School of Foundation Year

Tom Lewis joined the foundation faculty in 2005, having previously taught in the photography and new media department in '01 and '03. He joined the KCAI faculty after having taught at the University of Washington, Seattle.

While in Seattle in addition to teaching at UW School of Art Tom served as an assistant to Rod Slemmons at Crux Photographic Restoration printing for photographic restoration and stabilization, research and exhibition. Tom also assisted Michael Van Horn, curator for "After Art-Rethinking 150 Years of Photography," at the Joseph and Elaine Monson Collection. He was co-founder and manager of CORE 317, an alternative space in Denver, and completed an internship at the International Center of Photography in New York.

His range of expertise includes photography; photographic restoration, stabilization, research and exhibition; installation; archiving; printing; processing; and cataloging.

His work has been exhibited at the Soil Invitational; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College-Chicago (a group exhibition in conjunction with "Persistence of Vision," a Paul Berger retrospective); the University of Texas; the Art Space Gallery in Seattle; the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington, and the University of Notre Dame among others.

Tom studied at KCAI on a Presidential Merit Scholarship and went on to earn a B.F.A. degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Washington, Seattle where he held the Jane and David Davis Fellowship and Parnasuss Endowment.

Contact: 816-802-3346 or tlewis@kcai.edu

Photography, calligraphy and artist books are among Carl Kurtz's areas of interest.

His work has been shown in numerous solo, group, juried and invitational exhibitions throughout the United States, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Russia. Kurtz's work has been published in the Time/Life Library of Photography series, Print, U&Lc, Letter Arts Review, Scripsit, Calligraphy Review and in Lettering Arts and in Art in America.

His works are included in the collections of the University of Nebraska; Wellesley College, Massachusetts; Central College, Iowa; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Kentucky; Madison Art Center, Wisconsin; Spiva Art Center, Missouri; Galleria D'Arte Del Cavallino, Italy; Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City; Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas, Kansas City; H&R Block, Inc., Kansas City; The Collected Image, Chicago; The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Florida; The Newberry Library, Chicago; Belger Cartage, Kansas City, Missouri; Sprint Corporation, Kansas City, Missouri; Dodge City Community College, Dodge City, Kansas; and Graphic Design Associates, Wilmington, Delaware.

Kurtz has received KCAI's Distinguished Achievement Award, a Fulbright-Hays Grant, an Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art Faculty Research Grant and several Mellon Faculty Enrichment Grants.

A member of the KCAI faculty since 1973, he studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design, holds a B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute and earned an M.F.A. degree at Indiana University.

Contact: 816-802-3346 or ckurtz@kcai.edu

Richard Mattsson's areas of interest include painting, drawing and printmaking.

His work has been shown nationally in solo, juried and invitational group exhibitions. His activities have been supported by the Ethel Morrison VanDerLip Award for travel and study in Europe, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Kansas City Regional Council for Higher Education and the Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art. Exhibitions include the Ottawa (Kansas) University Gallery; the Nippon Club, New York; "Granlund Selects" Invitational Exhibit, Wayzata, Minnesota; Cleveland State University; the Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis; and throughout Kansas City in the Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery; Dolphin Gallery; Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas; and the Leedy-Voulkos Gallery. His work is represented in a number of collections, including Louis Sosland, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Continental Insurance Corporation and Kansas City, Kansas, Community College.

Mattsson came to KCAI in 1965 from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to participate in the formation of the KCAI Foundation program. He chaired the program from 1966 to 1972.

A B.F.A. graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, he holds an M.F.A. degree from the University of Washington.

Contact: 816-802-3346 or rmattsson@kcai.edu

Jim Sajovic creates large-scale acrylic paintings that have been said to "seduce the eye with hidden layers and subversive complexity." His works have been exhibited at galleries and museums, nationally and internationally, including: Atlanta, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles; Edinburgh, Scotland; Milan, Rome and Venice, Italy. His works are held in many public and private collections in the United States, Europe and Asia.

His exhibitions include: Jim Sajovic, The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Ga., 2000; Millennium Garden, The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo., 1998; Jim Sajovic, The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Ga., 1997; Inferno, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1996; Dark Paintings, 1995, and The Dante Paintings, 1993, at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Mo.; New American Talent: The Tenth Exhibition, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas, 1994; and Motion Pictures: The Art of Jim Sajovic, The Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kan., 1990.

Published commentary on Sajovic's work has appeared in "Notes for a Young Painter" (Prentice-Hall, Inc.), the quarterly New American Paintings (Open Studios Press), and in numerous periodicals including Flash Art and New Art Examiner.

Sajovic's work has been supported by grants from the Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Crosby Kemper Foundation and the Kansas City Regional Council for Higher Education.

Having earned a B.F.A. degree from the University of Illinois and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Florida, Sajovic joined the faculty at KCAI in 1971.

Contact: 816-802-3346 or or jsajovic@kcai.edu

Steve Whitacre's area of artist interest encompasses large sculptural works that explore the estuary between art and architecture and the aesthetics of architectural space in relationship to sculpture and personal, poetic language.

Whitacre's works are held in many private collections and have been widely exhibited in this country, England, Scotland and Italy.

In Europe, Whitacre served on the faculty of Hull Polytechnic in England as artist-in-residence within the School of Fine Arts and Architecture, and at Brighton University in England, while concurrently researching trends in art and architecture in England and France in 1988. Whitacre continues to travel extensively in relationship to his discipline and as a matter of ongoing research concerning education in the visual arts. He is often invited as a guest lecturer or critic to various institutions. Recent engagements include the California College of Arts and Crafts, School of Art Institute of Chicago, the Architectural Association of London, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Kansas and Cranbrook Academy of Art. In addition, he has served as a juror and panelist for the American Institute of Architecture and the Municipal Art Commission of Kansas City.

Whitacre directs a private design practice, SBW Associates, based in Kansas City. This practice is project-oriented, centering on a collaborative approach to design in order to serve a broad client base and to address a wide range of team-oriented conceptual and physical design issues. Within the period of the last year, this approach has been expressed in projects with private developers, public institutions and individual clients. The nature of these projects has encompassed urban design and planning, gallery exhibition design, event design, furniture design, and architectural interiors.

Whitacre's efforts have been supported by grants from the Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art, Kansas City Regional Council for Higher Education, the 3M Corporation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Arts Council of Great Britain and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been on the faculties of Ohio University and the University of Kansas School of Architecture.

Whitacre has been a member of the KCAI faculty since 1969. He studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design and earned B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Ohio University.

Contact: 816-802-3346 or swhitacre@kcai.edu

A member of the KCAI faculty since 1993, Russell Ferguson is associate professor in the School of the Foundation Year. His areas of interest include sculpture, drawing and printmaking, with specific application of narrative drawing to the fields of painting, printmaking, scenography and illustration.

Ferguson describes himself as "a bricoleur:" He endeavors to make the materials he works with take on the shapes, configurations and forms as well as multiple meanings and double purposes, e.g., functional, structural and formal, metaphorical.

He has had solo and group exhibits in Germany, Australia and Cuba and in the Western, Mid-Western and New England regions of the United States. His works are held in private collections regionally and internationally.

Ferguson has recently exhibited (to critical approval) three-dimensional wood constructions derived from, and in relation to, his landscape drawings. He has worked on set design for the Kansas City Ballet and the Coterie Theatre in Kansas City , as well as a site-related installation at Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City. In addition to academic awards and fellowships, he has received travel grants and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Travel to specific community, landscape, and architectural sites in the United States, Germany, Scotland, and Spain informs his work. His eight-year apprenticeship with Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti was supplemented by a variety of projects, ranging from work with a Zen priest on the Navajo reservation to fellowships and bursaries at the Culhern Garden School and Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. Ferguson is a maker/fabricator working within the industrial milieu of the West.

Ferguson holds an M.F.A .degree from Yale University and a B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Contact: 816-802-3345 or rferguson@kcai.edu

Originally from New Orleans, Brett Reif received his M.F.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an associate professor in the School of the Foundation Year at KCAI.

Reif has exhibited work at the H&R Block Artspace at KCAI; Spaces Gallery in Cleveland; Hallwalls in Buffalo, N.Y.; and the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, among others. Recently, he participated in exhibitions in Kansas City, Mo.; Banff, Canada; Omaha, Neb.; New Orleans; and St. Louis.

He recently exhibited at the Campanella Gallery at Park University in Parkville, Mo., in a show entitled "Septic Charms" as well as in the KCAI faculty exhibition "Narrow Margins: 2011 KCAI Faculty Exhibition" at the H&R Block Artspace. In March 2011 his work was featured in "Bedlam Bath & Beyond" at the Kansas City Artists Coalition.

Contact: 816-802-3346 or breif@kcai.edu

Sherry Sparks has particular interest, as an artist, in design, painting and photography. Her work has been included in various group shows, local galleries and in juried shows such as National Copier Art Exhibitions at the New York State Museum and the Mid-Four Exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo.

Sparks received the Active Sponsor Award for her work in the Mid-Four Exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins museum.

She is a designer with Asiatica, Ltd., in Kansas City, where she designs the accessories and contributes to the fashion collection. Asiatica's couture line is shown in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Sparks holds B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the University of Kansas.

Contact: 816-802-3360 or ssparks@kcai.edu

Misty Gamble’s work is inspired by the human figure and its infinite capacity for communication. This makes sense given that, as a child, Misty was immersed in her father’s world of puppetry and the performing arts. Traveling to many parts of the world as a young girl and later as an adult has made an indelible impact on her life and work. In 1998, she was invited to be the first American to perform in Iran (since 1979) at the 7th International Puppet Festival in Tehran.

Gamble’s current work — life-size ceramic figurative sculptures and installations of multiple figurative fragments — focuses attention on issues surrounding femininity and challenges conventional standards of morality, normalcy and propriety. She is the recipient of numerous honors including awards from the Martin Wong Foundation, National Conference for the Education of Ceramic Arts and the Ellice T. Johnston Foundation. In 2008, she received an artist grant from the Ruth Chenven Foundation and was honored as a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist. She has been awarded long-term residencies at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, where she earned the Howard Kottler Fellowship, and the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. Recently, Gamble was invited to lead an Artist-Invite Artist Residency at Watershed and was an invited artist at Project Art in Cummington, Mass.

Gamble is a full-time faculty member in the School of the Foundation Year at the Kansas City Art Institute. Before receiving her M.F.A. degree from San Francisco State University in the visual arts, she worked for two decades as an agent, publicist and event coordinator in music and the performing arts.

Website: www.mistygamble.com

David Steele Overholt’s studies and research have covered areas of art, graphic design, technology, communications, urban architecture, psychology, sociology, philosophy, theology and more. He has worked in the commercial field and has taught in the academic environment with his main areas of focus in web and new media applications, rapid prototyping, usability testing and user-centered and experience design. He has an entrepreneurial spirit and a creative eye, which are used to seek out new ideas and tools to help design and develop for himself and others.

Overholt received his Bachelor of Arts degree in graphic design from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and a Master of Professional Studies from Tisch School of the Arts' Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University in New York.

www.davidoverholt.com
 

Caleb Taylor earned his M.F.A. degree in painting from Montana State University-Bozeman (2008), and his B.F.A. degree from Northwest Missouri State University (2004). He was named a Charlotte Street Foundation Fellow in 2010. He is the recipient of the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation M.F.A. Grant and has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Urban Culture Project. Additional awards include a 2009 ArtsKC Inspiration Grant and a ThinkTank Emerging Educator Fellowship.

His paintings and drawings are published in New American Painting and have been exhibited in numerous shows at venues including Dolphin Gallery and Grand Arts in Kansas City, Mo., and CUE Art Foundation and Brenda Taylor Gallery in New York. Taylor’s work is collected nationally and is included in the collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kan., and KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.

In addition to his studio practice, Taylor is a founding member of PLUG Projects, a curatorial collaboration in the Stockyards District of Kansas City. PLUG exhibits national artists and is a recipient of a 2011 Rocket Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation, Spencer Museum of Art and Charlotte Street Foundation.