T H E F R O N T I E R

a charlotte street 15 year anniversary project considering the history and future of artist-driven pioneering in Kansas City and the changing nature of the city's "frontiers"

Reception for Phase II of The Frontier THIS FRIDAY, June 15, 6-9pm

Join Charlotte Street and the curators, artists, writers, archivists and others involved in the second incarnation of the The Frontier this Friday evening!  The evening will include readings by Stephen Proski … Continue reading

June 12, 2012 · Leave a comment

Making Marks / Leaving Traces: A Frontier project exploring Kansas City murals, curated by Heather Lustfeldt

Making Marks/Leaving Traces explores the mural as a touchstone for conversations about community, geography, culture, history and the broader theme of the Frontier related to Kansas City. Featured at Paragraph gallery, … Continue reading

June 1, 2012 · Leave a comment

Get a Raum: curatorial reflections on the weissraum

by Michael Schonhoff [photo: weissraum entrance].   Gute Idee – Curatorially, weissraum in The Frontier stems from a studio program I was concurrently working on and inspirations from several artists … Continue reading

May 28, 2012 · Leave a comment

Installation of Phase II of “The Frontier” underway

Phase II of The Frontier opens for gallery hours on Saturday, June 2 and will run though July 7. Hours are Wed, Fri, Sat 12-5pm and Thursdays 11-6pm. Join Phase II … Continue reading

May 23, 2012 · Leave a comment

Beginning The Living Archive, by Luke Firle and Nicole Mauser

We, along with Lyndsey Ogle and Dennis Helsel, have worked in conjunction with Pat Alexander and Kate Hackman on the development of a Living Archive for The Frontier. When each … Continue reading

May 17, 2012 · Leave a comment

The Frontier Phase I Closing Weekend: An Inside Job performance + closing reception Friday, May 18, 6-9 + An Inside Job discussion Saturday, 3pm

In conjunction with Charlotte Street’s Open Studios Weekend, Paragraph and Project Space host the final incarnation of Phase I of The Frontier THIS WEEKEND, May 18-19. Events include: The Frontier: Phase … Continue reading

May 17, 2012 · Leave a comment

The creative process behind “An Inside Job,” premiering May 18, 6:30-8pm

Since late March I have been working with Jane Gotch, Abbe Findley, Katie Ford, Laura Frank, and Tiffany Sisemore on the performance installation An Inside Job, to be performed May … Continue reading

May 6, 2012 · Leave a comment

Public Program: Kansas City Power and Light, Wednesday, May 9, 6-7:30pm at Paragraph

As part of Phase I of The Frontier, photographers  Mike Sinclair, Ah-ram Park, Kevin Sisemore,  Emily Henson, and Deanna Dikeman spent several weeks intensively investigating and photographing the nine block, 850 … Continue reading

May 5, 2012 · Leave a comment

“The Frontier” Opening pix from April 20

The Frontier opened to a packed crowd on Friday, April 20 at Paragraph and Project Space! The evening included the debut of Phase I projects:  Kansas City Power and Light,  An … Continue reading

May 5, 2012 · Leave a comment

Laura Isaac’s “Kansas City Scroll” Progressing

The scroll has been in the gallery for almost two weeks now. It was strange bringing an “unfinished” work into a gallery and then sitting down to work on it. … Continue reading

May 2, 2012 · Leave a comment

The first installation of The Living Timeline debuts Friday night

The Living Archive team has been hard at work within The Frontier the last few days, sifting through the first batch of archival materials on loan from KC artists and … Continue reading

April 20, 2012 · 1 Comment

Frontier: Momentum and Trajectory

A frontier is a feature of a community’s potential. It is a boundary, a limit and a challenge. My project, Frontier: Momentum and Trajectory, including a video slideshow at Paragraph … Continue reading

April 20, 2012 · 2 Comments

THE FRONTIER: Opening This Friday at Paragraph + Project Space

Join us for the opening of The Frontier on Friday, April 20, 6-9pm at Paragraph + Project Space, 21-23 East 12th in downtown KC. The opening will feature: Works by photographers Mike … Continue reading

April 16, 2012 · Leave a comment

Deanna Dikeman on Power at KCPL

It is my turn to write the blog post for our Frontier project group this week. I had some ideas I was tossing around about the artificiality of the district, … Continue reading

April 16, 2012 · Leave a comment

Charlotte Street history: Urban Culture Project…the very early days

Many old pix from the first few years of Charlotte Street’s Urban Culture Project, 2003-2005-ish, when downtown was vacant, parking was easy, and no one else was paying much attention. … Continue reading

April 13, 2012 · 3 Comments

Emily Henson on Kansas City Power and Light

Sure, Power and Light District just isn’t my scene. Honestly, the place totally grosses me out and generally, I avoid it altogether. When I visited the “Kansas City Live!” section … Continue reading

April 10, 2012 · 1 Comment

DRIVE BY

James Woodfill‘s DRIVE BY is a desktop video production, comprised of video, animations and music, that was completed in 2009. The video will be shown for the first time in … Continue reading

April 5, 2012 · 1 Comment

Kevin Sisemore Power and Light Photographs

My first impressions came from within a car as I passed through on the drive home each night…. the Kansas City Power & Light District was unexplored territory for me.  … Continue reading

April 5, 2012 · Leave a comment

Call For Artist + Writer Participants — Deadline: April 20

Two The Frontier  project curators seek applications from individuals wishing to be considered for participation in their projects. CALL FOR WRITERS, DEADLINE APRIL 20: As a part of her curatorial project … Continue reading

March 27, 2012 · Leave a comment

Power and Light – Ahram Park

Even though the Power and Light District is in the heart of downtown Kansas City, it has remained a foreign place to me. So when Mike Sinclair asked a group … Continue reading

March 27, 2012 · Leave a comment

Living Archive: “The Young, The Bold…” interview with Jaimie Warren, Cody Critcheloe, Seth Johnson, Hesse McGraw, John Dretzka, and Oz McGuire in “Review”, 2002

More digging… For the following interview,  I gathered a group of young KC arts scene movers and shakers (all in their early 20s at the time), most of whom are now … Continue reading

March 25, 2012 · Leave a comment

Is Art Possible in Kansas City? An essay by Peter von Ziegesar

(Photo: John Puscheck at Wilson Lake, by EG Schempf.) “Unnoticed by city fathers….an annual deluge of Kansas City Art Institute graduates had been filling every crack in the ecosystem especially … Continue reading

March 25, 2012 · 1 Comment

Chambers Building (home of Paragraph) history

National Register of Historic Places registration for the Chambers Building on 12th Street, designed by Smith, Rae, and Lovitt architects (1915, addition in 1923), now home to Paragraph & Project … Continue reading

March 21, 2012 · Leave a comment

Charlotte Street History: a 2002 “Review” interview with David Hughes, John O’Brien, and Raechell Smith upon CSF’s 6th Anniversary

The full text of a lengthy discussion about Kansas City artists, the importance of community, and Charlotte Street’s early mission and vision.

March 14, 2012 · Leave a comment

Living Archive: The Dirt revisited – a dig from the “Review” archive, 2003

A contextual essay and interview with Dirt Gallery’s Davin Watne and Leo Esquivel (by Hesse McGraw and Kate Hackman), which appeared in Review, Summer 2003, one month after Dirt (1997-2003) closed in the West Bottoms.

March 11, 2012 · Leave a comment

The Frontier!

This blog will provide a forum, platform, and archive for artworks, projects, discussions, and materials generating as part of, and in conjunction with, The Frontier, an exploratory, community-based, participatory project of … Continue reading

March 10, 2012 · 1 Comment

Charlotte Street history: Old UCP Pix!

We’ve started digging into our archive and turning up photos that feel in some ways as if they were just taken yesterday, and in other ways lifetimes ago. Here are … Continue reading

March 10, 2012 · Leave a comment

The Living Archive

The Living Archive tumblr is up and running! New content relating to the history of Kansas City’s  artists’ community is being added continually, as new contributors are sharing their archives … Continue reading

March 9, 2012 · Leave a comment

The Art Research Center

When the team from Art Practical was in town in February producing their Kansas City issue, writer Christian Frock mentioned ARC, which she had discovered in her process of researching … Continue reading

March 7, 2012 · 1 Comment

Phase 1 Projects

(Photo by Mike Sinclair.) The first series of projects for the Frontier — Phase I— are underway! Mike Sinclair, Michael Schonhoff, Julia Cole, Jane Gotch, Jonah Criswell, and Nicole Mauser … Continue reading

March 7, 2012 · Leave a comment