You are always hearing about new art spaces opening in Kansas City, Missouri, but what about Kansas City, Kansas? If it has been awhile since you went to downtown KCK, we want to introduce you to the Epic Arts Studio, a ceramic studio where they’re firing up the kiln and a sense of community and making art accessible to a whole new audience.
Epic Arts is on 6th street in Downtown KCK and it provides classes for all ages and abilities.
February has been designated Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. The Leopold Gallery in Brookside will feature the work of young local artists, many of whom have experienced the wounds of sexual and physical violence. It is all part of a benefit night for the women’s shelter, Newhouse.
Young people will also read original poetry at the Leopold Gallery event, including Newhouse community coordinator Chandra Clark.
Poetry and art for teen dating awareness month at the Leopold Gallery in Brookside this Saturday, February 25 starting at 7 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $10.
There’s a lot of attention being paid right now, both locally and nationally, to building our economy through technology…Startup America for example. And with the arrival of Google Fiber, it’s been a particularly hot topic in Kansas City lately.
While tech companies have been popping up all across the metro, there’s a noticeable cluster developing in the vicinity of Downtown and the Crossroads. We take you inside three tech startups, to show you more of what “the scene” looks like these days.
Another indication of just how much is going in with Kansas City’s tech scene. Last week, the first “startup” crawl event was held…shuttling the curious to a number of startups in the Crossroads and beyond.
While she wasn’t at the Hyatt Regency when the skywalk collapsed in 1981, Rita Blitt’s fifth grade art teacher, Ruth Ann Angstead, was among the many people injured that night. Now, Blitt has the opportunity to pay tribute to her art teacher who inspired her to create as well as to the victims, rescuers and survivors of the tragedy. Randy Mason caught up with this Kansas City favorite just down the street at the Carter Art Center.
Blitt has installed over 45 monumental sculptures up to 60 feet in height, had 70 solo exhibitions and participated in many group shows. Her works have been shown and installed in Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. It isn’t often that one artist is featured in three shows at the same time, but that’s what happened this fall when Rita Blitt had shows underway at both Longview Community College and Penn Valley Community College, as well as in the gallery at Central Missouri University in Warrensburg. Rita Blitt’s Penn Valley show runs thru Nov. 7. The show at Longview runs through Nov. 12th.
The memorial will be part of a larger park developed by Children’s Mercy Hospital partnering with the KCMO Board of Parks and Recreation. Visitors to the memorial will find a 36-foot plaza area illuminated by pinpoints of light. The pinpoints of light will symbolize the victims, rescuers and the ripple effect the tragedy has had on the community. The memorial will include a seating area surrounded by lush plants. The Skywalk Memorial will be installed in Hospital Hill Park at 22nd and Gillham Road.
Blitt will create with advisors L. William Zahner, Hon. AIA, A. Zahner Company and Lorie Doolittle-Bowman, AIA, Bowman Bowman Novick Inc.
In 2009, KCMO Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners approved plans for a memorial, and SMF announced the location in Hospital Hill Park, 22nd and Gillham in Kansas City, Missouri. The Hyatt skywalk collapse remains the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history other than the World Trade Center. 114 people were killed, 216 were injured and countless lives were changed forever by the unprecedented disaster.
Friday marks the Royals season home opener. If you are heading over to Kauffman Stadium, you will notice something different at the K. With 120 newly installed large solar panels wrapping the back of the ballpark, the Royals are going green. It is apparently the largest in-stadium solar installation in major league baseball.
The panels will generate about 36,000 kilowatt hours of renewable energy a year. That’s enough to power four average homes. The panels are non-reflective and tilted to keep any reflections from interfering with play. That was a concern of Major League Baseball, which had to approve the stadium change.
When the dog days of summer arrive and you are basking in the sun at the stadium, just remember that even your beer and soda are going to be cooled by the sun.
It’s a national historic landmark. Some say it is truly sacred ground in the annals of jazz history. It’s the Mutual Musicians Foundation in the 18th and Vine Jazz District where musical giants like Count Basie and Charlie Parker played long into the night. Grammy award winning singer and musical history enthusiast Michael Feinstein just brought his national PBS series to Kansas City to experience our town’s musical treasures and he stopped by the foundation to experience a jam session for himself.
It wasn’t just the Mutual Musician Foundation capturing Feinstein’s interest here in town. While he was here, Feinstein also headed to another Kansas City sound treasure on the campus of UMKC…the Marr Sound Archives.
You can see the next chapter in Feinstein’s series Friday night at 9 here on KCPT. Since you just got a peek inside the Marr Sound Archive, Sound Recording Specialist Chuck Haddix sat down with Randy Mason to give a bit more insight into the music history treasure trove at UMKC.
Some of Kansas City’s top bartenders are participating this weekend in the Paris of the Plains Cocktail Competition.
It’s just one event in Kansas City’s weeklong cocktail festival now underway that blends all sorts of spirited dinners, contests, seminars, industry gatherings and culminates Monday in the Paris of the Plains Gala, a big party with live music, dancing, handcrafted cocktails and food at the American Restaurant. Proceeds from the Gala will benefit KCPT.
Joining us are two key figures from the Paris of the Plains soiree.: The American Restaurant’s General Manager Jamie Jamison and former Manifesto Bartender Brandon Cummins.
They each shared one of their favorite drink recipes. Stay tuned for the video, but for now here are the tasty recipes:
The Nor(hat)tan
2 ounces Four Roses Bourbon
1/2 ounce Carpano Antica Vermouth
2 ounces Missouri Norton
2 Dashes Whiskey Barrel Bitters
Assemble all the ingredients with ice in the glass portion of a cocktail shaker and stir to chill. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with an orange peel. Bartender tip: if you want to look slick, work on your stir…no wrist and elbow movement…and be sure to stir with big, cold cubes for about 40 stirs or until the base of the mixing glass is really cold.
The Bebop Cocktail: A modern KC-influenced variant of the classic “Bee’s Knees” cocktail.
1.5 oz Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat
2 oz Beefeater 24
1/2 oz Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Honey
4 dashes Angostura Bitters
Pour chilled Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat into a cocktail glass
In a mixing glass, combine honey, lemon juice, bitters, and Beefeater 24. Add ice, shake, and strain into cocktail glass with Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat.
Garnish with lemon zest & enjoy!
Can you tell the difference between a French wine and a Missouri wine? What about a $25 California bottle from a Kansas vintage of the same price? Coming up…The Local Show Blind Taste Challenge. We pit some of the area’s best wines against their better known counterparts.
With more than 150 wineries in Kansas and Missouri, why do so few local restaurants still refuse to carry area wines on their menus, especially as they advocate so strongly for locally sourced produce on their menus?
The Kansas City based wine website Regional Wine Taster pulls no punches regarding the lack of local wines being served at Kansas City’s top restaurants.
In its Wine Lists of Shame, it singles out esteemed local eateries like Blue Stem, the Bristol, EBT, Lydias, Grand Street Cafe and YaYa’s. The website’s author, Danny Wood, and Colleen Gerke, Owner of Jowler Creek Vineyard & Winery in Platte City, Missouri, join Nick Haines to discuss the challenges that local wine producers face.
Learn more about Kansas City’s Amigoni Urban Winery:
Harvest 2010 from Michael Amigoni on Vimeo.
Our resident wine expert Doug Frost along with Randy Mason are the referees for our blind taste test. The rating system, based on the wine rating system created by British wine expert Michael Broadbent and a similar system used by the British wine magazine Decanter, rates wines from one to five with five being the highest score and one being the lowest.
The Tasters:
Stretch: Artist, TV Personality, Restaurateur, Visionary and Sculptor whose works have been on display in private and corporate collections throughout the world. The sculptures vary in scale from small approachable pieces to environmentally dominating. The choice of materials Stretch uses in his pieces-glass & steel-work against each other, causing tension while maintaining a high level of dialogue. Stretch is a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute. He owns a restaurant called Grinders, and a deli, Grinders West. He developed the sculpture park behind Grinders into a live music venue known as Crossroads KC @ Grinders, which promotes artists, musicians, and benefits for non-profit organizations. He has appeared on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.
Eddie Kennison: Former wide receiver for the KC Chiefs. He established “Quick Start–The Eddie Kennison Foundation” whose “Festival of Food and Fun” is coming up June 25th where folks can test some great wines and help support Lupus research efforts. An owner of Cellar and Loft wine store in the City Market. Because of his continued charitable and civic activities, Eddie was nominated for the prestigious 2006 Walter Payton NFL “Man of the Year” award by an esteemed blue-ribbon panel from the NFL.
Katie Van Luchene: Katie brings an unmatched passion and depth of experience in writing about her hometown. She was a columnist for Kansas City Magazine and KC Home Design before launching KC Magazine where she now serves as executive editor. She’s also written about Kansas City for Midwest Living and Budget Travel.
Stephen Molloy: Stephen is the wine manager at the Classic Cup restaurant on the Plaza. He came to the States from Ireland where whiskey and brew are mainstays. His career began at Starker’s, in Kansas City, another established restaurant with a reputation for fine foods and wine. He worked in every position at the restaurant and eventually became the maitre’d. It was here he was “forced” to learn about wines and the maintenance of a wine list. He developed the Starker’s wine list from 600-1300 selections – eventually earning the restaurant the Grand Award in 1992 from the Wine Spectator, the highest award from the wine industry’s foremost publication.
Lucinda Kreifel: Lucinda is regular customer and fan of wine at Belvoir Winery in Liberty. In fact, she is such a fan of Belvoir that she chose the winery as the location of her upcoming wedding.
Check back after we air the show for a complete list of wines and results.
The school year is winding down for most students, but for school administrators it is prime time for hiring teachers for the fall.
Did you know that 30 percent of new teachers quit after three years on the job and half of them quit the classroom within five years? The biggest reason for leaving? According to the Gates Foundation, the answer is not pay, though I’m sure most teachers wouldn’t say no to a a salary increase, and it’s not because they don’t like teaching anymore. The biggest reason, the Gates Foundation claims, is they don’t like the school they’re teaching in because it is a bad fit. Enter: myEDmatch.com.
If online dating works so well for people looking for love and happiness, can it work to match teachers with schools? That is the premise being pioneered by two local leaders in education in Kansas City: former Kauffman Foundation Vice President Munro Richardson and Teach for America Kansas City head Alicia Herald, who both quit their jobs to launch this job matching start up.
