KC Studio

Portrait of local artist, Vi Tran. Photo by Jim Barcus

The Son in ‘The Butcher’s Son’

Vi Nhan Tran was smuggled out of Vietnam and captured by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia before finding refuge in a Red Cross camp in Thailand. It’s a story of a lifetime — and all before he was three years old. Tran’s only memory from that part of his life is busting his head open…

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A RENDERING OF A BRIDGE

Siah Armajani: Bridge Builder

This fall, over 30 drawings, sculptures and architectural maquettes by internationally renowned artist and architect Siah Armajani will be on display at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. “Siah Armajani: Bridge Builder” will showcase five decades of work focusing on bridges, highlighting Armajani’s technical expertise as well as his symbolic and political investment in the bridge form….

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Portrait of mezzo-soprano, Samantha Gossard. photo by JIM BARCUS

Artist to Watch: Samantha Gossard

Mezzo-soprano Samantha Gossard’s first big role came during second grade in a musical called Steamboatin’. “I was ‘Mississippi Meg’ and I had a big monologue and a big solo, all requiring a thick southern accent — definitely a comedic role. I remember everyone laughing so much and thinking I was ‘adorable,’  and I remember my…

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Classical music group performs.

This Guy Walks Into a Bar and Sees a String Quartet Playing

Classical Revolution KC is part of a growing trend to bring classical music out of the concert hall and back into people’s lives via serendipitous discovery. “If you just grab a random 30-year-old off the street and ask, ‘Do you go the symphony?’ they’ll say, ‘No.’ It’s just not their scene,” said Nick Bell, co-founder…

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This photo shows Arabella Grayson standing next to her private collection of African American paper dolls.

The Power of Play

To make a paper doll you need paper, utensils used for drawing and/or coloring, an imagination, and illustrated clothing for the doll. Now, go back 150 years and make that paper doll black. To the previous list of materials, add a hidden agenda, hatred and cruelty toward a certain people, and a narrow definition of…

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Shakespeare First Folio, 1623. Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library

Summer of Shakespeare in KC

In 1623, a couple of guys got together and self-published some work by a dead friend of theirs named William Shakespeare.   Four hundred years later, this piece of “vanity publishing” is considered to be the crown jewel of our Western canon.   Shakespeare’s First Folio, as it is now known, is one of the…

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Artistic Director, Dustin Cates leads the Heartland Men's Chorus during a rehearsal on Thursday, December 3rd at The Folly Theater for their Holiday Concert. (Photo: Jim Barcus)

Making the World a Better Place

Voices in unity have a profound force. The members of the Heartland Men’s Chorus (HMC) have raised theirs for 30 years, serving as a positive force for a community that suffers, still, from prejudice, abuse and loss. They are, and are proud to be, Kansas City’s Gay Men’s Chorus. In 1986, 30 men joined together…

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Cary Esser glazes ceramic tiles for a new series of work titled "Veil Tyles"

Cary Esser: A Ceramist for the 21st Century

At age 19, Cary Esser flew alone from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Kansas City, a place she’d never been. “When I got off the plane,” Esser recalled in a recent interview, “I just walked up to somebody and asked, ‘Can you tell me how to get to the Kansas City Art Institute?’” Esser had…

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Portrait of Gerard Eisterhold inside his vinyard in Kansas City. He also own his own business, Eisterhold Associates Inc. (Photo: Jim Barcus)

Dual Personality

As a student in the early 1970s at the Kansas City Art Institute, Jerry Eisterhold found himself pondering wine in addition to graphic design. It was a brief phase, yet one that foretold the future. “I thought it would be a cool thing to be a wine aficionado,” Eisterhold remembers. “So I went down to…

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