From MFA to KMA

When I first saw Crystal Wagner’s work over a year ago at Fluorescent Gallery, I was impressed- REALLY impressed. I always expect great things from the students in UT’s graduate printmaking dept. - after all, it is rated one of the top three printmaking departments in public universities in the country. What she did with her work went beyond the usual flat confines of printmaking. She was beginning to explore utilizing printmaking as an element of sculptural form. She was using layers of cut-out Mylar overlapping the different color toned paper her organic formations and biological imagery were printed on. The paper shapes replicated microscopic creatures found in her meticulous drafting. Her work was still confined to rectangular format, however.

When she finally had her MFA Thesis Exhibit at the UT Downtown Gallery this spring, the rectangular format was still evident in her minor works, but was totally blown away in wall size sculptural cut-outs that fractured into smaller particles that would trickle off into the negative space of the galleries’ walls, painted light gray to accentuate the white Mylar. It was evident she had made yet another break through.

The KMA was aware. Both David Butler, the museum’s director, and Stephen Wicks, curator, wandered into the opening. Wicks had staged his massive review of contemporary drawing less than six months earlier at the museum, and much of what he curated into the show contained elements of what he was seeing in Wagner’s work, mainly the three dimensional treatment of paper on the wall, and ingenious use of Mylar. Ten days later, one of Wagner’s larger pieces went straight from the UT Downtown to the KMA. It was on a temporary loan status until the museum could find a purchase donor. That is now past history. Wagner informed me yesterday that a donor came forward, and the work is now part of the museum’s permanent collection.

What can I say? A superb university program attracts the best and brightest, and an alert museum staff knows what they see and grabs it, and the community benefits from their vision.

Oh-you can also see some of Wagner’s work at Old City Java ’till June 30. After that, she is gone. She has a one year residency in Lincoln, Kansas, and after that, who knows. She is hoping for a university teaching positions somewhere. Whoever hires her will be making a smart decision.