Southwestern Community College (SWCC) art student Kate Sutton of Afton has been selected as the first-ever resident in Creston Arts’ Artist in Residence Program.
As part of her summer residency, running May through August 2023, Sutton will be provided with an apartment, as well as a studio space and materials stipend.
Sutton’s studio will be at the Creston Arts Center on Adams Street. She will also spend time at Create Creston on Maple Street.
According to Sutton, a residency is a space provided for an artist to get rid of all distractions and have time and space to focus on nothing but his or her work. As part of Sutton’s residency, the only requirement she will have is to provide two workshops per month.
Originally from Afton, and a student at East Union schools, Sutton and her family moved to Manning the summer before her senior year due to her father’s employment. She graduated from IKM High School in May 2020, took a gap year following graduation, and then decided to come back to the Creston area and attend college at SWCC. She took her first college art class the second semester she attended SWCC and it wasn’t until last September she decided to go into art.
“My mom is an artist and my dad has always been creative too,” Sutton explained.
Therefore, it was very natural for Sutton to pursue art.
Sutton, who will earn her Associate of Arts degree from SWCC in May 2023, has been accepted into the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, on scholarship beginning the fall 2023 semester. She will study ceramics. She has developed a love of ceramics during her time at SWCC, and while learning from and working with Kelly Devitt, SWCC art instructor.
“Art at East Union was so small, we didn’t have a ceramics class,” said Sutton. “Kelly is a ceramicist, so I didn’t learn that technical aspects of ceramics until I started taking classes from her.”
Sutton very much values the relationship she and Devitt have developed during her time at SWCC.
“Kelly is young, fresh out of grad school, and so she’s really active in her work, which is refreshing because I’ve always had art teachers who have been teaching for years,” stated Sutton. “It has provided me with a collaborator relationship, instead of teacher-student relationship only. She knows a lot and is always able to answer my questions and offer me advice. It is easy to have creative freedom with her as a teacher.”
Sutton will graduate from SWCC this Friday, May 12. Her residency adventures with Creston Arts will begin mid-May.
“Keep a lookout, because I will have a gallery show at the end of my residency,” Sutton said. “And come to my workshops this summer!”
