miki baird

Miki Baird has pursued her career in the arts in Kansas City since graduating with a BFA in sculpture and an MFA in art from the University of Kansas.  She is the recipient of numerous grant awards and commissions including a 2012 Studios Inc residency award through the Brad and Linda Nicholson Foundation.  She has also received an Arts KCFund Inspiration Grant, a Missouri Bank Artboards Commission in conjunction with Art Through Architecture/Kansas City and the Charlotte Street Foundation and was an AiA Kansas City/Art Through Architecture commission finalist in 2010.  Her work was seen on the sidewalks of downtown Kansas City after receiving an Avenue of the Arts Municipal Commission and Grant and she participated in residencies with Vehicle Tow Services of Kansas City under the auspices of the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services as well as community outreach in collaboration with the Salina Art Center.  Miki held academic positions from 2000-2007 at the Kansas City Art Institute in the Departments of Sculpture and Interdisciplinary Arts, and in 2004 she participated as artist/instructor with the MFA Program of Vermont College.  Exhibitions include Eric Fischl’s America: Now and Here, Familiar: Portraits of Proximity at the Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art’s Epsten Gallery and the Flatfile Collection of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. 

Miki's doll is titled "held…..between earth and sky". This is what Miki has to say about the piece:   

"This little banana doll is covered from head to toe with earthscape and skyscape photos.  The images are selected from my collection of real life atmospheric and terra firma backdrops.  The photos are taken in varying locations and weather conditions, during changing times of day and throughout the seasons of the year.  Many are photographed in and around Kansas City but others are snapped on road trips throughout the Midwest.  They are the extracted hues and shades of the sky and the earth that make their way into my cache of diminutive visual tastes of environment.  I think of them as incremental dabs and dribbles and blurbs from our surroundings that are not always detectable in a broad range of viewing and rely heavily on my camera to help me find each of them.  Every discovery is a collaborative venture between the lens and myself.  I usually work with the photos in groups associated with their origin of locale but for the collaboration with the children of St. Mary Kevin Orphanage I decided to make selections from multiple groupings.  The compilation is intended to portray the color and texture of the many wonderful volunteers who have developed lasting relationships with the children served by Change The Truth."