Lisa Bartlett | “Fly Away” (detail), collage on birch panel
Allison L. Norfleet Bruenger | “Oh Bee Have,” mixed media
Ray Cardwell | singer songwriter
Kyle Selley | “Viscous Transition,” firework residue on Plexiglas
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Featured Artists Program
Meet our Missouri featured artists for July
Each month we highlight a new group of four individual artists from all around Missouri. Here’s our quartet for July!
Find more of all these artists’ works on their own websites. Just follow the links on their artwork and profiles.
Plus, here are highlights and links to all our earlier artists since we started the Missouri Featured Artists program last December. There’s music, photography, poetry, storytelling, fashion, paintings from wax to watercolors, metal and glass and ceramic sculptures, and so much more as we celebrate the diversity and depth of Missouri creativity.
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Allison L. Norfleet Bruenger
mixed media jewelry and assemblage artist
St. Louis
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Kyle Selley
firework artist, visual artist, art educator | Kansas City
I hope to provide the viewer with the same feeling of the sublime that I experience while creating the work.
I’ve been nourishing a relationship with fireworks since early childhood. I was intuitively using them in creative and experimentative ways long before I created traditional artwork. My background is in sculpture and ceramics, but I feel compelled to continue experimenting with fireworks. My Firework Residue Paintings create an expansive, celestial realm of transcendental contemplation. I seek to render a three-dimensional experience within a two-dimensional canvas. I approach composition in an exploratory, playful way that is based on moment-to-moment intuitive responses. The spontaneous and erratic nature of my process requires constant engagement through consideration of composition, leading to a form of meditation. The results simulate abstracted explosions, frozen in time.
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Lisa Bartlett
mixed media artist, painter | Columbia
I like to create art that engages your mind. Art is such a fabulous place to get lost in. Then finding yourself is the reward.
My work often tells a story, since I’m fascinated by human nature and by what history has to teach us. Old photographs, old letters, and other memorabilia are major sources of inspiration—I present them in unexpected contexts. Being of a restless, creative nature, I generally have multiple projects going at once. I bounce between media, and I love to experiment. Sometimes I like to paint on very large canvases and include collage and gold leaf in the composition. I also enjoy working in three dimensions, using found objects. I’m always looking for new ideas, new construction techniques, and new projects to get excited about. Anything that involves experimentation, anything complicated, and finally just the act of creation itself—that’s what I love.
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Ray Cardwell
singer songwriter from the Ozarks | Jefferson City
My songs mix traditional bluegrass with blues, country, rock, and gospel–a distinctly progressive sound that could be called Americana Bluegrass.
Raised in Springfield, I started singing when I was 3 years old, at church and on my father’s Branson show. I learned guitar and played saxophone in the school band. My family’s bluegrass band played venues such as Silver Dollar City and concerts by Ozarks musicologist Max Hunter. My musical journey has had many twists and turns through different genres and locations. My recurring theme is diversity. I love to mix musical styles in my songs and perform them with a bluegrass ensemble. Even in my performance venues, diversity holds true. Performing with Jack Lee in Los Angeles, singing with choirs at Carnegie Hall in New York, performing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, teaching as a band/choir director for 14 years—these all make me who I am.
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Allison L. Norfleet Bruenger
mixed media jewelry and assemblage artist | St. Louis
My goal is to create truly distinctive wearable art designs that lift the spirit and inspire the soul.
I love making art that adorns the body. I use a variety of materials such as copper, brass, and sterling silver along with my original drawings and paintings to create my lines. I love working with a variety of mediums within one piece to create that special look and feel I want my piece to convey. Most of my focus is on “Nature” and the “Female Image.” I have also begun to create a series of Assemblage creations that house my corresponding mixed media jewelry. From my detailed drawing of the piece to the hand-fabricated one-of-a-kind creations, I create unique pieces of wearable art for each of my collectors. I don’t repeat my designs so that my patrons will be the owner of that work that is just for them. I call my pieces my “Babies,” looking for their “New Home.”
Our Featured Artists from the beginning through June 2021
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Azaria Rianne Hogans
choreographer, dancer, educator
Springfield
Greg Holden
artist, photographer, inquisitive observer, thankful human being
Eureka
Patrick Rafferty
guitarist, teacher
Affton
Barb Byrne
fused glass artist
Pleasant Hill
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Gary Cadwallader
painter of acrylics and watercolor
Warrensburg
Byron von Rosenberg
poet, illustrator, storyteller
Byrnes Mill
Regina Willard
contemporary impressionist
West Plains
Hyejin Cho
concert pianist, educator
Kirksville
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Grant Kniffen
painter
Dardenne Prairie
Laura Bigger
artist, printmaker
Kirksville
Ralph Hepola
musician
Springfield
Jen Everett
interdisciplinary artist
St. Louis
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James Douglas Cox
metal artist
Republic
Natalie Wiseman
visual artist
Joplin
Kevin Umaña
painter, ceramics sculptor
Kansas City
Nartana Premachandra
dancer, writer, storyteller
St. Louis
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Wanda K. Tyner
glass artist
Lee’s Summit
F.C. Shultz
author, poet, reader
Webb City
Lindsay Dunnagan
visual artist
Kirksville
Brian Owens
soul musician/vocalist
St. Louis
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Anand Prahlad
literary author, musician/songwriter, filmmaker, teaching artist
Columbia
Brenda Beck Fisher
painter, watercolorist, interpreter of the beauty in the world
Hannibal
Anne Garney
landscape painter, fauve, expressionist
Kansas City
Jeffrey Noonan
musician: performer, teacher, scholar
St. Louis
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Whitney Manney
fashion and textile designer
Kansas City
Justin Hamm
poet, photographer, citizen of the American Middle West
Mexico
Robin Van Hoozer
artist, painter, maker of unusual things
St. Joseph
Bobby Norfolk
storyteller, author, teaching artist
St. Louis
FAQs
What is the program’s goal?
The Featured Artists program promotes and supports individual artists and demonstrates the variety of creative Missouri talent.
How does the program work?
We feature four artists each month. We highlight and promote each month’s artists via the homepage of the Missouri Arts Council website, the Featured Artists page on the website, monthly email, social media, and links to the artists’ websites. Artists receive a $300 stipend/license fee to feature their work online. Artists are paid directly by the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Who is eligible?
Individual Missouri-resident artists of any medium with online work that they have ownership to license. (Groups are not eligible.) Mediums may include (but are not limited to) visual art, literature, music, video, dance, theater, storytelling, and traditional arts.
May artists participate if they don’t have a website?
No; an effective website is an essential part of this program. Without it, there is nothing to promote, neither your work NOR a place to send people to benefit you. An artist’s website is an important tool to promote your creative work. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. can supplement with social engagement, but do not effectively allow an artist’s work to be as easily accessed as does a website.
How do artists apply?
Propose your work for consideration via this online form. Support your application with links to your website and other online platforms where your work is located. No work may be sent as an attachment. Work that cannot be accessed online may not be considered. Artists retain full ownership and rights to their work. Artists will allow with their consideration a limited use right to feature their work on the Missouri Art Council website and other platforms. There is no fee to apply.
How are Featured Artists selected?
The Missouri Arts Council staff selects artists with diverse demographics and locations throughout the state who are producing quality original work in a variety of art mediums and genres.
How will artists know if they are selected?
Artists will be contacted directly if they have been selected. If you are not contacted, do not despair! All applicants will continue to be considered as the program continues monthly.
How often should artists apply?
Artists need apply for this program only once. Applications will be kept on file for future consideration.
How long will this program last?
We will continue this program through June 30, 2021. If funding allows, this program may continue.