Red Balloon To Do issues call for artists

Applications for artists who want to be part of the second annual Red Balloon To Do are available at Olive Gallery and Art Supply, 15 E. Eighth St.

Application deadline is Oct. 15.

Last year’s inaugural event drew hundreds of people to Lawrence galleries and private homes to look at artworks created by student and professional artists alike. This year’s To Do is set for Oct. 23.

For more information, contact the Olive Gallery at 331-4114.

KU, ESU professors exhibit at Mulvane

Topeka — Although Judith Burns McCrea’s and Ann Piper’s works are in separate galleries, both artists create disturbing, large-scale representations of the human body.

Their works are on view through Oct. 10 at the Mulvane Art Museum, 17th and Jewell, Topeka.

Burns McCrea, associate professor of painting and art department chair at Kansas University, paints large, figurative works that are primarily concerned with love, sex and death.

Piper, assistant professor of drawing and painting at Emporia State University, creates large-scale portraits that challenge traditional perceptions of portraiture.

Piper will give a gallery talk at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 14; Burns McCrea will speak at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 21.

For more information, call (785) 231-1124.

Arts Commission seeks poet laureate

Nomination deadline is Wednesday for the first poet laureate of Kansas.

The Kansas Arts Commission designed the position to recognize a poet of exceptional talent and accomplishment while encouraging appreciation of the genre among a wider audience throughout the state.

Nominees must be 18 years old and nonstudents, have resided in Kansas for the past 10 years, intend to remain in the state during the poet laureate term of two years (July 2005-June 2007) and be willing to travel.

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have a poet laureate. The position is established by tradition as an honor given to an individual writer in recognition of a high level of achievement in the art of poetry.

Guidelines and nomination forms are online at http://arts.state.ks.us/programs.html. For more information, call (785) 368-6545 or e-mail karen@arts.state.ks.us.

Developing creativity focus of workshop

“Explore the Writer Within You,” a workshop for writers who want to delve into fiction, nonfiction and poetry, will meet in eight sessions from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. beginning Sept. 9.

The instructors will be Lawrence and Suella Walsh, authors of “Creating Fiction that Sells, A Compilation of Published Magazine Articles” and editors of “Kansas City Voices Magazine.”

The class is designed to develop creativity, writing techniques and marketing skills.

Classes meet at 6000 Lamar in Mission. Fee is $50, with registration due by Sept. 6.

For more information, call (816) 630-7063.

KU trombone professor to perform at gallery

Mike Hall, assistant professor of trombone at Kansas University, will play a special concert titled “100 Years of American Trombone” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Signs of Life, 722 Mass.

Ellen Bottorff, a KU doctoral student in piano, will join Hall as an accompanist on Signs of Life’s Steinway grand piano.

The concert will feature popular music played by trombonists from the 19th century through today, including Henry Fillmore, Arthur Pryor, Tommy Dorsey, Eric Ewazen, Joseph Eidson and Roger Kellaway. Hall also will present the concert several times in the Ukraine as a guest of the Kharkiv Conservatory.

Hall’s compact disc will be on sale at Signs of Life. For more information, call the store at 830-8030.

Nominations requested for Governor’s Arts Awards

The deadline to submit nominations to the Kansas Arts Commission for the 2005 Governor’s Arts Awards is Nov. 1.

The awards recognize outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support or availability of the arts in Kansas.

Anyone living in Kansas or any business, organization or institution involved in arts and cultural activities and in Kansas at the time of nomination is eligible. An organization should be nominated by someone in the community it serves; not by an official of the organization.

Nominations may be submitted in the following categories: individual artist, art educator, arts advocate, arts organization, arts patron (individual or organization).

Award recipients will be chosen by a selection panel that includes members of the commission and representatives of the governor and various arts disciplines and organizations.

Complete guidelines and a list of previous awardees may be found at http://arts.state.ks.us.

Founder of KU jewelry department shows work

Topeka — Carlyle Smith’s jewelry and silversmithing career spans more than 70 years, and part of that time was spent building the jewelry and silversmithing department at Kansas University.

Smith’s works are on display through Oct. 10 at the Mulvane Art Museum, 17th and Jewell, Topeka.

When Smith started the KU program in 1947, it was the first such program at a state university. While at KU, Smith designed the collar and ceremonial mace used for KU commencement, a chalice for Trinity Episcopal Church and the abbot’s ring and pectoral cross for St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison.

He retired from KU in 1977 and now, at 92, lives in Pittsburg.

His works can be found in major collections, such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and on the face of the Supreme Court building in San Jose, Calif. He received the Kansas Governor’s Arts Award in 1995.

Lawrence artist Ron Hinton will give a gallery talk about Carlyle’s work at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Artist conducts residency, gets into national shows

Artist Henri Doner-Hedrick recently returned from conducting an artist’s residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vt.

She also will be showing her work in three upcoming group exhibitions. She has two pieces at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena, Mont., through Oct. 31. Another work will be on view Sept. 2 through Oct. 8 at the Allegany Arts Council’s Saville Gallery in Cumberland, Md. Then from Nov. 3 to Dec. 3, Doner-Hedrick will be part of “Pigment: Contemporary Painting Invitational National Group Exhibition” at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.

Doner-Hedrick, a second-generation, multiracial Filipina-American artist, works out of her home studio near Lake Dabinawa. She has a bachelor’s of fine arts from Kansas University. She teaches art at Washburn University and the Kansas City Art Institute, and her paintings have hung in solo and group shows throughout the Midwest.