Trevor Grabill is a printmaker and teacher in Kalamazoo, and an instructor at the Kirk Newman Art School. Their woodblock and linocut prints depict the strangeness, beauty, and sadness of small towns and natural spaces in the Upper Midwest. They are fascinated by gardens, bus stops, side streets, parking lots, front porches, and other spaces…
Margaret Vega is a Professor Emerita of Kendall College of Art and Design, where she taught painting, drawing, color theory, and concept design. Her work has been shown widely across the United States and abroad, including exhibitions in Rome, Shanghai, Munich, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Vega is also the Founding Director of SiteStudio,…
Is it possible for audiences to be transported to the theatrical past? Dr. Ed Menta joins us to explore this question and more, taking a closer look into the history and architectural design of the Teatro Olimpico (Vicenza) and the Drottningholm Slottsteater (Stockholm). His talk will analyze how these theatres “perform” their pasts, examining how…
The most distinctive feature of Chinese visual culture is the written language. Chinese people gave up robes for Western suits, Mao jackets, and jeans. Hutong houses are being replaced with steel and glass towers. But the written language is impervious to Westernization. Dr. Alfreda Murck will discuss four contemporary artists — Wang Fangyu, Qiu Zhijie,…
Gustavo the shy ghost needs some encouragement to show off his talents at the Día de los Muertos party! We’ll discover how Gustavo learns to be brave with our friends from El Concilio. This Art Detectives story will be read in both English and Spanish. We will learn about Día de los Muertos and create…
This summer, the KIA happily welcomed Leslie Donaldson as Director of the Kirk Newman Art School. Get to know Donaldson as she speaks about her background, her vision for the Art School, and more. Donaldson brings more than 20 years’ experience in varied arts management functions, including education, programming, marketing, fundraising, strategic planning, and entrepreneurship.…
New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a rundown apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy, type men that she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake…
Marisa Bianan, a 2018 graduate of Western Michigan University's Dance program (BFA), was named the Associate Artistic Director of Kalamazoo’s own Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers in 2021. She has presented choreographic works at the 2019 Midwest RADFest, Inaside Chicago Dance’s Summer 2020 concert, and the 2021 Maggie Allesee Choreography competition. Recently, she was commissioned to…
Halloween in the 21st century is a fun day, associated with youth, dressing up in costumes, and trick-or-treating, evoking images of witches, devils, and goblins that are more entertaining than macabre. Halloween has its origins as a pre-Christian Celtic festival that appropriated elements of and converged with the religious feasts of All Saints’ Day and…