News bites: Poets and ceramicists
Poetry Out Loud and 'Transmutación' by Armando Minjarez
Wichita high school student wins state poetry competition
Congratulations to Wichita High School East student Ismail Saeed, who won the 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud competition on March 8 in Topeka. The senior international baccalaureate student read Shirley Geok-Lin Lim's "Learning to love America," Emily Jungmin Yoon's "Say Grace," and Emily Brontë's "Shall earth no more inspire thee."
The statewide competition will be broadcast by PBS Kansas later this spring. Saaed will head to Washington, D.C., in May to compete against students from all over the U.S. for a chance to win a scholarship of up to $20,000.
Mini review: "Transmutación" by Armando Minjarez
For his line of functional ceramics, Armando Minjarez plays with color, pattern, and form to produce eye-catching tabletop pieces. He works at a much larger scale in his public art projects, such as "El Arco" in Garden City, Kansas.
Size-wise, the objects in Minjarez' solo exhibition "Transmutación," on view at Reuben Saunders Gallery through March 29, are situated somewhere in the middle of those two bodies of work. But absent the pure function of his tabletop and public artworks, the totemic sculptures, fanciful objects, and architectural vases at RSG are reminders that Minjarez aspired to be an architect before he detoured into ceramics. The exhibition is a welcome extension of Minjarez' ceramic practice, and, for new viewers, a terrific introduction to his style. —Emily Christensen
Theater and clown artist Madi White's one-woman show "The Free State" will open for a single performance March 22. Presented by Harvester Arts and Local Abundance Productions, the show is about growing up queer in Kansas.
"Whenever I tell people I’m from Kansas, the response is always, why? — and then their perception of me changes," said White. The play embraces common biases about Kansans by using "over-the-top stereotypes" enacted through "clowny scenes." The script was developed with Shannan Calcutt.
Following its Midwestern debut, White will take the show to the Kansas City Fringe Festival, performing "Free" several times during its July 13-27 run. The show will also go to the Atlanta fringe festival and an upcoming artist residency in Orquevaux, France. — Anne Welsbacher
"The Free State" Wichita performance will take place at 7 p.m. March 22 at Somewhere Works, 235 N. Emporia Ave. Tickets are $23.40 with fees and can be purchased online.
In the news
- The fourth book in Wichita cartoonist Grant Snider's Incidental Comics series will be released in April. In "Thinking About Thinking," Snider explores "impossible thoughts and complicated feelings in one and two-page technicolor comics." Preorder "Thinking about Thinking" from Watermark Books.
- Oklahoma City native Summer Wheat's chapel-like installation "Jewelhouse" will occupy a long-abandoned Beaux Arts building on the grounds of The Museum of Kansas City. Symbolic of "an entry point into purification," The Art Newspaper reported that the space will be activated with public programs and performances.
- Former Kansas House rep Jason Probst interviewed tattoo artist and painter Brady Scott for an episode of his podcast. Scott's exhibition "Haunted Landscapes" is on view at CityArts through April 13.
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