David Ford, an artist, curator/gallerist, and culture maker with a long-time presence in the Kansas City art community, is represented in the exhibition by a selection of paintings, drawings, and a performance that occurred during the opening reception. Ford’s work has been presented in numerous one-person and group exhibitions –  including the Artspace’s Kansas City Flatfile and Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art’s Perspective: Kansas City in 1998 (selected by Raphael Rubinstein, senior editor for Art in America), numerous alternative spaces in Kansas City, and museums and galleries in Mexico and Latin America.

Lester Goldman, Professor of Painting at the Kansas City Art Institute, has developed a body of work that references painting, theater, performance, sculpture, and puppetry. In this exhibition, Goldman created 3 colorful, dynamic works, including an installation, that combines all these elements. Goldman’s work has been included in exhibitions at Grand Arts, Joseph Nease Gallery, and Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum, among others.

Leeah Joo, Special Instructor of Painting at the Kansas City Art Institute, presents four realistic paintings that combine portraiture, still life, and landscape. Joo’s paintings focus on the subtle, intimate and mundane moments of everyday life. Joo is a recipient of the Helen W. Winternitz Award from the Yale School of Art, and has been included in several group exhibitions and in two one-person exhibitions at the Michael Cross Gallery, Kansas City.

Eric Sall, a 1999 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, is one of the youngest artists to receive the Charlotte Street Fund award. Recently, Sall’s work has been included in one-person and group exhibitions at the Joseph Nease Gallery, The Gallery at Village Shalom, and the Artspace’s Kansas City Flatfiles.

Kati Toivanen, Assistant Professor of Art at the faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is exploring themes of childhood, in photographs and sculpture and presents a new group of work made specifically for this exhibition. Toivanen’s work has been exhibited at the Stocksdale Gallery at William Jewell College, the Old Post Office in the West Bottoms, and in the Artspace’s Kansas City Flatfile.

Ken Ferguson, former Professor and Chair of Ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute, is the second recipient of the Charlotte Street Fund’s Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to Wilbur Niewald in 1999. Ferguson has been honored nationally for his career as an artist and educator and was the focus of a retrospective exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1995.

Since its inception, by 2001 the Charlotte Street Fund had presented a total of 28 awards totaling $107,500. Previous recipients were Tom Gregg, Adriane Herman, Peregrine Honig, Warren Rosser, Jesse Small, James Woodfill, Nate Fors, Ke-Sook Lee, Michael Rees, Michael Sinclair, Bridget Stewart, Wilbur Niewald, Patrick Clancy, Archie Scott Gobber, Anne Lindberg, Judi Ross, Judith Sanazaro, Tony Allard and Kristine Deikman, James Brinsfield, Russell Ferguson, and Mary Wessel.

Additional information about the Charlotte Street Foundation may be found at: www.charlottestreet.org
The 2001 Charlotte Street Foundation Exhibition was curated by Kate Hackman. The Charlotte Street Fund Advisory Committee included: David Hughes, Jr. (American Century Companies), John O’Brien (Dolphin Gallery), Melissa Rountree (Hallmark Fine Arts Collection), Raechell Smith (H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute), and Mark Spencer (Hallmark Cards, Inc.). Invited nominators for 2001 were Jim Calcara, Nate Fors, and Kate Hackman. Financial support for the exhibition has been provided, in part, by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

The following public programs ran in conjunction with the exhibition:

Saturday, October 6, 2:00 p.m.

Kate Hackman, guest curator, facilitated a gallery talk with the Charlotte Street Fund artists.

Saturday, October 20, 2:00 p.m.Visiting Critic/Curator Program Public Lecture

After two days of studio visits with Kansas City artists, Kathryn Hixson, editor of the New Art Examiner, who lives and works in Chicago, spoke about her involvement with the New Art Examiner and the visual arts in Chicago and the Midwest. Hixson’s visit to Kansas City received support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and Grand Arts.