My name is Gary Holstein.

I'm the director and curator of the museum.

I got my start and museum area in a kind of nontraditional way.

I am from the studio side of the museums.

And so from the very beginning, I was.

I've always been about the arts, but also about how the arts work with the community.

And so that's kind of why I ended up here, because it's at a community college, which makes a lot of sense.

Doctor Dom, was a radiologist who developed a relationship with the first director, Doug Freed, who was a painting instructor at this state fair community college.

They started touring around the world, collecting art with the long term goal of creating the space for that collection to live here on the State Fair Community College.

So by the time that this was created, Doctor Dom donated about 3 to 400 pieces.

And he also donated the money to build this wonderful facility.

Since that time, over the last 20 plus years, we've grown that to just over 1700 pieces.

And it has started off with large scale abstract expressionist and ceramic pieces.

And now we have a nice variety of work, everything from original pieces that were donated to pieces that are made.

And now we just acquired new pieces from the last show.

And, you know, we have video work, we have, wood, and we have a really amazing collection of prints, including works by Kara Walker and other artists, The International.

The exhibitions will change out.

The biggest one changes out about every six months or so, but I have three floors, so I change out the main floor, every six months.

But I change out the top floor an.. about every six months as well.

So there's always something different about, you can say every three months or so we're trying to rotate things to where if a person comes here in didn't bother to look at ou.. we have something up, that there's always something to see, because we have ..

So that's already all the time.

We currently have a show that's being installed right now, called All We Are.

And that utilizes portraiture and decorative works from the collection.

and, you know, it's all about identity and who we a.. and, you know, perspective because I think one of the things that art does really well is it gives the opportunity to see other people's perspectives, maybe gain a sense of empathy.

And I think that's so important for us in the world as people and as communities.

John Malta he is a digital illustrator who has work in The New York Times.

He's done work for Facebook, Campus and, you know, various magazines, Garbage Pail Kids.

He starts with a hand-drawn image, which he then goes in and colors through digital means, and then he takes that, he creates a comic book, and he turns that into this full on installation of work that's like you're walking physically into a comic book.

So kind of does all of the things that I think are really interesting and happening in art, especially in the educational environment, which I've always been a part of, where you're, you know, you're using that, that what's new, but you're also drawing on what would be considered a more traditional form.

And you're bringing them together, you're taking them back apart, and you're just re-envisio.. you know, the world through these all these different creative means.

The other exhibition that we have up right now is Casey Whittier.

She's Kansas City Art Institute.

She is an amazing artist who does all of these intricate, pieces of ceramics that look like they're woven.

I worked with her in the first show that I brought here with Art access, which is an intern.. She was one of the people that I worked with when I first came here.

I had response from the, visitors and students about how much they like to work.

And so this gives me the opportunity to respond to my community and say, this is what you like, I'll give you more of it.

And also to deepen a relationship with a artist and a community in Kansas City, through, you know, continuing that, back and forth.

So our primary methodology for education is, visual thinking strategies.

And so that's a program that is about bringing students in.

And our focus is fourth and fifth graders, and it brings students into the museum.

And instead of saying, this is what the art is about, and, you know, giving them that sort of like lecture at, we allow them to participate in the creation of meaning within the space.

And so we ask them questions about what they see, and then we ask them to kind of follow up on what why that.. And the ideas about starting conversation critical thinking, developing listening skills, and those other types of attributes that you know are useful to art students were also useful all across the different types of programs that we offer at the State Fair Community College.

The other thing that we're just starting out, we're doing curatorial programs with students here at State Fair Community College, and we're hoping to grow that with other students around the region as well.

And so this show that we're sitting in right now was the first curatorial project of one of our state fair community college students.

We also have a supportive program where we provide opportunities for students to show each year inside of our, gallery space.

And within that, you know, we get to we get to support the students by they get to see amazing art, but they also get to follow up on their professional development, which was something that I didn't nece.. when I was going through the art program, because I was from a really rural environment.

There was a museums, there wasn't that sort of thing, and it wasn't a career path that was identified.

And so I said, you know, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make art communities happen, and I'm going to use my position to make sure that there's resources for rural kids like myself, to see our interview art and to learn more about it and to see it from all over the place to.