Courtesy of the St. Louis Artists' Guild
St. Louis art fans will have a chance to brush up on their local history at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild this fall.
Kim Wardenberg, a 2010 graduate of Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, will be displaying her work in an exhibition called “White Cloud Lament.” The exhibit features a series of prints exploring the rise and fall of the steamboat era.
“This work is kind of looking at the steamboat era in the history of St. Louis,” Wardenburg says. “The show is playing with all these historical references, but the work itself is pretty abstract.”
According to Wardenburg, the city placed so much confidence in the steamboat that it never embraced the budding railroad industry. Once a hub of commerce thanks to its prime location on the Mississippi River, St. Louis eventually lost control of trade in the U.S. interior to Chicago. The name of Wardenburg’s exhibit refers to an infamous steamboat called White Cloud that caught fire in 1849 and destroyed 20 blocks of the city.
“I’m particularly interested in how it has gone from a city with immense pride to a city that’s kind of self-deprecating,” she says. “Our pride was really rooted in this one thing with the Mississippi River and the steamboat trade, and that also was the thing that brought us down.”
As artist-in-residence at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, Wardenburg has been working full-time on a variety of projects exploring the history and identity of her adopted city. The series of prints in “White Cloud Lament” is the precursor to her next project, which will include hanging banners throughout the city with positive declarations about St. Louis.
“As someone who didn’t grow up here, my perspective is one that has come from the past five or six years of living here,” she says. “As a printmaker, I felt it was my duty to print something good about the city.”
Originally from Columbia, MO, Wardenburg graduated from Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts in 2010 with a BFA in drawing/printmaking. Her work has been displayed at the Luminary Center for the Arts and Craft Alliance in St. Louis, the Pyramid Art Center in Maryland, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit.
Since college, Wardenburg has found an unexpectedly vibrant artistic community here in St. Louis.
“That’s definitely why I wanted to stay, particularly for printmaking,” she says. “To go down on Cherokee and see so many printmaking shops in one area, that’s really uncommon. It’s such a tight-knit community.”
Wardenburg organized a printmaking exchange with 18 other artists. She is also currently curating a show in her hometown of Columbia.
With “White Cloud Lament” going on display, Wardenburg hopes to illuminate a piece of St. Louis’ history.
“One thing that’s good to know is that it’s one segment of a larger body of work,” she says. “It doesn’t cover all of St. Louis history. It needs to be understood within a larger context.”
Next up, Wardenburg will concentrate on completing her pro-St. Louis banners. Eventually, she plans to attend graduate school and volunteer teach in Israel, where she spent a semester of college.
“Long-term, my plan is just to sustain my practice as an artist,” she says. “I’ll keep making work and have that be an integral part of my life.”
“White Cloud Lament” will be on display at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild (2 Oak Knoll Park) in Clayton August 24-October 21 during gallery hours, 12-4 p.m. Wardenburg will be giving a gallery talk on October 16 at 7 p.m. For more information, visit stlouisartistsguild.org.
