Artist Sonie Ruffin knows how to put together an exhibit that crosses cultures and disciplines, appeals to a broad public and brings new names into the art loop.
As visiting curator for the American Jazz Museum, Ruffin accomplishes all this and more in the summer show “Reflections of Jazz.”
Jam-packed with paintings, poetry, photographs and sculptures by 19 artists, including poet Glenn North, the exhibit has a festive air. The first things to catch the eye are elaborately decorated guitars by Leawood-based Cynthia Litwer, who covers the instruments with glittering stained-glass mosaics.
Kansas City musician Ennio Valente III transforms guitars and other stringed instruments by covering them with patterned papers. His “Intensity” is a mandolin collaged with a crazy quilt of black-and-white patterns, including checkerboard and houndstooth, zebra stripes and florals.
Several of the artists in this show are self-taught; others work or have worked for Hallmark but are committed to pursuing independent creative expression. Some are musicians; others turned to art as a second career.
Personal fulfillment and inspiring others are high on their list of goals.
Award-winning children’s book illustrator and artist Shane Evans achieved both when he opened his Dream Studio in midtown, where he makes his own work and presents events featuring musicians, spoken word artists and actors. His handmade book, “Jazz Land Collection,” is displayed in “Reflections of Jazz.”
In 2008, Evans traveled to Lesotho, a small nation in southern Africa, to work with children affected with HIV/AIDS. Self-taught artist J. Leroy Beasley joined him on the trip and took photographs.
In the museum exhibit, Beasley pays tribute to African drums in a series of close-ups. “Beasley gives us … the raw truth of how music began with the beat, the drums, the instrument and music of black African slaves,” Ruffin notes in her curator’s statement
Self-taught artist Rhoda J. Powers brings shimmer to this exhibit’s many depictions of musical instruments. Her works of kiln-formed art glass include the eye-catching “Swing It,” a gold disk bearing marbled pearlescent images of a wavy keyboard, clarinet and guitar.
In Anthony High’s collograph portraits of Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong, gold backdrops give them the aspect of Byzantine icons, befitting their status as gods of jazz.
Musicians and singers capture the eye and the imagination of photographer David Shaughnessy, whose sensitive black-and-white close-ups hang with the Langston Hughes poem “Song for Billie Holiday.”
Diallo Javonne French takes a different tack, freezing the action in his black-and-white photographs of performers, shot in natural light.
In contrast, Bob Barry employs dramatic chiaroscuro lighting in his portraits of jazz musicians such as Joe Diorio and Paul Bollenback.
Olathe-based Steve Butler, a former teacher, converted an 80-year-old chicken coop into a photography studio where he devotes his time to taking photographs, including jazz still lifes of instruments and sheet music.
For jazz musician James Ward, moving from music to picking up a camera was “a spiritual transfer of learning.” Ruffin’s observation, “the church has been the home of humble beginnings for many a jazz musician,” provides the backstory for Ward’s portrait of a boy seated at a piano, dressed in his Sunday best with a red boutonnière.
As with the museum’s previous show of works by Kansas City artist Harold Smith, “Reflections of Jazz” includes a wall text by Zachary Hoskins, the museum’s jazz film fellow.
“(Jazz) is traditional and it is contemporary. It is spiritual and it is sexual,” Hoskins writes.
In her “Jazz Noir” collection of photographs, Michelle Beasley equates the lure of the musical instrument with the allure of women, whose presence she suggests with strands of pearls or a high-heeled shoe, presented in intimate contact with stringed instruments. North’s poetry enlarges the relationship: “The six-string is a sepia-skinned scintillating seductress,” he writes.
Former Hallmark artist Keith Shepherd honors Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and other jazz artists in small paintings of their records. In three larger canvases the artist brings a spirit of fun to his penchant for nostalgia and history, capturing the camaraderie of the pool hall and the dancing, singing and flirting of the juke joint.
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As visiting curator for the American Jazz Museum, Ruffin accomplishes all this and more in the summer show “Reflections of Jazz.”
Jam-packed with paintings, poetry, photographs and sculptures by 19 artists, including poet Glenn North, the exhibit has a festive air. The first things to catch the eye are elaborately decorated guitars by Leawood-based Cynthia Litwer, who covers the instruments with glittering stained-glass mosaics.
Kansas City musician Ennio Valente III transforms guitars and other stringed instruments by covering them with patterned papers. His “Intensity” is a mandolin collaged with a crazy quilt of black-and-white patterns, including checkerboard and houndstooth, zebra stripes and florals.
Several of the artists in this show are self-taught; others work or have worked for Hallmark but are committed to pursuing independent creative expression. Some are musicians; others turned to art as a second career.
Personal fulfillment and inspiring others are high on their list of goals.
Award-winning children’s book illustrator and artist Shane Evans achieved both when he opened his Dream Studio in midtown, where he makes his own work and presents events featuring musicians, spoken word artists and actors. His handmade book, “Jazz Land Collection,” is displayed in “Reflections of Jazz.”
In 2008, Evans traveled to Lesotho, a small nation in southern Africa, to work with children affected with HIV/AIDS. Self-taught artist J. Leroy Beasley joined him on the trip and took photographs.
In the museum exhibit, Beasley pays tribute to African drums in a series of close-ups. “Beasley gives us … the raw truth of how music began with the beat, the drums, the instrument and music of black African slaves,” Ruffin notes in her curator’s statement
Self-taught artist Rhoda J. Powers brings shimmer to this exhibit’s many depictions of musical instruments. Her works of kiln-formed art glass include the eye-catching “Swing It,” a gold disk bearing marbled pearlescent images of a wavy keyboard, clarinet and guitar.
In Anthony High’s collograph portraits of Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong, gold backdrops give them the aspect of Byzantine icons, befitting their status as gods of jazz.
Musicians and singers capture the eye and the imagination of photographer David Shaughnessy, whose sensitive black-and-white close-ups hang with the Langston Hughes poem “Song for Billie Holiday.”
Diallo Javonne French takes a different tack, freezing the action in his black-and-white photographs of performers, shot in natural light.
In contrast, Bob Barry employs dramatic chiaroscuro lighting in his portraits of jazz musicians such as Joe Diorio and Paul Bollenback.
Olathe-based Steve Butler, a former teacher, converted an 80-year-old chicken coop into a photography studio where he devotes his time to taking photographs, including jazz still lifes of instruments and sheet music.
For jazz musician James Ward, moving from music to picking up a camera was “a spiritual transfer of learning.” Ruffin’s observation, “the church has been the home of humble beginnings for many a jazz musician,” provides the backstory for Ward’s portrait of a boy seated at a piano, dressed in his Sunday best with a red boutonnière.
As with the museum’s previous show of works by Kansas City artist Harold Smith, “Reflections of Jazz” includes a wall text by Zachary Hoskins, the museum’s jazz film fellow.
“(Jazz) is traditional and it is contemporary. It is spiritual and it is sexual,” Hoskins writes.
In her “Jazz Noir” collection of photographs, Michelle Beasley equates the lure of the musical instrument with the allure of women, whose presence she suggests with strands of pearls or a high-heeled shoe, presented in intimate contact with stringed instruments. North’s poetry enlarges the relationship: “The six-string is a sepia-skinned scintillating seductress,” he writes.
Former Hallmark artist Keith Shepherd honors Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and other jazz artists in small paintings of their records. In three larger canvases the artist brings a spirit of fun to his penchant for nostalgia and history, capturing the camaraderie of the pool hall and the dancing, singing and flirting of the juke joint.
Read more
