The fabulous photographer, Sinjun Strom, Minnesota native, was a student at the Kansas City Art Institute when she agreed to model for me. Not long after, she moved to New York to complete her Fine Arts degree at the School for Visual Arts. You can read about Sinjun in the New York Times and watch […]

In 2015, Megan Mantia and Leone Reeves were performance artists in Kansas City (later in Los Angeles). I’d done some CNC routing to make huge letters for a project of theirs. They’d agreed to model and I’d asked them to choose clothing with pattern, stripes, and texture. They showed up at the studio in beards […]

My mother was born January 7, 1931 and died May 5, 2013 at 82. She and Dad had been married since she was 18 and he 25. Her quality of life had been declining for seven or eight years due to a stubborn abdominal cancer and scoliosis complicated by, well, just getting older. Macular degeneration […]

I had this confusing idea about somehow showing my code in a drawing. The drawing would be a self-portrait and the text that piled up to communicate the image would be the code that the pen followed in order to draw the text that made the image. A very circular process. You can read about […]

In late May and early June I produced a 40 x 27 inch drawing in black and white ink pen on paper I’d painted gray. The drawing is of Carrie, Johanna, and Ross standing on my platform and I’ve always called it “Sniffing Armpit” because Johanna kept urging Carrie to “sniff my armpit” and Carrie, […]

In January, 2014 my then studio assistant, Carrie Riehl, walked in one morning wearing shorts (in January?) and showing off her new 2nd hand red, white, and blue leather jacket and I said, “let’s go photograph you right now!” In May I generated sixty drawing layers of red, yellow, blue, black, and white squiggles intended to produce a drawing […]

After Mom died, Dad moved back to Kansas City from Aspen where he’d lived since the late 1970’s. He invited several of his old friends to join him at my studio and then lunch at the vegan restaurant across the street, Cafe Gratitude. Morton Sosland is one of those old friends and joined us at studio […]

Hal Wert teaches History at Kansas City Art Institute. Hal was Vice President of KCAI in 1988 when students there asked me to teach them karate and self defense. I made an appointment and met Hal (he was wearing a business suit and tie). I asked whether the school would allow me to teach and […]