The Visual Art Graduation Show is a graduating tradition within the Visual Art Department. We wish to honor our Seniors and celebrate the breadth of the wonderful work being made in the Visual Art Department.

Exhibition dates:
Sunday, May 11th during the Scholarship Show | 2-4PM
Monday, May 12 – Friday, May 16, 2025

Reception: Friday, May 16, 7:30 - 9:00 pm (immediately following the SOTA Recognition Ceremony at Murphy Hall)

Join us in the Edgar Heap of Birds Family Gallery in Chalmers Hall for light refreshments and to view the work of our graduating Seniors.

We hope your semester is wrapping up smoothly! The Visual Art Education program is hosting an End-of-Year Celebration, and they would love to have you join them!

During the celebration, our graduating seniors will share reflections on their student teaching experiences. Dr. Liz Langdon will also give closing remarks as she prepares for her retirement, and VAE student Maya Sabatini will unveil her Community Art Quilt project created this semester.

We hope to see you there to celebrate these special moments with us!

Liz was recently awarded the 2024 AAI Art & Humanities Grant for her project in collaboration with Sarah Jen, “Untold Stories of Aging in Action – Revealed and Traveled.” The project’s aim is to create and document the influence of an art-based intervention among communities of older adults and intergenerational audiences.

“Untold Stories of Aging in Action – Revealed and Traveled” was born out of a 2021 project by KU social work students seeking to illuminate the experiences of older adults and their caregivers through art and conversation. Students collected and displayed artwork from more than 30 artists that captured stories of aging, and the pieces were displayed in an exhibition hosted in the KU Commons in April 2022.  

Since then, the online digital archive of submissions from KU students and other community members has continued to grow. “Untold Stories of Aging in Action – Revealed and Traveled” will be an evolution of the original project and will bring the art collection to a wider audience through a traveling exhibition.

The pieces, ranging from poetry to sculptures, will be brought to communities of older adults where students from the KU School of Social Welfare and the visual art department will facilitate discussions about the pieces with community residents and attendees. KU art education students will be leading the art criticism portion of discussions, while the social work students will facilitate the psycho-socio-emotional meaning-making portion.

“Art is a vehicle for conversation, and we think the discussions are going to be very rich as we work in these communities,” Langdon said. “It's not all about the quality of the artwork necessarily. It's really about the process, the meaning making, and the building of connections through looking at and discussing art.”

Read the full article at KU News.

Senior, Erin Eggerman will be showing at 300 Main (our Visual Art Main Office in Chalmers Hall). The show is open during office hours with a reception during our Graduation Show, May 16th, 7:30P-9P.

Norman Akers' work created during the Edgar Heap of Birds Family Artist in Residence program at Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

Norman Akers has been selected as the inaugural Edgar Heap of Birds Family Artist in Residence at the Tyler School of Art Architecture, Temple University.

Akers, a member of the Osage Nation who currently teaches painting in the Department of Visual Art at the University of Kansas, spent January-May 2025 in the Tyler community focusing on his artistic practice and engaging with students and faculty.

The five-month residency, created and supported through an endowed gift from Tyler alum and multimedia artist, educator, and activist Edgar Heap of Birds (KU MFA '79), one of the most prominent Native American artists in contemporary art today, provides an opportunity for an artist to expand their studio practice while offering access to state-of-the art facilities.

“I am very excited about the upcoming participation of the outstanding artist Norman Akers in our residency program,” said Heap of Birds. “Norman has decades of studio practice and teaching experience and a solid history of caring for students and fellow artists. His studio output has been impressive over the many years.”

Heap of Birds said Akers, whose work has been widely collected by American museums, would bring to the residency “extensive knowledge of and commitment to the Osage Tribal Nation of Oklahoma.” He described Akers as “very active in tribal ceremony.” Akers serves on the Osage Nation Traditional Cultural Advisors committee to work on matters of cultural importance to the tribe.

Tyler Dean Susan E. Cahan praised the visionary gift that established the program. “Edgar Heap of Birds has demonstrated remarkable generosity and commitment to education through the Edgar Heap of Birds Family Artist Residency,” she said.

“Having artist Norman Akers, who is an elder in the Osage tribe, work day-to-day alongside our students and faculty will open natural and intimate pathways for learning about Indigenous history and culture.”

“Being selected as the inaugural artist for this residency is an honor,” said Akers, adding that the donation establishing the residency “aligns with Native traditional ways of giving. This gift is an act of giving back to a community to help Native artists move their careers forward and enlighten others on the issues Native peoples experience today.”

The residency will culminate in a solo exhibition at Temple Contemporary, Tyler’s center for exhibitions and public programming in the fall of 2025.

Read the full article by Wanda Motley Odom here.

TD 313/506: Fiber Forms with instructor, Eric Leif Conrad.

Learn sewing, garment construction, wearable sculpture, doll construction, felting, crochet, textile printing.

M/W 11:30 - 2:20

Kirsten Taylor (Ceramics MFA '23) will be giving a ceramics demonstration at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art as part of the programming for Night/Shift: Second Nature.  

Taylor's demonstration will be on May 15th from 5-9pm in Kirkwood Hall.

Kirsten Taylor is a multimedia artist based in the tallgrass prairie region. She grew up in the Blackland Prairie region of North Texas. Taylor holds an MFA from the University of Kansas and a BA in Studio Art from Baylor University.  She completed two years of post-baccalaureate study at Utah State University in ceramics. Her practice encompasses sculpture, video, installation, poetry, and social practice projects. In addition to her studio practice, Taylor works as a Gallery Associate and Installation Specialist at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery in Kansas City. Taylor has exhibited nationally at venues including 108 Contemporary, Indianapolis Art Center, and the Leedy Voulkos Art Center. Taylor was the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at Shawnee Mission Park with Johnson County Parks and Recreation Department in 2022. She received commissions from the Spencer Museum of Art for temporary sculptures in 2020 and 2021. For the 22-23 academic year she was an art researcher at the University of Kansas’s Field Station.

Artist Statement: 

I am a multimedia artist based in the tallgrass prairie ecoregion. Informed by my rural childhood, I focus on interconnection, care, and reciprocity. Through my art I encourage empathy and connection with the more-than-human world. I engage with nature as teacher and use methods of embodied learning. I collect materials from place such as clay, plants, and sounds. My practice is sometimes site specific and always informed by place. Influenced by science, indigenous teachings, and Black feminism, I ask how we as humans can reconnect and recreate a better world. I draw from adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy and return to their ideas (and the ideas of others) of imagination, thinking with nature, and starting small. My work takes the form of mixed media sculptures, videos, installation, poetry, and social practice projects. Previous projects have focused on themes such as loss of ecological knowledge, human constructs of wilderness, invasive species, and habitat restoration. I continue to explore art’s potential for healing and positive cultural shifts.

What We Don't Yet Know

by Megan Kaminski

We will have transformed, branching fully into the space we

inhabit and have inhabited for years without knowing that

it, too, was for us and that we were always already free.

We will have taken our song into form, holding fire in mouth

 

flaming into exquisite orange golden words. Our bruised

spines blossoming fragrant tendrils, breathing deep

into shadow into stories hidden under layers of dust and stories

once deemed more worthy of telling. Our word

 

the invention of escape, of recovering through roots long planted

in dry earth. We will have bloomed from red clay, from sand,

from silty loam, each instance a substantiation of breath and spore

expanding beyond blood, species, and state. We will have pressed

 

through the cracks, danced into open song

spilled freely from lips spooling promise into practice

words from those who were supposed to be silent

those of us—all of us—who spent so long without light.

 

 

Megan Kaminski is Poet and Professor of Creative Writing and Environmental Studies at the University of Kansas. 

OPEN CALL HELLO NEW YORK! ARTIST RESIDENCY

Deadline: May 31st

The Curatorial Program for Research (CPR) is pleased to announce its Open Call for artists to participate in Hello New York 2025! CPR’s professional development program is an ideal opportunity for artists who wish to become connected in the extremely competitive art world ecosystem of New York City. During a period of two weeks, up to 15 artists participate—free of charge—in workshops led by art professionals and local artists, get involved through community engagement, receive mentorship, and expand their peer networks. After the completion of the program, participants will receive a $400 stipend, and two participants will be selected to access Materials for the Arts.

www.curatorialprogram.org

INNOVATION FESTIVAL 2025 August 12, 2025
Deadline: June 1, 2025

Innovation Festival is a one-day scientific conference that brings together a vast array of students, professionals, life science experts, and more. Conference content will showcase and explore the opportunities, challenges, resources, and innovations that exist in the Kansas and broader Midwest bioscience ecosystem.

Applications are now open for artists at the 2025 Innovation Festival STEAM Gallery taking place on August 12 at Overland Park Convention Center. Innovation Festival is a premier event bringing together creative thinkers, entrepreneurs, and innovators from across sectors in biosciences. This year's festival features platform presentations and panels, networking opportunities, a Brewseum, and more.

https://biokansas.org/events/innovationfestival/

Artist Application: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/STEAMart25

Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Emergency Grants

These monthly grants range from $500–$3,000, with the average amount being $1,700. Visual and performing artists whose work is of a contemporary, experimental nature and who have a US Tax ID number can apply.
Deadline: Rolling | foundationforcontemporaryarts.org