Bethel College is featuring the art of a North Newton native and one of its own graduates in a show in the Fine Arts Center Gallery.
“Linked in Spirit: An Exhibition of Mixed-Media Collage, Clayboard Drawings and Mosaics” by Lora Jost opened March 5.
Jost is a freelance artist with a studio in Lawrence. In addition to her work as a studio artist, she teaches collage and sketchbook journaling classes at the Lawrence Arts Center, works as a freelance illustrator and occasional muralist, leads projects with community groups and writes.
She has completed several artist residencies in Glasco with support from the Kansas Arts Commission's grassroots/project mini-grants program. One of her favorite projects, titled “The Experience of Farmers,” involved making mixed-media collages and clayboard drawing based on interviews with Kansas farmers, in which she incorporated text from interviews into, or juxtaposed with, visual images.
Jost was the co-author, with Dave Loewenstein, of “Kansas Murals: A Traveler’s Guide” (University Press of Kansas, 2006), recognized as a Kansas Notable Book for 2007 by the Kansas Center for the Book, and funded in part by the Kansas Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. Jost has served on the board of the Lawrence Arts Commission.
Jost grew up in North Newton and also has lived in Washington, D.C., Madison, Wis., and Bloomington, Ind. The daughter of Mary Ann and Walter Jost of North Newton, Lora Jost is a graduate of Newton High School and Bethel College. She earned a master of fine arts degree with an emphasis in nonstatic forms from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has studied at American University and The University of Kansas.
Jost has lived in Lawrence since 1996. She is married to Chuck Epp, and they have a son, Nicholai, 7.
Of her exhibit “Linked in Spirit” and making art in general, Jost said, “Life is a curious thing, and that’s what motivates me to look at it more closely through art. My art is a visual commentary on experiences, from the surprise of cracking open a two-yolked egg — industry destroys two-yolkers — to the trouble of trudging into a strong headwind, or maybe a strong-headed political wind, to the emotional flood of laughing to the point of crying — or maybe it's the other way around.
“I am drawn to themes that are mundane, whimsical and socially urgent, and like to mix them around to find how they link in spirit,” she said. “While based on experiences, my images are never realistic-looking — a bit of fantasy always comes into play. And sometimes I abandon ‘reality’ altogether by creating my own characters in scenes that are fully imaginary. But even these are intended to say something tangible about how special or beautiful or infuriating or ridiculous this ordinary old world really is.”
