Kansas City Art Institute

Tom Lewis is Chair of the Department of Converging Media including Photography, Filmmaking, Animation and Interactive Arts. He taught photography and new media at KCAI in 2001 through 2003 and joined the Foundation faculty in 2005, becoming Director of the School of the Foundation Year in 2012-2013 before moving to the Chairs position in the Department of Converging Media in 2013. He joined the KCAI faculty after having taught at the University of Washington School of Art, Seattle. While there, he also served as an assistant to Rod Slemmons at Crux Photographic Restoration and he assisted Michael Van Horn, curator for “After Art – Rethinking 150 Years of Photography,” at the Joseph and Elaine Monson Collection. He was co-founder and manager of CORE 317, an alternative space in Denver, and completed an internship at the International Center of Photography in New York. Lewis studied at KCAI on a Presidential Merit Scholarship and went on to earn a B.F.A. degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Washington, where he held the Jane and David Davis Fellowship and Parnasuss Endowment. Tom is interested in the intersection of early lens based drawing and the materiality of photography. He works in both photography and large-scale graphite drawings. His work has been exhibited at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, among others and is represented in a number of private collections.

Contact: Tlewis@kcai.edu

John Baker joined KCAI in 2010 and teaches interactive arts and animation. Previously, he was an animator with MK12, a Kansas City-based motion graphics firm, where he was responsible for generating concepts for clients from storyboards to final animation. He also worked as editor and data manager on national and international film and video productions. Baker was responsible for shooting footage, including short films, and he handled filming and processing green-screen footage, rotoscope work and various visual effects. Before that he was an animator with Video Post Productions in Kansas City, where he worked in 2-D and 3-D animation for national and international clients. He has worked on numerous production projects for many well-known national brands.

Contact: Jbaker@kcai.edu

Christiane Cegavske is best known for her feature-length animated film, “Blood Tea and Red String,” completed in 2005. She is currently working on her second animated feature film, “Seed in the Sand.” In addition to being an independent filmmaker, painter, poet and doll maker, she has been a lead animator and sculptor working on projects for The Oxygen Network, VH1, and the Disney Channel, among others. She also created animated dream sequences for Asia Argento’s “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” and a music video for Mark Growden’s song “Coyote.”

Contact: Ccegavske@kcai.edu

Contact: dhudson@kcai.edu

A passion for classical music and painting led Ismael to a career in animation where he could combine both crafts. After an international career in animation in Norway, Thailand and the UK, he joins KCAI as Assistant Professor of Animation.   He most recently was an animator and software designer in Norway. His teaching experience includes Adjunct Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore; Animation Instructor at CalArts Partnership, Los Angeles; Assistant Teacher at Lister Community School, London; and Animation Instructor at Chiang Mai University, Thailand.  He has a BA in digital animation from Thames Valley University, London, a postgraduate diploma in character animation from Central Saint Martins School of Arts and Design, London and a MFA in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles.

Contact: Isanzpena@kcai.edu

Eva Louise Hall has been teaching with the Kansas City Art Institute since 2014. She is an animator and performance artist, producing multi-media animation installation, puppetry and projection work both locally and internationally for theater and film.

Contact: elhall@kcai.edu