This summer as well as last summer I was was commissioned to design and fabricate the People’s Choice Award for the Art of the Car Concours at KCAI. It is a vintage car exhibit that celebrates antique cars as works of art. Below is an image of one of the People’s Choice Awards in action. Congratulations to all five winners!

Award_Post

I have just posted new work from my Thesis exhibitions at the Kansas City Art Institute. Check it out by looking at my KCAI portfolio.

jmalenBull3a

Unusual Portal is a piece I made during my junior year in Ceramics at KCAI, It is a replica in clay of an actual door in Kansas City located near 25th and Troost. I just recently found a home in St. Louis for it, and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect spot.

unusualportalinstalled

Knock,Knock

89″X36″X10″

Ceramic, Wood, Concrete

This piece was installed in one of the main administrative buildings on the Kansas City Art Institute Campus called Vanderslice. The piece speaks to the strange things people do to animals for purposes of vanity, while at the same time the manifestation of a childhood daydream. Have you ever wondered if there was a lion on the other side of the door?

My latest work has focussed on cabinets and other architectural structures as a format for highly symbolic pieces. These are some images of those pieces. For more views check out my KCAI Portfolio page.

Allegory of Love

20″x35″x3″

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I was fortunate to recieve a scholorship to attend the Penland School of Crafts for two weeks. Perched on top of one of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, it was a beautiful and refreshing place to learn. I partook in a torch worked glass workshop with Micheal Mangiafico. The goal of the class was to learn the basics of torch working and to be able to make glass insects by the end of the class.

The Dragon Fly is one of Micheal’s demo pieces. This is what we were expected to be able to make by the end of the two weeks! Lets just say mine was a little less fancy.

I just added a page of work from the Kansas City art institute from the last two years.