Anderson joins staff

The snow has barely melted, but Kimberly Anderson’s thoughts are focused on summer.
“Art in the Parks is the big bundle on my shoulders at the moment,” said Anderson, the director of visual arts at Arts Place. “I’m just trying to figure it all out.”
A ceramics artist, Anderson joined the Arts Place staff this month. In addition to scheduling and contracting with art instructors for Arts in the Parks, she’ll also be coordinating exhibits at Hugh N. Ronald Gallery at Arts Place and will be directing other visual arts programs to be offered for adults and students.
A native of Illinois, she received her bachelor of arts degree in ceramics from California University of Pennsylvania and her bachelor of fine arts degree in ceramics from West Virginia University. She went on to attain a master of fine arts degree in ceramics from Wichita State University.
For the past several years, she has been an assistant professor as an adjunct faculty member at Ball State University teaching design classes. Her husband, Scott Anderson, is an art professor at BSU.
As a ceramist, she works in a variety of forms.
“I wheel throw. I hand build. I sculpt,” she said. “Much of my work is figurative work.”
Both she and her husband have exhibited their work at Arts Place over the years.
Her work has also been shown at Minnetrista in Muncie, at the highly competitive Whitewater Valley Juried Exhibit at Indiana University East, and in the Richmond Art Museum’s annual regional art exhibition.
“I would like to see some more classes going on here and build up those classes,” she said this week.
She would also like to establish a better connection with arts classes in area public schools, noting that she has taught art as a substitute teacher and special instructor for Blackford County Schools.
For now, though, she’s concentrating her attention on making sure that Arts in the Parks — now in its fourth decade of summer programming for kids — runs smoothly and effectively.
“I like to get things done,” she said. “Little steps are hard for me. … We do have a lot of new artists” for Arts in the Parks.