Summer of Shakespeare in KC

By | May 9, 2016 |
Shakespeare First Folio, 1623. Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library

In 1623, a couple of guys got together and self-published some work by a dead friend of theirs named William Shakespeare.   Four hundred years later, this piece of “vanity publishing” is considered to be the crown jewel of our Western canon.   Shakespeare’s First Folio, as it is now known, is one of the…

Read More

Making the World a Better Place

By | April 22, 2016 |
Artistic Director, Dustin Cates leads the Heartland Men's Chorus during a rehearsal on Thursday, December 3rd at The Folly Theater for their Holiday Concert. (Photo: Jim Barcus)

Voices in unity have a profound force. The members of the Heartland Men’s Chorus (HMC) have raised theirs for 30 years, serving as a positive force for a community that suffers, still, from prejudice, abuse and loss. They are, and are proud to be, Kansas City’s Gay Men’s Chorus. In 1986, 30 men joined together…

Read More

Cary Esser: A Ceramist for the 21st Century

By | March 14, 2016 |
Cary Esser glazes ceramic tiles for a new series of work titled "Veil Tyles"

At age 19, Cary Esser flew alone from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Kansas City, a place she’d never been. “When I got off the plane,” Esser recalled in a recent interview, “I just walked up to somebody and asked, ‘Can you tell me how to get to the Kansas City Art Institute?’” Esser had…

Read More

Dual Personality

By | January 1, 2016 |
Portrait of Gerard Eisterhold inside his vinyard in Kansas City. He also own his own business, Eisterhold Associates Inc. (Photo: Jim Barcus)

As a student in the early 1970s at the Kansas City Art Institute, Jerry Eisterhold found himself pondering wine in addition to graphic design. It was a brief phase, yet one that foretold the future. “I thought it would be a cool thing to be a wine aficionado,” Eisterhold remembers. “So I went down to…

Read More