“Multiplicity” will debut Friday at Art Affair in downtown Baldwin City with a compilation of ceramic and print works featuring work by five Kansas State University graduate students including one Baker alumna.
The works by graduate students Amanda Small, Susan Nam, David Witherow, Bo David Bedilion and Baker alumna Machiko Yamazaki will preview 5-7 p.m. Friday at Art Affair and will be available for viewing through Nov. 11. Inge Balch, program director of art, said she is enthusiastic about seeing the graduate students’ work in the gallery, especially the work of Baker alumna Yamazaki.
“I think K-State has one of the best ceramics programs in the nation,” she said. “Machiko is a dynamite print maker.”
Yamazaki said one series of prints and three ceramic pieces she’s compiled will be featured in the show. She said she’s looking forward to having pieces she’s made while in the graduate program at Kansas State University be featured in the student run art gallery at Baker because it reminds her of her time as an undergraduate.
“I had a lot of freedom at Baker, but I had to be self-motivated at the same time in the program, because a lot of classes that I took were independent studies and I had to know what I was doing,” she said.
Yamazaki said she would like to teach at a university level after she graduates and eventually own and operate her own business.
“Someday, I would like to have my own gallery or art center,” she said.
Senior Lesley Gillaspie, student director of Art Affair, said the gallery and the art shows are good entities for Baldwin City.
“This brings a little bit of culture to Baldwin besides the Maple Leaf Festival which is only once a year,” she said.
Art Affair is a gallery in downtown Baldwin City and it features professional and graduate level artists’ work in shows throughout the year.
Balch said Baker students who are affiliated with the art department run the gallery. Plans are in the works so that hopefully next year, there will be an internship program set up with the gallery. The hope is to bring more students from all different majors involved in the shows at Art Affair Balch said.
“(The students) are there for work-study but also to learn how to run a gallery,” Balch said. “It teaches the students how to price and hang their art but also how to market themselves.”
Gillaspie said she hopes working at the art affair will help her prepare for a career as a curator’s assistant in a museum after she attends graduate school.
“I do everything,” she said. “I book shows, pay bills, keep track of other gallery workers and set up the shows.”