Amanda Thompson has been a Visual Art teacher at Western Middle School for the Arts since 2010. She joined LVA’s Children’s Fine Art Classes the same year. She was recently awarded the Baird Excellence Award Outstanding Teacher for Middle School 2023. She served as a Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence Teacher Fellow in 2022 and Classroom Teachers Enacting Positive Solutions fellow in 2020. In collaboration with LVA and PNC Broadway, her classes have participated in 3 separate art installations at Kentucky Center for the Arts for Blue Man Group, Little Mermaid, and Anastasia, the Musical.
Children's Fine Art Classes
Artists Talk with LVA: August 24, 2023
LVA staff members Grant Johnson & Kristian Anderson will be in the studio this week to talk about LVA's past, present, & future. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.
Kristian Anderson has 18+ years’ experience in the arts and culture sector, including as Senior Policy Advisor to the Mayor of Salt Lake City. Prior to that, Kristian was for four years the Executive Director of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Executive Director for the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries in Seattle. He was the founder and host of “SLC Culture” – a weekly radio show highlighting arts, culture and social issues.
For the past 3 years he was the Executive Director of LVA where he achieved fiscal stability and growth during a time when a global pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to all non-profit arts organizations. He oversaw the first phase of renovations for the LVA facility in Portland, which focused on bringing the building up to code and giving it greater accessibility, developed the Artist Resource Series providing advice and instruction for practicing adult artists, and in partnership with artist and donor Clare Hirn initiated the Curate Purchase and Inspire (CPI) program designed to foster curatorial practice and install permanent exhibits of art purchased from local artists in community non-profits.
Grant Johnson is Strategic Communications Coordinator for LVA. He holds an MFA in Printmaking from West Virginia University, and a BA in Religion from Williams College. His work life includes 13 years’ experience teaching all studio art disciplines, art history, film, and art education at the college level. He has also worked as a freelance graphic designer, in online retail, and in a variety of sales and management positions.
A working artist, Grant’s studio practice focuses on commissioned oil portraits, but also includes sculpture, video, printmaking, and drawing.
Grant’s passions for writing and for LVA’s mission find additional purpose in his role as the organization’s in-house Grants Administrator. His lifelong commitment to promoting the value of visual art and art education has never been more at home than it is at LVA.
Artists Talk with LVA: April 27, 2023
Luminous: New Work From the Studio of Liz Price opens April 28 at Wheelhouse Art and Liz will be in the WXOX studios to discuss her work and family legacy. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.
Luminous: New Work by Liz Price
Opening reception: Friday, April 28th, 6:00 - 8:00 . The exhibition will be up until June 10th.
Liz Price was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and graduated from the University of Louisville in 1981 with an undergraduate degree in sculpture. She lived and worked in New York City for several years before moving to Philadelphia to attend the University of Pennsylvania. There she received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting in 1988.
Neil Welliver was chairman of the program then, while other critics and visiting artists included Rafael Ferrer, William Bailey, Altoon Sultan, and Alex Katz. Price paints in a painterly realist tradition, citing influences ranging from Cezanne, Matisse and Vuillard to Richard Diebenkorn, Fairfield Porter, Janet Fish, and Lois Dodd.
Artists Talk With LVA: September 8, 2022
We speak with J. Daniel Graham & Hannah Smith, 2 of the several artists included in the 2022 KMAC Triennial. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.
The 2022 KMAC Triennial: Divided We Fall, connects concerns relevant to our geographic region with issues that define the larger national narrative, revealing how our landscape can be a site of conflict and resistance, as well as a place of unity and mutual respect.
Featuring work by Tammy Burke, Jon Cherry, Ceirra Evans, J. Daniel Graham, Ed Hamilton, Bruce Linn, Ebony G. Patterson, José Manuel Nápoles Puerto, Hannah Smith, Norman Spencer, Vadis Turner
The exhibition is officially open to the public until November 6th, 2022.
J. Daniel Graham comes from a family of storytellers. His mother was a basket maker and calligrapher and the lessons of engineering and risk from my dad. He studied Printmaking at the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, where he earned his Masters degree. Graham also trained as a custom woodworker under woodworker Dennis Sitka in Washington, D.C. Currently, he is a Professor of Art and Chair of the Art Department at Georgetown College in Georgetown Kentucky where he teaches a variety of courses including Sculpture, Printmaking, 3D Design, Metal Casting, and Package Design.
Jdgraham.net
Hannah Smith graduated with an MFA from the School of Art and Visual Studies at the University of Kentucky. They are currently teaching graphic design, printmaking, and sculpture at the University of Kentucky and Northern Kentucky University. Smith is also a Lead Teaching Artist with ArtWorks Cincinnati. They are also an instructor with the GSA in Kentucky.
Smith was honored at the 2022 Future Art Awards: Ecosystem X from Mozaik Philanthropy in Los Angeles, CA.
hannahsmithfineart.com