

Jason McDonald received his BFA with honors at California College of Art and was awarded the presidential fellowship at Tyler School of Art and Architecture where he earned his MFA. He has taught at Penland School of Craft, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pilchuck Glass School, Pratt Fine Arts, The Studio at Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass, and elsewhere.

McDonald is a Windgate Fellowship recipient, was a contestant on the reality television show “Blown Away,” and has been awarded residencies at Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Corning Museum of Glass.

The Belger Glass Annex is thrilled to present North Carolina-based artist Jason McDonald and Elliot Walker from the United Kingdom. Both artists competed on season 2 of the popular Netflix reality television series, “Blown Away.” Their mesmerizing glassblowing demonstration on April 26 at the Belger Glass Annex kicks off a series of free public programs featuring artist Jason McDonald.

Jason McDonald received his BFA with honors at California College of Art and was awarded the presidential fellowship at Tyler School of Art and Architecture where he earned his MFA. He has taught at Penland School of Craft, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pilchuck Glass School, Pratt Fine Arts, The Studio at Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass, and elsewhere.

McDonald is a Windgate Fellowship recipient, was a contestant on the reality television show “Blown Away,” and has been awarded residencies at Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Corning Museum of Glass.

Elliot Walker is a sculptor, based in the United Kingdom, who works with glass. Walker’s vibrant and demanding career has taken him from four years of education in London to working as part of the London Glass Blowing studio team of Peter Layton, a founding father of British studio glass. In 2022, Walker participated in and was crowned the winner of season 2 of Netflix’s “Blown Away.”

Walker’s Studio now resides at The Red House Glass Cone in Stourbridge, England. The site has 200 years of glass history and is one of the four remaining traditional glass cones in the UK.

Studios Inc and Misha Kligman present “Seen/Unseen: Survey of Misha Kligman’s Work”, an exhibition opening May 2nd, 2025. Studios Inc will host an Artist Talk on Saturday, May 3rd from 12 – 1 pm. 

“Seen/Unseen: Survey of Misha Kligman’s Work” reaches into different periods and bodies of work spanning the last 18 years of the artist’s evolving creative practice. The show examines the origins and continued engagement with ideas such as landscape and figure contaminated by history, absence/presence of spirit in the world, model of artist as a mystic, as well as journeys both physical and emotional. The show includes several of most recent paintings where histories fracture and collapse, and private lives unfold amidst conflict both internal and external.

Launched to serve mid-career artists, Studios Inc is Kansas City’s only nonprofit arts organization offering pivotal three-year residencies to mid-career artists who are poised to significantly expand their careers. Studios Inc offers a unique immersion experience for resident artists, who use their studio and exhibition space to produce and exhibit work, network and learn from one another, and attract and cultivate relationships with art patrons, collectors, and arts professionals.

“Seen/Unseen: Survey of Misha Kligman’s Work” will be on view in the Studios Inc Exhibition Hall through June 14th, 2025. Exhibition hours are Wednesday thru Friday 10am-4pm and Saturday 12 – 4pm.

Featured image: “The Stranger” Misha Kligman, Oil on linen, 2023