Using his book “The Art Life: On Creativity and Career” as a jumping off point, Stuart Horodner leads a practical workshop for artists in Lexington. (Snacks and coffee provided)

If you are hoping to clarify your goals, build more professional skills, and assess exhibition opportunities, this event is for you. The discussion focuses on finding helpful role models, understanding the arts ecology you live in, and developing a strategic plan for yourself. 

You will receive handouts with helpful prompts, reading lists, and regional resources.  

Perfect for graduate students, emerging and established artists, the workshop is the result of Horodner’s decades of experience as a curator, gallery owner, and advisor to professional practice programs around the United States. 

Stuart Horodner is Director of the University of Kentucky Art Museum. 

This workshop is FREE, but you must RSVP to leah@2ndstory.art to reserve your spot (and if you must cancel, let us know ASAP). 10 participants maximum — reserve your spot!

Image: Gillian Wearing, "Everything is connected in life..." from the series, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, 1992-93.

Join us for an exhibition reception to celebrate The Agony and the Ecstasy, showcasing new work by Claire Thompson and Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi.

Both Latonia and Claire will give an informal artist talk, beginning at 6:00 PM. A celebratory reception will follow their talks.

This exhibition is part of Bridge Work Lexington, a professional development program for emerging artists. Bridge Work is a partnership between 2nd Story, the Lexington Art League, and Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective.

Bridge Work Lexington is supported by Project Ricochet (Urban Art Collective).

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About the Artists

Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi is an artist whose creative talent flows through family heritage. Coming from a lineage of artists on her maternal side, she has always seen art as a natural part of her life. Initially focused on honing her drawing skills, Latonia began working with oil paints in 2012, bringing a refined sense of composition and technique from years of prior practice. Recent exhibitions of her work have been presented at the WUKY Gallery and LexArts, with forthcoming shows at the Pam Miller Downtown Art Center and 2nd Story. An active member of Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective, Latonia continues to expand her creative expression and presence within Lexington’s art community and beyond.

Claire Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist from Lexington, KY who works primarily in oil painting and risograph printmaking. She received her BFA from the University of Kentucky in 2023 with her solo exhibition EVERYONE LOVES YOU VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY MUCH at the Bolivar Gallery. Other recent solo and two person exhibitions include EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF AND MORE at the Lexington Art League; Beautifully Grotesk, a book arts exhibition at the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library; and ICON: Queer Worship of Celebrity at Visionaries + Voices in Cincinnati. She has been a part of group exhibitions through Muse Collective, The Faulkner Morgan Archive, Field Projects, Yeiser Art Center, Carbon Copy Gallery, The Print Room (Aberdeen, Scotland), The Carnegie (Cincinnati), and Golding-Yang Gallery. Her work has been written about in Undermain and LVL3, as well as being featured in soft core (edited by Rebecca Orr). She is also the co-owner and co-operator of Lexington-based risograph press, Grotesk Press.

The Agony and the Ecstasy will open to the public on November 15th, with extended hours until 8:00 PM, in conjunction with the LexArts HOP.

Be among the first to see brand new work by Claire Thompson and Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi, the two artists who are participating in Bridge Work, a professional development program for emerging artists. Bridge Work is a partnership between 2nd Story, the Lexington Art League, and Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective.

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About the Artists

Claire Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist from Lexington, KY who works primarily in oil painting and risograph printmaking. She received her BFA from the University of Kentucky in 2023 with her solo exhibition EVERYONE LOVES YOU VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY MUCH at the Bolivar Gallery. Other recent solo and two person exhibitions include EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF AND MORE at the Lexington Art League; Beautifully Grotesk, a book arts exhibition at the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library; and ICON: Queer Worship of Celebrity at Visionaries + Voices in Cincinnati. She has been a part of group exhibitions through Muse Collective, The Faulkner Morgan Archive, Field Projects, Yeiser Art Center, Carbon Copy Gallery, The Print Room (Aberdeen, Scotland), The Carnegie (Cincinnati), and Golding-Yang Gallery. Her work has been written about in Undermain and LVL3, as well as being featured in soft core (edited by Rebecca Orr). She is also the co-owner and co-operator of Lexington-based risograph press, Grotesk Press.

Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi is an artist whose creative talent flows through family heritage. Coming from a lineage of artists on her maternal side, she has always seen art as a natural part of her life. Initially focused on honing her drawing skills, Latonia began working with oil paints in 2012, bringing a refined sense of composition and technique from years of prior practice. Recent exhibitions of her work have been presented at the WUKY Gallery and LexArts, with forthcoming shows at the Pam Miller Downtown Art Center and 2nd Story. An active member of Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective, Latonia continues to expand her creative expression and presence within Lexington’s art community and beyond.

Join artist Tyanna Buie, Associate Professor of Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, for a discussion of her monumental work included in All in the Family. Buie will discuss how she mobilizes her artistic practice to reimagine her own history as a way to define her present and build her future. In her words, "I construct an intersectional identity between self-portraiture, personal narrative, family history, pop-culture, art history, and moments of significance within Black culture."

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A Chicago and Milwaukee native, Buie earned her BA from Western Illinois University and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, she is Associate Professor in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI.  

Buie's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at such venues as the University of Hawaii at Hilo; The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI; The Racine Art Museum, WI; Red Bull House of Art, Detroit, MI; N’NAMDI Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI; Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI; Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; International Print Center, New York; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI; Lawrence University's Wriston Art Center, Appleton, WI; Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, MI; and the Alice Wilds, Milwaukee, WI. 

She has received numerous awards including the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship (2012); Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation (2015); Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant (2015); Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Visual Arts (2019); Grant Wood Fellowship in Printmaking at the University of Iowa (2019/20); Fellowship.art / gener8tor (2020); and Ruth Arts/Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award (2023).

Join us at 2nd Story to hear from Kentucky-based photographer Rachael Banks, who will discuss her work as it deals with trauma and nature as central to her family and upbringing in the mid-South. The talk will explore the overlapping roles between family members and photographic subjects as well as the challenges of documenting family life.

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Rachael Banks is a working artist and Associate Professor of Photography at Northern Kentucky University. Her research interests include folklore, ecology, and epigenetics. Rachael's work addresses trauma and nature as central to relationships and experiences with the individual, the family unit, and its lasting effect on communities. She compulsively photographs deer and black dogs.

Dogs are often considered an integral part of the family — and, if you’re anything like those of us at 2nd Story and UKAM — these furry creatures ARE family. Join Dr. Ellen Furlong for an enlightening discussion about canine cognition and the special relationship that exists between dogs and their humans.

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Dr. Ellen Furlong is an Associate Professor in Psychology at her alma mater, Transylvania University. She studied Mathematics at Transy and subsequently earned her PhD in Psychology from The Ohio State University. Before joining the faculty at Transy, she taught at Illinois Wesleyan University and spent three-years as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University where she studied dogs as well as rhesus monkeys at a research station on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. 

Dr. Furlong teaches courses on dog cognition and behavior and has team-taught travel courses on animal cognition and welfare with her father, a bioethicist. She has won several teaching awards, including, in 2018, the inaugural Most Influential Professor award at IWU.

She directs a research group exploring cognition in dogs and nonhuman primates, and has published papers and presented work at academic conferences on chimpanzee, orangutan, and dog cognition. She recently authored an Audible/Great Courses book entitled Decoding Dogs: Inside the Canine Mind and a textbook on learning entitled Learning and Behavior. Her works have been featured in numerous media outlets including, most recently an ABC Australia documentary, A Dog’s World.

Dr. Furlong is a board member of several organizations including the International Association of Human Animal Interaction Organizations (IAHAIO) and the Primate Rescue Center. She is also a member of the American Psychological Association Council representing Division 6 (The Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology). She also serves as science advisor for Pack Animals, a new startup focused on improving human and canine lifelong well-being.

Join Stuart Horodner and Leah Kolb, co-curators of All in the Family, for a discussion about this two-venue exhibition and how it all came together.

2nd Story will be open until 8:00, in conjunction with the Art HOP. Horondner and Kolb will be on site all evening to chat and answer any questions. Their canine son, Paco, will be in attendance, as well! Stop by!

Enjoy the public viewing of the University of Kentucky Art Museum’s sister exhibition of All in the Family.

Many of the works featured at UKAM are part of the Museum’s permanent collection, with additional art borrowed from studios, galleries, and collections. They include Edgar Tolson’s carved wooden sculpture of Adam and Eve; Elinor Carucci, Gaela Erwin, Tommy Kha, Rolf Koppel, Guy Mendes, and Marilyn Minter’s portraits of their mothers; images of their own or other’s families by Rockwell Kent, Russell Lee, and Baldwin Lee (no relation); Robert Morgan’s cabinet filled with commemorative plates, cups, and books that chronicle men he has cared for through addiction and legal woes; and Aaron Skolnick’s tender portraits of himself and his husband Louis Zoellar Bickett during the final month of Bickett’s life, among others. James Baker Hall, Barbara Pollack, and Chris Verene each offer mediations on the “family album” in photographs, books, and video.

The two-venue exhibition will be on view both at the University of Kentucky Museum and 2nd Story.

In conjunction with the LexArts HOP and Israel Campos’s exhibition Cleansing of the Sentinels, 2nd Story is screening Sylvia Morales’ experimental film CHICANA. The film traces the history of Chicana and Mexican women from pre-Columbian times to the present. It covers women's role in Aztec society, their participation in the 1810 struggle for Mexican independence, their involvement in the US labor strikes in 1872, their contributions to the 1910 Mexican revolution and their leadership in contemporary civil rights causes. Using murals, engravings and historical footage, CHICANA shows how women, despite their poverty, have become an active and vocal part of the political and work life in both Mexico and the United States.

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Sylvia Morales has directed, written, produced and edited award winning and nationally recognized film and video work for the last 30 years. She directed episodes from the three seasons of Showtimes' groundbreaking series, Resurrection Blvd, working with actors Elizabeth Pena, Lou Gossett, Jr., Michael De Lorenzo and Esai Morales. She also wrote and directed for the Showtime series, Women: Stories of Passion. Morales was one of the producing and writing teams for the award winning series, Chicano! The Mexican Civil Rights Movement for PBS. She directed for the ACE and Emmy nominated six-hour series, A Century of Women, which focused on 20th century U.S. women for Turner Broadcasting, Ms. Morales headed the Latino Consortium at KCET in Los Angeles from 1981-1985. She was responsible for the programming, production and distribution of programs that aired on PBS. During her four-year tenure at KCET, Ms. Morales hosted the Latino Consortium's weekly national series, Presente, and produced and directed Emmy nominated and award winning programs. Ms. Morales produced, directed, shot and edited the widely recognized film, CHICANA, in 1979. Ms. Morales has been the recipient of the following awards: the prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship Award in Media; a participant in the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women; a Fellow from the National Endowment of the Arts; the VESTA Award which honors the outstanding contribution of Southern California women to the arts; and she was honored with a Salute to Latinas Award for distinguished work in her field from the city of Los Angeles. She was also honored by Comision Femenil Mexicana Nacional's 20th Anniversary celebration for "Latinas in Film and Television.

2nd Story is happy to host Contour Book Store on Saturday, April 27.

Stop by, say hello, and buy some great art books!

Contour Book Store specializes in thoughtfully curated gently used art and photography books. Selections include special and limited editions, vintage volumes, artist-signed copies, and out-of-print books, all available for sale below current market value. New additions are added regularly, offering a unique range of artists, themes, and price points for both casual viewers and ardent collectors.  You can catch them at local pop-up events, peruse and purchase items via their Instagram shop-- @contourbookstore--or contact them for inquiries. The Lexington-based shop is owned and operated by artist/photographer, Elijah Howe, independent curator/art historian, Samantha Simpson, and the Contour shop cat, Severus. 

2nd Story is excited to partner with Outside The Spotlight and WRFL to present a fearless improvisational performance. NYC composer and saxophonist Michael Foster is joined by his chimaeric ensemble the Ghost, which "focuses on unpacking and celebrating the free jazz tradition from a queer perspective."

Friday, April 26

Doors open | 6:30 pm

Show starts | 7:00 pm

Admission = FREE, suggested donation $5-$10

All ages welcome!

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Artist Bio

Michael Foster is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist working in the fields of free improvisation, noise, free jazz, graphic & video notation, performance art, and other forms of weird music.

Foster utilizes extensive instrumental preparations, augmenting his saxophone with amplification, objects, balloons, drum heads, vibrators, tapes, and samples as a method of subverting and queering the instrument’s history and traditional roles.

In addition to his work as a performer he is also active as a curator throughout New York City, co-founding "Queer Trash," a curatorial collective focusing on providing visibility to LGBTQIA+ performers engaged in experimental performance practices. In 2018, "Queer Trash" was the Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow for Issue Project Room, producing a year's worth of performances that ranged from harsh noise to fashion.

His current ensembles include duos with cellist Leila Bordreuil, percussionist Ben Bennett, poet/vocalist Lydia Lunch, Richard Kamerman (as The New York Review of Cocksucking), Ted Byrnes, Dane Rousay, The Ghost (with Zach Rowden & Derek Baron), Barker Trio (with Tim Dahl, & Andrew Barker), While We Still Have Bodies (with Sean Ali, Ben Gerstein, & Flin van Hemmen), Weasel Walter Large Ensemble, and many others. In addition to these longstanding projects he often collaborates with Sarah Hennies, Marina Rosenfeld, Weasel Walter, Han Bennink, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Luke Stewart, Brandon Lopez, Dave Rempis, Katherine Young, Michael Zerang, James Ilgenfritz, Pascal Niggenkemper, Mette Rasmussen, and many others. 

Selected notable venues he's performed at include, MoMA PS1 (NYC), Bowling Green State University New Music Festival (Ohio), The Stone (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC), Roulette (NYC), BimHuis (NL), Jazzfestival Groningen (NL), Fabrica Braço de Prata (PT), Death By Audio (NYC), Studio Loos (NL), Betalevel (Los Angeles), Webster Hall (NYC), XI20 (LT), Jazzclub Erfurt (DE), and many more.

Learn the ancient craft of cutting amate figurines from exhibiting artist Israel Campos. For centuries, Amate figurines have been used by indigenous people in Central Mexico for cleansings, spells, cures, witchcraft and other rituals. The workshop will focus on cutting human/plant hybrids which are traditionally rain offerings. Attendees will have the opportunity to create their own hybrid figure using their favorite plant as inspiration.

Snacks and coffee provided!

Join us for this special program about the history of roadside Americana led by Casey Goldman-Davis, Curator of Collections & Programming at the American Sign Museum (ASM). Goldman-Davis will discuss the iconography and context of some of America’s most recognizable roadside signs, and facilitate a Q&A conversation on 2nd Story’s current exhibition, Homestyle, with featured artist Hannah Smith.

About Casey Goldman-Davis:

Casey Goldman-Davis is a museum professional who specializes in American art and history. At the American Sign Museum, she steers the care and exhibition methods of the Museum’s collections and contributes to educational and interpretive programs. She received both her Masters and undergraduate degrees from the Corcoran College of Art in D.C, and currently resides in Cincinnati, OH with her husband and two Himalayan cats.

Join us at 2nd Story to hear writer Adam Theron-Lee Rensch discuss his book No Home for You Here: A Memoir of Class and Culture. Published by Reaktion Books, his memoir examines the meaning of class in the context of America’s current postindustrial, hypercapitalist reality. Distinguishing issues of class from those of culture, he argues for the importance of foregrounding shared economic conditions over individual beliefs in order to shape a more equitable future.  

This talk takes place in conjunction with Hannah Smith’s solo exhibition, Homestyle, which explores, through her sculptural collages, the failure of the American Dream for a large sector of the working population for whom social mobility remains elusive.

About Adam Theron-Lee Rensch:

Adam Theron-Lee Rensch is the author of No Home For You Here: A Memoir of Class and Culture. He writes frequently for The Brooklyn Rail on class politics and inequality. His current book project traces the historical relationship between university creative writing programs and the decline of working-class literature. He received his PhD in English from The University of Illinois at Chicago in 2022.

Join us for an evening of visual overload!

Hannah Smith presents a series of experimental, animated shorts in conjunction with LexArts’ Art HOP.

One night only!