Belger Arts and Kansas City Museum collaboration chandelier shines light on glassblowers

Photo by Kaylynn Mullins

Kansas City’s art scene seems to flourish with rich music, theatre, and galleries, ensuring there’s something for every creative to enjoy. Despite the abundance of these forms of art, the glassblowing scene seems minuscule. Belger Arts collaborated on a chandelier with The Kansas City Museum to shed light on local gaffers and the glassblowing community. The artwork now hangs in the first-floor hall of the museum, showcasing the small, but tight-knit glassblowing clique of KC.

 The leading man on the project Tyler Kimball assembled a crew of nine gaffers from across the country to construct a chandelier in a mere week. One glassworker from Columbus, OH, Yana Artemov was called upon for the quick turnover.

“Something of this scale doesn’t normally happen this fast. It was a big grind but it was really fun,” Artemov says.

The glassblowers—most having never met before this project—worked together almost in an assembly line fashion to create this piece. “No matter how much you are skilled, if you don’t have assistance, you cannot use your skills,” Hoseok Youn, one of the lead gaffers, says. “The glass community, it’s small, but it’s out there, also very sharing and very respectful. They have a high degree of integrity working with one another.” 

The group’s giving nature was highlighted when they found time to make everyone who supported the project a beautiful glass chalice before the unveiling. The Kansas City Museum and Belger Arts’ ambition behind this project was to create a community for glassblowers in KC.

“I knew that when I came here, I was going to leave with eight new good friends. You couldn’t have done this without a whole group,” says Jackie Polofka, who came to KC from Ohio for her second project with Belger Arts. 

Belger Arts began when Evelyn Craft Belger married her husband and moved to Kansas City. Inspiration struck after noticing several empty warehouses from her husband’s family company. With a background in the arts, she conceived the idea of utilizing these spaces for local artists. When Kimball began working with Belger Arts, he requested a space for glassblowing in KC. 

“We want to get some attention in the greater community. It’s a fun thing to do, it’s a great thing to learn,” Belger  says. “It’s so nice to be able to do something that is our mission: education, and connected with the Kansas City’s museums, which are so similar and so important to who we are as a city and as a community.”

The Kansas City Museum—built in 1910—became a museum 30 years after its construction. After the passing of the original owners, the daughters had to auction off many of the belongings. Paul Guitierrez—director of the visitor experience and public programs at the museum—speaks of how perfectly this collaboration between the two organizations fits. “If you look at the museum, we don’t have most of the original fixtures or furnishings. So that gives us opportunities to partner with local artists or groups to create something contemporary that responds to the space,” Guitierrez says.

The renovation of the historic building incorporates Kansas City’s past and future by blending antique and contemporary design. The chandelier encapsulates this idea of acknowledging history and celebrating KC’s progress through the years. The piece hangs on the first floor where attendees can view it for free with general admission.