February 23, 2018
Story by Micah Oelze
Courtesy Photos Submitted
Barton Ceramics Instructor Bill Forst and his wife Ginger Mayfield will be exhibiting their artwork at the recently renovated Hutchinson Art Center until March 11. The exhibit is free to experience Tuesday-Sunday.
Forst and Mayfield jumped at the chance to display their work after being invited.
“We hadn’t had a major show of our work for a couple of years,” he said. “We snapped at the opportunity.”
Forst’s main body of work on display is a series of high relief sculptures called “Fire on the Horizon”. Forst explored different ideas of literal and figurative fires. His pieces are companied by four of his water color paintings.
In addition, he has six works of art for sale from a collaboration with students from Barton’s Vortex Day in 2016 and 2017. Vortex Day is designed to stimulate and enhance students’ interest and excitement in the Fine Arts and offers participants the opportunity to meet and visit with each other and to learn by partaking in the day’s planned activities dedicated to the visual arts. All proceeds of the sales from those six auctions will be donated to the Barton Community College Foundation for use by the art department.
Forst attended the Cleveland Institute of Art where he majored in Ceramics. He graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, then he moved to Kansas to attend Wichita State University (WSU), having received the Clayton Staples Full Tuition Scholarship for his ceramic work. He graduated in 1988 with a Master of Fine Arts, in Ceramics. While at WSU, Forst met his wife Ginger Mayfield, a fellow artist.
After graduating, Forst immediately started his teaching career. He taught at Hutchinson Community College, Sterling College and now is a tenured Art Instructor at Barton Community College. Forst teaches ceramics, design and art history. His service to Barton includes being the Faculty Advisor to the art club called the St. Justa Pottery Guild. Forst has also represented Barton at state-wide meetings to establish core competency standards which would allow general elective courses, such as Art Appreciation and Art History Survey, to transfer seamlessly from an accredited community college in Kansas to an accredited four-year college in Kansas.
Mayfield is a painter and was also an art educator having taught high school for more than 40 years. Recently she retired from teaching but continues to create works of art from her studio. She likes to work with water-based paints, oil and glazes. The process of making drawings and mixing color is one of her favorite ways to spend time. Her work is derived from specific images which she brings into “fictional” settings.
Mayfield reinvents sketches from at least 40 years of observation using different materials. A sketch could be translated into crayon, watercolor, oil paint, acrylic and glaze on clay. Her sketchbooks are the cornerstone of her work.
“It’s like getting to re-elect a private memory in a multitude of different settings, or like hearing a favorite song sung in a new voice with different instruments,” she said.
Forst described their work as conceptual verses optical.
“Ginger's work is more conceptual in that she likes making up drawings with images you can recognize but won’t find in a photograph. I am more of an optical artist,” he said. “For example, I’ll grow morning glories and make such realistic ink drawings you almost see the fluids pulsating through their veins.”