"Mayfield/Forst - Paintings and Ceramics"
"Water Platter" by Bill Forst, Ceramic, 2017
In 1982, Ginger Mayfield started making, selling, and showing her paintings. She likes to work with water-based paints, oil, and glazes. Her latest kick is using watercolor and wax resist on paper and fabric. The process of making drawings and mixing color is one of her favorite ways to spend time. Ginger loves the escape and the opportunity to create her own reality. Her work is derived from specific images that interest her that she translates into a very “fictional” setting. Ginger rarely lets the truth stand in the way of a good color. She uses sketches from at least 40 years of observation and reinvents them with different materials. The same sketch can be done in crayon, watercolor, oil paint, acrylic, and glaze on clay. Her sketchbooks are the backbone of her paintings. She says, “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.”
“Mountain Road” by Ginger Mayfield, Wax Resist and Watercolor, 2018
Bill Forst is Ginger’s husband and fellow artist. He describes 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. Bill is more of an optical artist. For example, he’ll grow morning glories and make such realistic ink drawings you almost see the fluids pulsating through their veins. Looking at art is a way to get inside the artist's brain and see the world through their eyes.
Bill Forst attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, majoring in Ceramics. He graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He moved to Kansas in 1986 to attend Wichita State University, receiving the Clayton Staples Full Tuition Scholarship. Successfully completing his technical and teaching assistantships, he graduated in 1988 with a Master of Fine Arts, majoring in Ceramics.
Bill has been teaching art since 1988. He has taught at Hutchinson Community College, Sterling College, and Barton County Community College. From 1994–1999, he was the Art Department Chairman at Sterling College. Starting as an adjunct faculty member, he moved through the academic ranks of Assistant Professor of Art and became an Associate Professor of Art during his tenure at Sterling College. In 1997, he received the William McCreery Teacher of the Year award from Sterling College. In 1999, he became an Art Instructor at Barton County Community College, teaching ceramics, design, and art history. He was the Director of the L.E. “Gus” and Eva Shafer Memorial Art Gallery from 1999 - 2007.
Bill has served a three-year term on the Exhibits USA Advisory Council during that time period, and in October 2004 he completed the Certificate of Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts from the University of California, Irvine, awarded June of 2007. Completing the eCollege, eCertification course, EDU101A, “Developing Online Courses” during 2008, he developed a successful Bartonline.org Art Appreciation course. Bill is a past recipient of the NISOD Excellence Award. The NISOD Excellence Awards were established in 1991 to provide NISOD-member colleges with an opportunity to recognize individuals doing extraordinary work on their campuses. Bill is currently active as a tenured Art Instructor at Barton Community College and instructs hybrid, face-to-face and online courses. His full time teaching load includes all beginning through advanced levels of Ceramics, Art History, Design and Art Appreciation. His service to Barton Community College includes being the Faculty Advisor to the art club called the St. Justa Pottery Guild. He represented Barton Community College at the 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 and he serves on the Vortex Day Committee which recruits high school students every spring. See the Vortex Day Videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URl-UXoIMUY And at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBEfvh_nI2g