For the first studio tour of 2009, I visited the workspace of artist and illustrator, Lora Jost. I first met Lora when we worked together on a poster for the River City Reading Festival and I was so amazed by her illustration that I asked if I could visit her studio to see her workspace and more of her beautiful art. Lora uses several unique techniques in creating her work including scratchboard, ceramic mosaic, and collage. Her pieces draw from personal experiences and collected stories which are depicted with elements of beauty, whimsy, darkness, and joy. From her artist statement:

“I am drawn to experiences that are mundane, whimsical, and socially urgent. I like to mix these themes, and find how they link in spirit. I hope that viewers will identify with the stories my pictures tell. I hope that my art, in some small way, deepens our collective appreciation and compassion for each other and for life itself.”

Before moving to the studio, I wanted to show some of Lora’s artwork first. These black and white pieces were all done using scratchboard which is incredible to me! It is a very time intensive process, but Lora is able to etch extremely fine lines into the surface that create wonderful texture and a wide tonal range. I think these are fun to look at from a distance, but also very close up to appreciate the intricate detail of each line.

I asked Lora to show a little bit of her process on creating these. They generally start out as a pencil sketch before moving on to the scratchboard.

Using a variety of sharp instruments, she slowly scratches away the dark surface to reveal the white board underneath. It takes a very steady hand and a lot of patience to carve out the final image.

Some of Lora’s art is more child/family oriented and inspired by her experiences as a mother.

Her son has gone through some phases of art making as well and there are stacks of his drawings which were a lot of fun to see.

Lora has done a number of commissions and one that many people in Lawrence may have seen was for the KU Endowment Association. I love the colors in this piece! You can see the original art on the right and the printed version on the left.

The endowment piece shows a mixture of the scratchboard work and also some collaged elements which is another medium that she frequently uses.

This piece is a combination of paint, photography and thread. There are a lot of layers in her work and I like the effect of transparency that she uses.

A detail of the previous photo . . .

. . . and another. Although not necessarily a theme throughout all of her work, elements from nature and organic shapes and lines often appear in her pieces.

I also really enjoy her use of hand written type to help convey the story within the work.

This new piece was one of the highlights of a recent exhibit at the Lawrence Percolator gallery. Lora told me that she wasn’t sure if people would actually read the text or not, but it turns out that most people took the time and I encourage you to as well since it’s beautifully written.

This work is based on another personal story involving a police helicopter that hovered over her neighborhood one night.

In her studio, Lora has a great wall space for hanging her artwork. Although each piece tells an individual story, it’s neat to step back and see a large group of it all together.

She has an amazing art studio that was built as a second floor addition to her home. The windows and gallery lighting make it a bright workspace that welcomes creativity.

Lots of room for reference material and an office.

I always enjoy seeing the inspiration on studio walls.

The variety of materials that Lora has at her disposal is amazing and she has found very creative ways to put them to use.

She has also created a number of mosaics using broken ceramic pieces. Most of the bits come from dishware and mugs found at garage sales and thrift stores which give her a huge range of colors to work with. What a great way to reuse discarded and unwanted items!

After roughly sketching out the image on board, the tiles are glued into place one piece at a time until the final piece is completed.

The results are beautiful! Again, these works are fun to look at from a distance, but also up close where you can see the individual textures and patterns in each tile.

A huge thanks to Lora for inviting me over to look at her studio. I had a great time! You can see more of her artwork on her website at www.lorajost.org and also over at the Lawrence Arts Center. In addition to her artwork, Lora is also an educator and writer so be sure and check out the book Kansas Murals: A Traveler’s Guide, a book that she co-authored with muralist Dave Loewenstein (available on amazon.com).

Heather Smith Jones is a Lawrence-based painter and mixed media artist. When I first started doing my studio visit series, her name came up again and again in conversations with other local artists. I had seen some of her work at local gallery shows and we had met a few times through some mutual friends, so when I had the chance to hang out and visit with her in her studio, I jumped at the opportunity! She is an extremely kind and gracious person and allowed me to interrupt her on a recent Saturday morning to give me a tour of her work space.

Heather’s work is wildly creative with beautiful line work and great use of color. She has mastered a variety of techniques including watercolor, oils, acrylics, pinholes (more on that later) and has even mixed and tinted her own paint. Her work is often a blend of media and the result is fresh and unique.

There is a very personal quality to Heather’s art that I really enjoy. Her recent work is done on a small scale which forces you to get up close or hold it in your hand and really study it. It is clear that she puts a great deal of time and thought into each piece. Her delicate pinhole work is astounding.

Heather also does a lot of collaborative work with artists, photographers and writers from around the country on a variety of projects. The two images above are from the Inspired project, a collaboration with photographer Jen Causey.

The Noticing Project is a joint effort with Alicia Alferman in which both artists take a photo a day for all of 2008. In their words:

The notion of the project is to look intently and observe the small or ephemeral moments around us.

In addition to her work for galleries, she also does a number of smaller scale pieces that she sells online. The photo above shows some custom stationary she’s designed using the pinhole technique.

All above photos of artwork courtesy of Heather Smith Jones

The art studio that contains all of this creativity is a work of art in itself. The room is very open with great natural light streaming down from the skylights above. The dark wood and clean, bright walls make the room feel very comfortable. This is a view looking in from the doorway.

The details of the studio are really interesting. The space was built by Heather’s husband Matt Jones who is a woodworker, carpenter and builder. Matt builds wonderful custom furniture and is also a partner in the design/build company Struct/restruct Associates, LLC.

All of the wood used for the flooring and trim is reclaimed lumber from an old farmhouse. Despite being newly constructed, it still has a warm, lived-in feel.

Some examples of Matt’s furniture in the sitting area.

Heather has some of her own work adorning the walls of the studio, but most of her wall space is covered with the work of friends and other artists that she finds inspirational.

The two works above are from the Inspired project and it is neat to see the work in person and notice all of the little details in each piece.

There are also great collections of reference material scattered around including some old books of illustration.

Imagery from nature often appears in Heather’s work, so there are lots of collected items like these as well.

I’m very impressed at how prolific Heather is. She has amassed a large collection of work and, although much of it is small, there is incredible detail in each piece.

Love the colors!

One unusual technique that Heather has really developed is the use of pinholes. By punching many, many small holes in paper, she creates a stunning effect that has both intricate line work as well as a 3 dimensional texture to it. The end result has the look of delicate lace.

To accomplish these pinhole pieces, she created her own custom set of tools with a variety of different pin sizes. She and Matt worked together to make the custom wooden handles.

Hanging out in the corner of the studio is an old Vandercook proof letterpress that was handed down to her from within her family. She has done some work with it and is still experimenting with the process.

Her collection of metal type would make any designer’s heart skip a beat! In addition to the fonts, there are lots of intricate, ornamental pieces as well as some handmade blocks.

In August of 2007, Heather did a cool project with Polaroid photos that incorporated photography, writing, and painting called the August Polaroid Project.

Special thanks to Heather for taking the time to let me into her studio to see her wonderful work! You can visit her on the internet and purchase her work at:

Heather Smith Jones website
Heather’s Blog
Heather’s Etsy shop
Noticing Project

Photo courtesy of Studio 804

Most recently, the current class of 22 students have been working to design and build a modular structure that will serve as the Greensburg Art Center for the city of Greensburg, KS which was leveled by an F5 tornado on May 4, 2007.

UPDATE (9/22): The building is now completed and has been installed in Greensburg. Visit their website to see photos of the beautiful final structure!

Greensburg,KS post-tornado. Photo courtesy of FEMA.

On May 4, 2008, the students hope to complete the project to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the tornado. Their efforts have been well documented and reported (see the links listed at the end of this article), but I was excited to be able to see the “work in progress” in person and peak around their workspace which is located at the Farmland Industries site, a former nitrogen fertilizer plant built on the outskirts of Lawrence in 1954.

Arrival at the studio. The ominous entry gate is a flashback to the fertilizer days at Farmland. It’s also a safety and security measure for the property. Still, it’s a bit creepy.

The property is vast with a number of buildings, holding tanks, and pipelines running through it. The 804 studio is housed in one of the former warehouses.

A view of the outside at night.

In this photo, you can start to get a feel for the size of the studio. Easily large enough to house the entire project which is the 5th prefabricated structure (Module 5) that Studio 804 has built.

Here’s another view of Module 5 showing where the front door and south facing windows are going to go. One of the most significant (and also the most daunting) parts of this project is that they are trying to get this building LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified, a first for the studio. Greensburg has been very ambitious in their efforts to rebuild as a environmentally sustainable city and has mandated that all city owned buildings larger than 4,000 sq. ft. are built to LEED-Platinum level. One of the most difficult parts of this process is the shear amount of record keeping and paperwork that needs to be submitted in order to meet the Platinum requirements.

Some of the “green” features of this building will include photovoltaic sun panels, wind turbines, a green roof, water saving plumbing, locally obtained building materials, and cellulose insulation, shown here, which is made up of recycled newsprint.

In addition to this, the wood used for the sides of this project is all reclaimed lumber from one of the 1,000 abandon buildings left at the former Sunflower Army Ammunition plant. There is more information on the studio site about this, but a team of students took 5 days to disassemble over 7 tons of material and reclaim 10,000 board foot of lumber! They then had to take it to the studio, plane, cut and seal it for use as a skin for the outside of the building to help modulate the sun.

This is what the skin looks like and it will be covered with an overlay of clear plastic material. Beautiful.

The building is referred to as “modular” because it is designed to be shipped in 7 segments and then reassembled once it reaches Greensburg where it will be fitted for utilities and additional details will be added.

You can see one of the clear dividing lines of one of the sections.

How will they get this out of there, you ask? Well, this photo shows the garage-style door (on the left) that they’re hoping to use, but it’s likely that they’ll need to cut a larger hole in the wall to get the sections out.

This is a view of the interior of Module 5 looking at the east wall.

This is a view looking the other direction towards the small office space. There will also be a small bathroom with a dual-flush toilet and a shower for bicycle commuters!

This is a mock up of what they are wanting to do with the shower drain. It hadn’t occurred to me, but just like designers, they have to make test runs of different materials to make sure it will look and function they way they are supposed to.

A sample that shows the plastic covering over the siding.

Here is a mock up of the guttering system. Just enough of a piece to see if it’ll work properly.

An aerial view of the mock up and cutting area. It’s a great space.

There is also a classroom setup in the back where the students can meet and talk about their progress. There’s a space heater in here since the warehouse has no heating which tells you a lot about the dedication of these students in the middle of the winter!

It’s important to note that this project is not a donation to the city of Greensburg, although the city is receiving an incredible deal. Studio 804 has accepted donations to help cover the costs as well as donated building materials. In addition, all of the labor is free, so the overall cost to Greensburg is greatly reduced. To help contribute donations to the project you can contact the studio for more information.

For more information on Studio 804′s Greensburg project visit:

• Studio 804 Website
• University of Kansas feature on Studio 804 (includes video)
• Kansas City star article
• Lawrence J-W article
• Topeka’s KSNT News (includes video)

Update (4/30): Here’s a great video on the “green” features of the Studio 804 Art Center from CBS news. It’s neat to see it in place down in Greensburg!

From his artist’s statement:

The history of a place, as well as its land and inhabitants, are all vitally important in defining a community’s environmental and social conditions. In my prints I romanticize this idea with the use of rural landscape and landmarks. These rural devices serve to emphasize the ever-growing abandonment of small towns and farmland of the Midwest. With the medium of serigraphy, or screen printing, I can express the man-made qualities of rural architecture with a photographic stencil technique.

Justin is also a super nice guy and was recently kind enough to invite me over to take a look at his studio and talk about his work and his process.

Justin has a very comfortable workspace that is perfect for the type of work that he does. Serigraphy (silk screening) is a very labor and time intensive process and a typical piece takes around 3 weeks from start to finish. It can also be messy since there are a lot of chemicals, inks and water involved with the process, but he’s set the space up perfectly so that every step has it’s own area.

I loved seeing the stuff that hangs on Justin’s walls.

How cool is this pinball machine?

There are a few vital pieces of equipment that are needed for serigraphy. Aprons are certainly one of them.

And fuel for those late night work sessions is a must!

This is Justin’s exposure unit which is used for creating a photo stencil on a screen. These units make this process go MUCH easier! This particular unit was rescued from being thrown away and is still in great shape.

A light table is used for tracing and cutting out stencils. Justin’s is an old drawing desk with a glass insert and a lamp underneath and is probably way better than any of the commercial ones you can buy.

Brushes, of course, are useful for applying any number of things to the screen like ink and drawing fluid, or just for painting ink directly onto paper. As a side note, the colorful backgrounds in Justin’s silkscreens are all monoprints. This means that each one is unique and so, although the rural imagery might be the same for a run of 6 prints, the colored sky is unique in each one.

Justin also does a good deal of drawing and some of his newer works look at socially and environmentally responsible means of travel and living. He is a very eco-conscious person and is even considering doing some straw-bale construction behind his house!

Once a layer of ink is pulled through the screen onto paper, they are set to dry in these drying racks. Acrylic ink dries in a matter of minutes, but even then, these racks make it possible to do multiple prints at once.

A little bit about the silk screening process: first a stencil is cut out of paper or is made into a photo stencil using chemicals.

A photo stencil requires a high contrast image like the one above. Justin has his own method of getting these printed onto acetate, so I won’t reveal his secret . . .

The ink is applied to the screen and then pushed through using a squeegee.

Wherever there is a hole in the stencil, the ink will pass through. Here is a layer of white ink being lined up for printing on top of the colored background.

Once all the prints are made with that color, the ink is washed out of the screen with a pressure washer.

And the process is done!

. . . except not quite. Justin also has a woodworking area of his shop where he builds his own custom frames! Admittedly, not his favorite part of the process, the frames do look really nice hanging up in a gallery, so it’s well worth the effort.

These are images from the show at the Signs of Life Gallery. The colors are striking on screen, but really need to be seen in person to get the true effect. They’re incredible!

Justin has work up at the Signs of Life Gallery in downtown Lawrence, KS as well as at the Community Mercantile through most of the Spring of 2008. Go check them out and buy something if you like it! His website, www.justinmarable.com, also lists all of his upcoming shows and has a large online gallery of his work.

A huge thanks goes out to Justin for letting me into his studio to look around and watch him at work.

This studio visit features the live music studio at Kansas Public Radio on the University of Kansas campus. This state of the art recording studio was built into the new KPR building when it was constructed in 2002-03. From the website:

Various acoustical elements were designed into the room to ensure a good sound such as adjustable curtains, floating floor, non parallel wall and ceilings, and insulation to isolate the studio from outside and interior noise. KPR hosts musical artists from around the world for special live performance recording sessions which are mastered by our own professional sound engineers.

Every recording I’ve heard come out of this studio sounds wonderful and it can accommodate a variety of groups from a solo piano to a large jazz group or a choir. I was able to stop in for a visit while the chamber group Allégresse was putting the finishing touches on their debut album which is coming out later this year.

The new KPR building itself is really beautiful. It’s all brick and stone with slate shingles and is nested away from the street on the edge of campus. There is a sensory garden outside as well.

Slate Shingles

Vines growing up the side of the building which are, admittedly, more attractive in the summertime.

Going inside the studio, this is the main recording booth. Even at my age, I had to resist the temptation to start turning dials!

Jason Slote is the master of this domain and is the production manager and main recording engineer for Kansas Public Radios. He is a great guy and really hard worker who makes everyone who walks in the studio sound amazing!

Flute, oboe and piano were on the schedule for the day, so the studio was set up in a trio configuration.

After a bit, Allégresse was all set to start warming up and checking sound levels. The recording process is very tedious and exhausting and their sessions for this CD typically ran around 4-6 hours at a time. There is definitely a period of adjustment when you start recording because having a microphone right in front of you can be a pretty stressful. Listening to these women play, you’d hardly know it!

It’s amazing how much difference the slightest mic adjustment can make. Jason has great ears and really knows a lot about the equipment.

As I mentioned before, the studio is set up as a state of the art facility. Engineering a recording is a true art form since each mic serves a different role in creating the overall sound on the recording. These are just a few of the mics that were set up.

One of the true treasures of the studio is their brand new Steinway grand piano! It arrived at KPR in early January 2008 and sounds amazing! This instrument will give the studio a lot more flexibility and, from what I heard in the booth, will give the new Allégresse CD a real richness and highlight Ellen’s incredible playing.

A special thanks to Jason Slote, Allégresse, and Kansas Public Radios for letting me come and sit in on the session. Keep your eyes out for Allégresse’s new CD in mid 2008 and if you’d like to hear any of the live on-air recordings that have been done, visit the KPR Live Studio page.

Joe’s studio is set up in his garage and contains just about every tool known to man. Some of them are quite old and some he made himself (like the vice on the table).

I’m so envious of his drawer of parts!

Many of the racks for his tools he made himself and even they have a lot of character to them.

This is the type of wire that is used for most of the pieces.

For the most part, Joe works on a fairly small scale with most of the pieces ranging from 5-12 inches in height. It’s amazing how much emotion can be conveyed through a washer and some wire.

Being a native Kansan, Joe has a real interest in western imagery which is one of the main themes throughout a large part of his work.

This is a replica of a windmill, similar to the one he had on his farm as a child.

Like the windmill, most of his machine sculptures have moving parts.

This is the Wright Brother’s airplane with Wilbur in the pilot’s seat.

A working trebuchet from the Medieval period.

Lots of great replicas of antique tractors and trucks.

Joe has also made some pieces for his home including picture frames and furniture.

Joe’s largest piece is a tribute to his childhood hero, Roy Rogers. This life-sized figure is constructed out of oil field pipe and sheet metal from large oil barrels and he actually has a skeleton underneath the clothes. He created Roy when he was living right off of the highway and he wanted him to wave to the cars passing by. Now he greets everyone that comes up to his home!

I’d like to thank Joe’s granddaughter Jenny for her help with filming the video clip and, of course, a really huge thanks to Joe Malin for showing me around his studio. He is an amazing person and his work is very clever and truly special.