Artebella On The Radio: May 21, 2020

Western Middle School Art Teacher Amanda Thompson talks about the challenges of visual art NTI, and artist/curator Ashley Cathey tells about the 3-D virtual reality version of her "Black Before I Was Born" exhibit that she is building. Tune in each Thursday to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com to hear Keith Waits talk with artists and teachers!

Amanda Thompson has a background in fine art, community outreach, and education. She currently holds a BFA in Mixed Media from the University of Kentucky and an MAT in art education and MS in human development from the University of Louisville. She is in her ninth year of teaching Art at Western Middle School for the Arts and Children’s Fine Art Classes with LVA . She has shown artwork, participated in art exhibits and programs throughout the US, Ireland, Italy, and China.

Ashley Cathey is a painter whose creative journey began with performing arts before she was eventually encouraged to develop her visual art talents, which, up until then had been purely for her own personal edification, by exhibiting in Chicago before returning to her native Louisville. She came to prominence when ArtsReach commissioned Cathey to create a series of portraits for their annual Keepers of the Dream celebration at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. In 2016 her work was featured on the cover of LEO Weekly as part of an extensive story on artists of color in Louisville. She recently curated the exhibit, Black Before I Was Born, still up at Roots 101.

Spotlight: The Academy at LVA Graduating Seniors, Part Two

“Birds on a Branch” by Ian Kimbell, New Albany High School, from the Academy class at IUS

On May 10, Louisville Visual Art will open the 2019 Academy Exhibition for high school students. This is the second of a two-part look at the senior students included in that exhibit.

“The Louisville Visual Art classes helped to restore the passion for art inside of me.” - Syndonia Kinderman

“Feathers Perspectives” by Ian Kimbell, New Albany High School, from the Academy class at IUS

Ian Kimbell may be the model of a modern over-achiever; National Merit finalist, Presidential Scholar finalist, National Horatio Alger Scholar, Indiana Academic All-Star, National AP Scholar, speech and research awards at the state level through the Indiana Junior Academy of Science are only the top of his list of accomplishments, but today we look at the most recent work from his eight years in Children’s Fine Art Classes and the Academy at LVA.

Kimbell’s images show an interest in pattern and texture. Even in the linear form of an elephant the understated cross-hatching suggests the rough skin we associate with the oversize mammal. More interesting is the manner in which he has fashioned a row of birds snuggles in tight formation on a tree branch. Although representational, there is an eye for the abstract foundation of organic form in how Kimbell realizes the aviary chorus.

 “I have a special spot in my heart for Dean Mistler. He saw the potential for me early on in middle school and is probably the sole reason I am still devoted to art today. He was never afraid to tell me if a line was a bit off, or if I could add more color in a certain spot, or if my texture didn’t exactly match the image. But beyond that, Mr. Mistler really did teach me how to see. Before I began taking his classes in middle school, I saw red as red, I couldn’t feel textures by looking at them, I saw shapes as only shapes in our world. Mr. Mistler gave me the joy of seeing the vibrant greens and yellows of moss in the spring, and seeing the feathers of a bird and being able to imagine brushing my hand through them just by seeing them. He taught me the design of the world and how to truly appreciate the beauty of everything around me. And, on top of this, he showed me how to express these feelings on paper, scratchboard, canvas, cardboard, mosaics, and many more. I owe everything I am as an artist to Mr. Mistler.”

Art was not all he was about. Kimbell was also Student Council President, a member of the marching band, jazz band, pep band, and the Floyd County Youth Symphony, co-President of the Latin Club, co-founder of the Dance Marathon for Riley Children’s Hospital at New Albany High School, served on the Youth Philanthropy Council, was an intern for the coordinated campaign for Joe Donnelly, did peer tutoring, and volunteered for Kentucky Science Center.

He has been accepted to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, Notre Dame, and Purdue for the fall, and has financial aid from all of these institutions, and is one of 106 students in the country to get the Horatio Alger national scholarship, which is $25,000.



Sydonia Kinderman took classes with LVA for 9 years at Preston Art Center (New Albany), the Louisville Water Tower, the Holy Trinity / Clifton Center, and at DuPont Manual. As an Academy student, she took Drawing and Painting 1, Drawing 2, Painting 2, Studio Art, Print Making, and Developing Concepts 1.

“Dude It's 3AM” by Sydonia Kinderman, from the Academy class at DuPont Manual

Like any young artist, you can find a range of themes and techniques in Kinderman’s work, but the images we see here explore visual darkness as a way to capture darkness in human lives. “Dude, It’s 3AM” evokes a multitude of shared memories of the lonely places available to us in the wee hours. Kinderman comes by the image honestly, but it connects to a tradition of socially conscious art, imbued with sensitivity to human psychology.

“When the art teachers at my school lost patience with me, at a time when I was struggling with health issues, they made me feel very discouraged and I began question my interest in art. Ultimately, I chose to be removed from art classes at my school. I wasn’t sure I would ever find my passion and love of art again. The Louisville Visual Art classes helped to restore that passion inside of me and inspired me to keep learning. I feel like all the teachers that I had throughout my years with the LVA have gone above and beyond what most art teachers would but if I were to single one out, it would be Wilma Bethel, for all that she taught me, both about art and about being an artist.”

Kinderman is a very active athlete, participating in the Archery team at school (Most Improved Archer, Top Female Archer, 1st Place Female Archer at the Fairdale Pre-State Shoot Out tournament, and 2nd Place at the 2018 Farnsley Spring Shoot Out Tournament), a swim team during the summer, and Mixed Martial Arts through the year. She received the Distinguished Scholars Award from Bellarmine University and also received a National Society of High School Scholars award.

Since 9th grade Kinderman has volunteered as a coach for an organization called Girls On The Run, a program for young girls to learn how to build character while also learning to be healthy and active. She also volunteered at Studio Works by Zoom Group for 2 years.

Kinderman has been accepted to Flagler, Bellarmine, WKU, EKU, U of L, UK, Moorehead State, Ohio University, Greenville, University of Indianapolis, and Long Island University. I have received some scholarships and financial aid. My projected major is psychology and art as a double major. 

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“Cerynitis” by Sydonia Kinderman, from the Academy class at DuPont Manual.

“Coercion” by Sydonia Kinderman, from the Academy class at DuPont Manual.

“Savannah Scene” by Ian Kimbell, New Albany High School, from the Academy class at US

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.

Spotlight: The Academy at LVA Graduating Seniors, Part One

“Bliss” by Madelynn Hicks, North Oldham High School

On May 10, Louisville Visual Art will open the 2019 Academy Exhibition for high school students. This is the first of a two-part look at the senior students included in that exhibit.

“LVA has made a major difference in my life” - Alexis Fromm

“Mushroom Bride” by Natalie Stastny, Atherton High School

In the work of these three graduating seniors we see a preoccupation with a deconstruction of the human form. Bodies are modified through dismemberment, the peeling of skin, or a grafting of mushrooms onto the epidermis, not for horrific effect but as metaphorical signposts for the adolescent introspection building a foundation for identity. Each of these artists is still finding themselves, searching for who they are by peeling themselves like an onion.

Whether or not the exact images are self-portraits is beside the point; all art expresses the aesthetic concerns of the individual. In “Moulting” Madelyn Hicks depicts a woman’s torso, bereft of hips, legs, or feet, stripping away skin. The piece may be inspired by a case of post-beach vacation sunburn, but it elicits feelings of discomfort in the viewer in part because the woman so casually changes her physical form without any preciousness or hesitation.

Natalie Stastny’s “Mushroom Bride” wears a garment made of the plants, or is the fungus a part of her skin? The ambiguity is compelling, but the choice of color, gesture, and expression do not suggest distress. Whatever the reality, the bride seems happy enough.

A print from Alexis Fromm is slightly more gruesome. It shows a naked female torso in which the skin has been pulled away to reveal an oversize eyeball surrounded by teardrops. The merging of vivisection and whimsy is pure surrealism. We want to turn away but we cannot.

These are arguably the more overt examples of a fascination with the physical self that might be claimed as a teenage stereotype, but the level of confident, even sardonic self-awareness and forensic examination is impressive. One of Fromm’s favorite subjects seems to be animal skulls, although she extends them into fantastical forms beyond the mundane farm inhabitants whose brains they once held. “Hellboy” imagines the horns and stretched earlobes of the comic book character.

And Hicks’ young person eating Tostitos from the bag while prone on their bed in violation of how many rules of civilized behavior is not quite “Ladylike”, but the image suggests that they could care less about outmoded nomenclature intended to restrict all natural impulses for comfort.     

Meanwhile, Stastny is fond of entangling her figures in organic forms that seem to bind and blind them. We assume it is not because she doesn’t like drawing eyes that she inevitably shields them from view.

All three artists are fearless in exploring the plasticity of the body, lending it malleability that aligns them with Modern and Post-modern movements.

Alexis Fromm has been in LVA classes since 7th grade. She will be attending Spalding University with a $6,000 Merit Scholarship and a projected major of Studio Arts.

“After my first class with Rodolfo Salgado Jr., I fell in love with Printmaking and have taken every printmaking class with him that was available. Before LVA I did not know what printmaking was and I didn’t know the large variety of art that was in the world besides clothing, painting, and drawing. LVA has inspired me to go to college and pursue my love for art.”

Fromm has worked as a volunteer for Steam Exchange Community Arts Center over the past four years. With Steam Exchange she attended the Mayor’s Give A Day to help clean out their building and clean up around the Smoketown neighborhood.

Madelyn Hicks has taken LVA classes every semester for all four years of high school: Studio Art with Rudy Salgado, Drawing 1 and 2 with Wilma Bethel, Painting 1 with Dennis Whitehouse and Sunny Ra, and Painting 2 with Sunny Ra, Julie Leidner, and Tenille Novinger. She was accepted into several schools and will be attending The University of Cincinnati’s DAAP program in the fall and majoring in Industrial Design 

Hicks was accepted into GATES (Gifted and Talented Educational Services) for art, and the Governor’s School for the Arts (GSA) 2018 program. She also won an LVA competition to have her work featured on the 2018-19 season poster for The Kentucky Opera.

“LVA truly taught me how to make art. My teachers all taught me different techniques and styles of creating that shaped me into the artist I am today. The classes I took with Sunny Ra in drawing and painting established the foundations I needed to discover my perspective as an artist and work not only technically but also conceptually. Sunny definitely went above and beyond for me and was extremely helpful in building a portfolio for both GSA and college auditions. The different perspectives and skills I learned through LVA have provided a strong base for me as a creator.”

Natalie Stastny has taken Academy at LVA classes for three years: 2 Digital Art classes with Lilly Higgs, one Drawing and Painting class with Sunny Ra, and one Drawing and Painting class with Julie Leidner. She has been accepted at and received scholarships and/or financial aid for the Art Academy of Cincinnati, the Columbus School of Art and Design, and Eastern Illinois University.

Stastny is also involved in National Art Honors Society and the Atherton High School Art Club and earned a varsity letter in Swimming. She has represented Atherton on WLKY and the PBS News Hour talking about the school’s transgender bathroom policy.

“My favorite class with LVA has been the Digital drawing class. I’ve taken it twice mostly because the program itself helped me understand digital media but also because my teacher (Lilly Higgs) was very encouraging and helped me practice digital drawing with tablets, which at the time was a resource I did not have access to at home.”

“I loved all of my classes and think they have helped me a lot in both my personal and school related art projects. Lilly Higgs and Julie Leidner especially seemed to want to talk to me and get to know me better. I won’t forget the kindness that those teachers offered me. It also allowed me more practice time during the day and a space where I can just be creative and also learn the basics of art at the same time.”

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“Frida Kahlo” by Alexis Fromm

“Moulting” by Madelynn Hicks, North Oldham High School

“Siren Queen” by Natalie Stastny, Atherton High School

“Lady” by Alexis Fromm

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.

Art[squared] Spotlight: Julia Davis

To celebrate the 5th Anniversary of LVA’s Art [squared] Event to Benefit Children’s Fine Art Classes, we will feature five local artists who are contributing 24” x 24” paintings to be sold at the event through a Silent Auction. Today we feature Julia Davis:

Design for CirqueLouis event, digital illustration by Julia Davis, 2017

“As an artist and I want to be fully involved within the arts on many levels.” – Julia Davis

Besides her studio practice as a painter, Davis has also become involved with performance, working with Squallis Puppeteers for the last 18 months and becoming immersed in the world of puppetry, education, and creation all together. “I started working for these amazing people as an administrative assistant in the office then I started dipping into puppet mingling, which then lead to protest involvement, then to making puppets and performing with said puppets. I made my first puppet for Emperor's New Clothes, which is an adaptation of a Hans Christian Anderson Fairy tale using multiple animal rod puppets, which meant I had to find my voice as well. I eventually made my first backpack puppet for the performance of Peter and the Wolf (with the helping hand Squallis directors, Shawn Hennessey and Nora Christensen) that was utilized in a one-time performance with the Louisville Orchestra on March 17th, 2018.”

“I also I dip into the circus as an illustrator for CirqueLouis, and I am currently working on my 4th poster for them. Like Squallis, CirqueLouis is a non-profit organization that makes a great effort teaching the public and the youth of the public the importance of performance artwork, specifically the importance of the circus. Their most recent show, Kaleidoscope (November 2017) was a favorite of mine because it gave life to one of my most treasured studio items, the movable manikin. I was given a lot of artistic freedom and was able to develop a visual story in one frame. I truly love the relationship I have with CirqueLouis and will be designing the poster for their new show, Happy Birthday that will be performed at the Iroquois Amphitheater as part of that historic venue’s 80th birthday.” 

"Look before you leap" by Julia Davis, Oil on canvas, 24x24in, 2018, Featured Silent Auction Painting for 2018 Art[squared} Benefit

Davis remains dedicated to her studio practice for painting however, and was included in Not Just a Drawing: A Line with Intent in Chicago in March 2018. Oh, Places is a new painting that is adding on to a continuing study about the use of imagery. “My personal work contradicts realistically painted images with superimposed line work offering a question of purpose. My aim is to paint images in a realistic fashion and interrupt them with graphic line work to consistently investigate the use of imagery. The piece for "Art [Squared]", Look before you leap, is another addition to my study.” 

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: BFA, University of Louisville, 2012
Website: www.JuliaDart.com
Instagram: @Julia_Davis_Art

"Peter" (for Peter and the Wolf) by Julia Davis for Squallis Puppeteers, 2018

"Pinocchia", Design for CirqueLouis poster, digital illustration by Julia Davis, 2016

"Pinocchio" (alternate), Design for Cirque Louis poster, Digital illustration by Julia Davis, 2016

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.

Art [squared] Spotlight: Billy Hertz

To celebrate the 5th Anniversary of LVA’s Art [squared] Event to Benefit Children’s Fine Art Classes, we will feature five local artists who are contributing 24” x 24” paintings to be sold at the event through a Silent Auction. Today we spotlight Billy Hertz:

“My paintings of landscapes have become far removed from any traditional definition of that genre; yet they still maintain a slender but sustaining thread to the concept of representational image. I paint "ariel" views of farmland - the furrows of plowed fields are sometimes rendered as transparent textures.” 

"Pink Cloud at Sunrise" by Billy Hertz, Mixed media painting, 24x20x1in, 2017, POR

Hertz has exhibited all over the United States, and in Germany, Italy, and Russia, and his work is included in several private collections.

“My fascination with the dark, fertile earth of cultivated fields led to loose interpretations of the landscapes; this manipulation into near abstraction by unorthodox perspectives i.e. Clouds and fields occupying the same plane and geometric shapes are built from layers of oil washes.” 

“The determined physicality of the color fields is accentuated by a collage element, so that the terrain is rendered with a dash of topical relief that introduces a new element to my vocabulary.”

“The blurring of naturalism and non-representational in the imagery obfuscates the intention enough to create some mystery in a subject usually thought of as straightforward (the landscape) and hopefully seduces my viewers into completing the narrative for themselves.”

In addition to his own inestimable work as an artist, Hertz has been a gallery operator for more than 20 years, and was an early pioneer in transforming the near east downtown area of Louisville, KY that is now known as the NuLu district. Galerie Hertz now operates in the Smoketown neighborhood of Louisville.

"Garden Plot #1" by Billy Hertz, Oil pencil on panel (painting), 12.5x16.5x3.75in 2017, POR

Hometown: Boynton Beach, Florida

Education: BFA in Ceramics, Florida Atlantic University, 1972; 1974 Post Graduate, Painting, Florida Atlantic University Painting, University of Louisville, Post Graduate Painting
Website: www.galeriehertz.com

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"Seaport" by Billy Hertz, Oil pencil on panel (painting), 16x20x3.75in, 2016-17, POR

"Fields #2" by Billy Hertz, Oil pencil & foam core on panel mixed media painting 16x201in, 2017, POR

"Fields Meet River", by Billy Hertz, Oil & pencil (painting) on panel, 20x24x3.75in, 2017, POR

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.