ARTSPEAK RADIO with Tony Jones, Frank Lingo, Sidonie Garrett, and Patricia Williams

Wednesday, February 26, 2020, noon – 1pm, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes KCAI President Tony Jones, writer Frank Lingo, Executive Director Patricia Williams, and Executive Artistic Director Sidonie Garrett. The second half of the program Sidonie and Patricia discuss the KCMO Public Budget Hearings – Arts Cuts event happening Saturday, Feb. 29 at 9am – 11:00am at Southeast Community Center 4210 E. 63rd St. KCMO.

TONY JONES, KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUE PRESIDENT joined KCAI in December 2014. He is an internationally known arts administrator, broadcaster, educator, exhibition curator and historian of art, architecture and design, as well as a consultant on higher education and the arts. A citizen of both Britain and the United States, he was educated at Goldsmith’s College in London and the Newport College of Art in Wales as a sculptor, painter and art historian. He came to the United States for postgraduate study as a Fulbright Scholar. He was appointed president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1986, serving in that capacity until 1991, when he took a position as director of the Royal College of Art in London. He returned to SAIC in 1996 and served as president until 2012 when he was named chancellor and president-emeritus.
Conferred the title Commander of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in 2003, Jones holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, six honorary doctorates and an array of international honors. He was conferred the Austrian Knight’s Cross for services to education in Europe, elected an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and received the Distinguished Service Award of the American Lawyers for the Arts. He is a former two-term national chairman of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design, a consortium of which KCAI is a member. In 2011, a historic landmark building in downtown Chicago was named Jones Hall in his honor.
In addition to numerous books and articles, Jones has scripted and hosted several television series and radio programs for the BBC. Jones is also president of the Sir James Dyson Educational Foundation in America, co-chair of the Royal College of Art Foundation and international ambassador of the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (“Young Arts Miami”).

JANUARY 15, 2020
KCAI Dedicates Barbara Marshall Residence Hall
Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) recently announced the naming of their new Student Residence Hall after Kansas City Philanthropist and Emeritus Board of Trustees member Barbara Hall Marshall. Marshall, who joined the KCAI board in 1967, has played an important role in the growth and success of KCAI.
“For the 40 years Barbara served on our board, she was an ardent advocate for arts education and first and foremost, deeply cared about our students. It’s fitting that her legacy is associated with our new building that provides a home away from home — a place where students can relax and recharge. We are honored that the residence hall is named after a woman who will forever be part of KCAI,” said Tony Jones, The Nerman Family President.
In addition to serving on the board, Marshall was a volunteer for KCAI’s Fireside, Sketch Box and Vanderslice committees. In 2017, KCAI awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.
During the dedication, KCAI also announced the naming of the Sherman Family Student Union. Located on the first floor of the residence hall, KCAI’s first-ever student union is named in honor of the John and Marny Sherman family and will create a new sense of community on campus. Amenities include the JE Dunn Game Room, the G. Kenneth and Ann Baum Community Kitchen and a fitness center.

FEBRUARY 21, 2020
Major Investments in Animation and Illustration at KCAI
Major Investments in Animation and Illustration
Beginning fall semester, Animation and Illustration students will have contemporary new classroom and studio space in the former living center towers. As soon as students moved into the new Barbara Marshall Residence Hall, work began to convert the towers to much-needed space for our two fastest-growing departments. In the past three years, Illustration has grown by 15% and the number of Animation students has increased by 50%!
Kansas City architects Gould Evans worked with KCAI faculty to design buildings that provide optimal classroom, studio space and common areas for Illustration and Animation, which have very different needs. Illustration (south tower) has large gallery walls to display student art, a common work area that mimics the feel of working in a design firm and utilizes lots of natural light. Animation (north tower) has high tech lighting controls so spaces can be darkened for student presentations and lightbox work, while presentation walls are multi-media screens perfect for showcasing moving images.
“Migrating the animation department into a newly designed and dedicated space represents the positive culmination of literally thousands of hours of hard work and passion on behalf of our alumni, faculty and current majors. After fifteen years of dynamic growth, creative exploration and learning, students will now have a new home in which to continue our investigations into the art and design of motion. We are over the moon excited as a department to greet the future in our new space!” said Chair of Animation Doug Hudson.
The north tower will also be the new site of KCAI Gallery. It is relocating from its previous location in the Kansas City Crossroads, which closed in December 2019, to allow more students to take advantage of gallery programming. The gallery will be built with a unique flexible usage design including the campus’s first black box theater for student and public screenings.
“It’s exciting to be moving KCAI’s Crossroads program onto campus. The opportunities for continued engagements with the KCAI community, including the Center for Contemporary Practice program, are significant. New engagements with our neighborhood cultural institutions will not only benefit and serve KCAI students but also our greater Kansas City communities,” said Director of KCAI Gallery Michael Schonhoff.

KCAI Breaks Ground on Liberal Arts Building
The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) will break ground on Friday, April 26 at 9 a.m. on a new 18,000 square foot building that will house the Liberal Arts program including Art History and Creative Writing, as well as all of student services. The opportunity to build the Hall, located on the northeast corner of 44th and Oak, is largely thanks to the generosity of donors who have given to the Space to Create capital campaign.
The Hall is designed by Hufft, a Kansas City-based architecture, interior design and custom fabrication firm. Hufft has a strong reputation as a firm that creates meaningful spaces and objects inspired by people and places while integrating designers and builders into one holistic process. With a project list ranging from student unions to corporate offices to residential homes, their distinctive approach of creating a building that complements both the physical site and the surrounding neighborhood made them the perfect choice to design KCAI’s new Hall. Award-winning landscape architects Hoerr Schaudt will design the expansive outdoor spaces and Kansas City construction company McCownGordon will build the facility
According to Tony Jones, the Nerman Family President of KCAI, the college worked closely with the surrounding neighborhood associations and the tone of the Hall is less institutional and more residential. “We wanted it to be very beautiful and appropriate for the neighborhood. From the very beginning we have pictured this as classrooms in a garden, a building that is a pleasure to work in and walk past,” said Jones.
This new Hall will redefine the KCAI student experience. Since all majors are required to take art history and liberal arts courses, every student will benefit from the spacious, light-filled classrooms with state-of-the-art technology for learning and a courtyard garden for socializing. Additionally, it will be the first time all of student services, including academic advising and financial aid, will be officed in the same building to streamline student operations and support.
A unique architectural feature of the Hall will be the entry portal on Oak Street. Visitors will enter through a portal adorned with panels, each engraved with the name of influential art historians of the past and present. The entrance will become a tribute to the individuals who have interpreted and written about art and artists for future generations. “Many museums and art centers celebrate artists by having their names of the facade – but no one has honored art historians – the scholars who interpret, explain and tell us the stories of those artists. I think they deserve thanks and recognition” said Jones.
Matthew Hufft, founding principal of Hufft, said, “It is a true honor to be working with the entire KCAI team on this project. With four KCAI alumni currently on our Hufft team, we see firsthand the exceptional education KCAI provides its students. We believe this building will add to the student experience, as well as contribute to the already amazing aesthetic of the surrounding neighborhood.”
The Hall will also be the home to KCAI’s new minor in Entrepreneurial Studies in Art and Design, which will prepare artists and designers to have an entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and the leadership skills to engage in innovative artistic ventures. A partnership with The Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a program of the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City provides KCAI students with unrivaled access to entrepreneurial courses taught by experts in the field. www.kcai.org

FRANK LINGO is a former columnist for The Kansas City Star where he wrote on environmental and social justice issues. Lingo has also written extensively for daily and weekly publications on politics, music and sports. He has his own newspaper distribution business, specializing in The New York Times.

PATRICIA WILLIAMS-Director of Media Arts The Art Inst. Intl KC, Directed portfolios and now have student in NY, LA, KC making films, Executive Director 2002-2004 KCFF, Executive Director, and adjunct professor at Avila and UMKC.

SIDONIE GARRETT, Executive Artistic Director of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival where she directed the past five season productions, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, King Lear and Twelfth Night, all awarded Best Play in Pitch Magazine’s BEST OF KC. She directed previous productions including The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet (2003, awarded Best Play by Pitch Magazine), Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, King Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor , King Richard III, Macbeth, rotating repertory productions of Antony and Cleopatra and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It. Sidonie directed the collaboration project, The Merchant of Venice, presented by the Jewish Community Center and Johnson County Community College, the first HASF indoor production.

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