Tina Thomas finds 'A Soft Place to Land' at Fort Hays State
The ceramicist and educator wants her work to be a conduit to "healing and joy."
While Wichita North High School ceramics teacher Tina Thomas was prepping to return to her classroom this month, she was also working on the installation of her Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition at Fort Hays State.
“A Soft Place to Land” is on view through September 5 in the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art & the Patricia A. Schmidt Gallery Lobby at FHSU in Hays, Kansas.
“We all need a soft place to land sometimes. We all need to get away from our troubles and find a soft place to be," Thomas said.
The title of the exhibition is inspired in part by the experience of gathering with friends to sip tea served in ceramic tea bowls.
“Handmade objects can bring such joy to people,” Thomas said. “My intent is to bring healing and joy through my work.”
The show also reflects the artist’s fascination with faces, which “can tell a million stories,” as well as her experience of motherhood.
For the past four years, Thomas has spent a month every summer in Hays, a “peaceful, art-oriented town” in western Kansas. The low-residency program offers online classes during the fall and spring semesters that conclude with three-day, in-person workshops and critiques. The program, the only one of its kind in Kansas, enables educators to pursue graduate studies while remaining in the classroom.
“What’s really cool about it is that now I have friends from all over,” Thomas said, including California, Arizona and Nebraska.
As a teacher who works with low-income students, Thomas qualified for tuition support through the Kansas Board of Regents. The terms of her scholarship dictate that Thomas had to commit to staying at North for five years after graduation — but that’s not a burden.
“The kids here are amazing,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to teach anywhere else.”
Emily Christensen is a freelance journalist and one of the co-founders of the SHOUT. She is a past fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and a recipient of an Arts Writing Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation.
Support Kansas arts writing
The SHOUT is a Wichita-based independent newsroom focused on artists living and working in Kansas. We're partly supported by the generosity of our readers, and every dollar we receive goes directly into the pocket of a contributing writer, editor, or photographer. Click here to support our work with a tax-deductible donation.
