Alice Thorson

Alice Thorson

Alice Thorson is the editor of KC Studio. She has written about the visual arts for numerous publications locally and nationally.

American Portraiture at Kemper Museum

Visiting a portrait show can be like standing in a room full of people you don’t know. But with prolonged contact, artworks, like people, reveal themselves. A fascination with portraits led Virginia Outwin Boochever (1920 – 2005), a docent at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, to endow a portrait competition at the museum where she led tours for almost 20 years.

Gallery Glance: “Rena Detrixhe: Red Dirt Rug”

They’re magic, embedded with reflections on history and our relationship to the land. During a year-long residency in Oklahoma, Rena Detrixhe conceived her “Red Dirt Rug” series, made by sifting and spreading red Oklahoma soil into a large rectangular expanse on the floor and imprinting it with modified shoe soles. The results evoke luxury carpets, […]

Editor’s Letter, September/October 2017

The culture scene is jumping in Kansas City this fall, as reflected in this issue’s previews and reviews of what’s up in classical music, theater, the visual arts and more. The season also marks an important literary event: the publication of veteran KC writer and editor Steve Paul’s “Hemingway at Eighteen: The Pivotal Year That […]

Artist Pages: Kansas City Sculpture

Artist Pages: Kansas City Sculpture

In conjunction with the International Sculpture Center’s 27th International Sculpture Conference, Oct. 25 – 28 in Kansas City, KC Studio asked a dozen area curators, critics and collectors to each nominate an artist for inclusion in our Kansas City Sculpture Artist Pages. Nominators: Erin Dziedzic, curator and head of adult programs, Kemper Museum; Bruce Hartman, […]

Gallery Glance – “Every Street Is Charlotte Street: Jessica Kincaid”

The latest in the Kansas City Public Library’s yearlong series of exhibits commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Charlotte Street Foundation features the luminous beaded works of 2007 award winner Jessica Kincaid. The exhibit will offer an overview, dating to the visionary “Heaven and Earth” (2006) in the collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.

Editor’s Letter, July/August 2017

The Kansas City art world suffered a big loss this spring with the passing of Tom Deatherage, longtime owner of The Late Show gallery, which he founded in Hyde Park and later moved to the East Crossroads. Like its owner, The Late Show was a quirky, wonderful space, which specialized in emerging artists, but also […]