L. Brent Kington: Mythic Metalsmith

Credits

Essays - Debra Tayes, ISM Associate Curator of Fine Art

Images - Doug Carr, ISM Photographer

Web site - Sue Huitt, Web Developer and Educator

Gratitudes and Acknowledgements

My most sincere gratitude and appreciation to L. Brent Kington for sharing with us a reflective range of his work for this exhibition. I especially want to thank Diane Kington for the warmth and kindness extended to me and our museum staff every time we visited their home in Makanda, Illinois.

I am very grateful to the contributing museums and people who were able to lend Kington's work from their collections for this traveling exhibition: Cranbrook Museum of Art, Bloomfield, Michigan; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, Minnesota; Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; the Sheldon Gallery at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; the Sabatini Gallery at the Topeka and Shawnee County Library, Topeka, Kansas; Richard Raymond; and the Kington Family.

Very special thanks to Terry Scrogum, Director of the Illinois Arts Council, along with Eliud Hernandez, Deputy Director and Rose Parisi, Director of Programs, for their enthusiastic support and recognition of the project by contributing major funding support through the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces National Initiative.

I want to thank the School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale for their time and funding support. In particular, I want to thank Rick Smith, the “L. Brent Kington Chair” and Director of the Metals Program; Adam Hawk, graduate student in the Metals Program; and Harris Deller, Director, School of Art and Design.

Special thanks to Carbondale Community Arts and director Nancy Stemper for the funding support through the Southern Arts Fund.

The Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago has recognized the L. Brent Kington: Mythic Metalsmith exhibition as part of the American Art American City initiative, for which we are both grateful and delighted.

I am so appreciative of the efforts of WTTW-TV in Chicago, especially Andrea Guthmann for producing such a superb “Arts Across Illinois” television segment about L. Brent Kington, his work and the exhibition opening at the southern Illinois Art Gallery in the fall of 2007. I would also like to thank David Kidd of WSIU-TV at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for producing an “In Focus” television segment about the work of L. Brent Kington.

I want to acknowledge the debt of gratitude I owe to all my colleagues at the Illinois State Museum who worked with me developing and presenting the exhibition — Carole Peterson, Phil Kennedy, Robert Sill, Judith Lloyd Klauba, Doug Stapleton, Jane Stevens, Jim Zimmer, Jennifer Jaskowiak, Sue Huitt, Doug Carr, Paul Countryman, Pat Burg, Tammy Wheeler, Agnes Arnold.

Special thanks to Dr. Bonnie Styles, Director, and Karen Witter, Associate Director, for their continued support. Also to the staff of the Southern Illinois Arts and Artisans Center and other museum staff who have contriubted to the success of this exhibition.

Finally, I am most grateful to Kent J. Smith, Director of Art at the Illinois State Museum, who has continually given of his time and support and encouragement.

— Debra Tayes