Artist in Kansas City Collection has local tie

It might be safe to say that Brian Zimmerman, a Kansas City-based artist, and Amy Hubbard, a makeup artist originally from Leavenworth, have a great working relationship.

The two are married, but Zimmerman said the two often share ideas for art with each other.

Now Zimmerman, a 29-year-old sculptor and fabricator, is part of the Kansas City Collection, a gallery made up of works from area artists that will rotate to different office buildings in Kansas City.

He said the pieces that he submitted to the collection have that influence from Hubbard on them.

“She’s a huge collaborator,” he said. “She helps me take my ideas and make them much, much better.”

The two met at the Kansas City Art Institute, where they were both undergraduate students. Through the years, Zimmerman said he has sought advice on many of the pieces he has made.

Put quite simply, “it would not be as good without her,” he said.

In one instance Hubbard, a photography student before switching her focus to design at KCAI, said she suggested that Zimmerman use a professional photographer for prints of his past sculptural work.

She’s made her mark on Kansas City in her own right, designing wigs and makeup for stage productions at the Starlight Theater and the Metropolitan Opera in Kansas City and for a Hallmark Cards advertising campaign.

Hubbard said she learned of her own love of art growing up in Leavenworth.

“I think I just of go to a different place,” she said of how she felt when she took art classes in high school.

Zimmerman said his experience was similar growing up in Dallas before moving to Kansas City for school. But since then he has had work in group and solo shows and was commissioned to make a piece for the Avenue of the Arts project in Kansas City.

The Kansas City Collection is a bit different than most of those past experiences, he said, with approximately 100 works from 15 artists. Funded by the Collectors Fund and curated by a group of six prominent art critics and writers, the collection opened at the end of June and by the time the schedule is complete in December 2011, the artists’ work will have been in 11 different partner offices, having rotated every six months.

“Together we were able to fund a museum-quality catalogue, attract world-class curators and create a large-scale, rotating art program that is the first of its kind,” said Collectors Fund Chairman Alexander “Sandy” Kemper of the partnership.
For Zimmerman, whose focus has been public sculptural art, the opportunity means a whole new audience for his art.

“You’re getting people who maybe wouldn’t normally go to an art gallery or a museum,” he said.

However, his inclusion in the KC Collection was completely unexpected. Zimmerman said he received an e-mail informing him that he was on the list of 65 artists being asked to participate, having never up to that point heard of the project.

“He almost passed it up,” Hubbard said.

That’s because both of them at the time were getting ready to move to California in order for Zimmerman to pursue a graduate degree in art at the University of California, San Diego.

But Zimmerman said he did ultimately decide to contribute four pieces to the collection. Two of them are made from flip clock motors that over time spell out words one letter at a time. One says “Breathe,” the other “Patience.”

The other two pieces are photographic prints of installations Zimmerman said he made at locations in Kansas City. One is a landscape in Loose Park in Kansas City. In the midst of a pastoral outdoor scene is the word “Honestly,” in bold white letters. That piece, he said, was inspired by the couple’s experience in learning to better communicate.

The other is a more overgrown outdoor scene in south Kansas City and in the middle another less stable arrangements of yellowed letters that say “Not Yet.”
All of the pieces, in addition to his other artwork, are kind of “emotional illustrations,” Zimmerman said and draw upon important experiences in his life.

“I guess a good example is Amy and I meeting,” he said.