Art doll intercessor by Kelly Buntin Johnson

Andrew Super: Untitled (Rocketman)

A group of Kansas City area artists have come together to create the exhibition Four: Red Crosses, Peregrine Visions which opens to the public in Spiva's Main Gallery September 9.

Like the popular novel, The DaVinci Code, the title for this exhibit may require a bit of deciphering. “Four” refers to artists included in the show; the red cross is the historic badge of pilgrimage. “Peregrine” means roving or wandering, and visions can be things seen or imagined.

Artist/curator Kelly Buntin Johnson invited her sister, Lori Buntin, and friends Maura Cluthe and Sheryl Pierson to consider the traditions and meanings of pilgrimage as expressed or implied through their own art.

For Johnson, the past eight months have been an armchair journey, researching and creating the work for this show. Johnson is a self-taught artist who collected cloth dolls, vintage clothing, buttons, and trim and later began making hand sewn, hand beaded art dolls that were sold through exclusive catalogues. Eventually the figures evolved into exquisitely embellished, jointed leather creatures representing extinct animals and endangered species. Johnson calls them “intercessors, the forgotten ancient ones that teach us to take care of the Earth.” Each creature bears a red cross on its chest to signify its mission to teach humans to care for the Earth and to ensure the balance of nature throughout the world.

Meanwhile, her sister Lori Buntin peregrinated over 5,200 miles on a recent trip to Yosemite National Park. Her travels filled her journals with images and experiences inspiring the work for this exhibit. Primarily an oil painter, Buntin studied art at Missouri Western State College and received an MFA from Wichita State University in Kansas. Her work for Spiva will include selections from “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.”

Maura Cluthe’s mixed media works spring from “fragments” of conversations, encounters, impressions, and thoughts she experiences and observes in daily life. She integrates text, drawing, photographs, painting, and “stuff” she has collected into her art. Her style can be playful and cartoon-like or edgy and serious in rendering the influences shaping her life’s journey.

The red cross has been a significant icon in Sheryl Pierson’s work for several years, symbolizing freedom, perseverance, strength. Her heroines are classical figures often borrowed from art history, such as The Three Graces and the Mona Lisa. Many of the pieces for this exhibit include wings, birds, and butterflies. According to Pierson, these “creatures of flight…represent the quest for freedom and achievement…the seeking of contentment.”

Concurrently, Redshirt, an exhibition of photographs by Andrew Super will be shown in the Regional Focus Gallery. A Kansas City native, Super recently graduated from Pittsburg State University. The black and white photographs comprising this exhibit developed from his experience adapting to his new surroundings and college town student life. While exploring the concept of identity associated with location, he discovered “the surreal” existing within “the real.”

As Super states, “I documented this place as an outsider, as a man who tried to never call this place home, yet found himself enamored with the small town charm. I continue using photography as my medium based upon the axiom that what was photographed is real, at least for that instant in which I depressed the shutter.”

The exhibits continue through October 20. Sponsorship for Four: Red Crosses, Peregrine Visions and Redshirt is provided by Lance and Sharon Beshore and Dale and Dian Blanchard, with additional support provided in part by the Friends of St. Avips and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

A preview receptions for the artists, their guests, and Spiva members takes place Friday, September 8. Robert Ensor, pianist, will entertain.

Spiva Center for the Arts is located at Third and Wall in downtown Joplin. Spiva galleries and gift shop are open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am–5pm and Sundays, 1–5pm. Admission to the Main Gallery is by voluntary contribution. Suggested donations are $2 for adults, $1 for students. For additional information, please call 417.623.0183.

George A. Spiva Center for the Arts
222 W. 3rd Street
Joplin, Mo 64801
Tel: 417-623-0183
Fax: 417-623-3805
www.spivaarts.org