Star Magazine’s 2008 Emerging Artists

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“You can see it in videos of me then. I looked like Quasimodo.”

The reaction was treated successfully, finally, by an herbalist who prescribed a Tibetan herb. Behzod still takes it daily.

He remains a faithful Muslim, praying twice a day and practicing around the clock in the piano studios beneath Park’s Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel.

“Now I’m 17, and it’s time to work.”

His goal is “to show what a composer wanted to say through his music.”

He came to Ioudenitch after a lesson he took with him in Lake Cuomo, Italy. “He found so many interesting things just in the first page,” he says.

Ioudenitch wanted him as a student the minute he heard him play.

“There are millions of performers, good performers with wonderful technique, but not every one communicates this energy,” Ioudenitch says. “Besides his great technique, he really communicates. He has his own ‘face.’ ”

Behzod’s hobbies include Internet video games. He can’t wait for “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which takes place in the city he hopes to live in some day: New York.

“You feel like you’re free in the city to do anything you want,” he says of the game’s therapeutic value.

And 10 years from now?

“I hope I can be a pianist. Not just any pianist. A pianist people need, who can give people something incredible — who can make people happy.”

LOOKING EVERYWHERE FOR ART

BY ALICE THORSON

Anne Austin Pearce has built a solid reputation in the Kansas City art world — and a national exhibition record — for her psychologically probing figurative works and more recent abstractions.

“Pearce seems to understand the intimacies of behavior and how they play out and can be emotionally and psychically mapped,” says Pitch art critic Dana Self, who saw Pearce’s “Rhetorical Black Holes” series in the Urban Culture Project’s February-March “Mapping” show at La Esquina.

Last year Pearce exhibited the series at an international listening conference in Germany. Her more recent works include a compelling set of tiny ink and acrylic stain paintings called “Squirrel Spirits,” inspired by the dead squirrels ubiquitous on local roadways.

In addition to her accomplishments as an artist, Pearce has also made her mark as a thoughtful curator.

As director of the Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University since 2004, Pearce (shown there with a landscape by Topeka native Lee Bowers) has racked up a long list of strong shows, including a provocative exhibit of history paintings by Lawrence-based American Indian artist Wayne Wildcat in fall 2006.

Her 2007 “Beasts” show of animal-inspired works by Kansas City artists provided an early look at the growing trend of animal imagery in contemporary art.

“I’m looking for art wherever I go,” Pearce says. “I love getting to know the artists and what’s underneath.”

Pearce got to know KC artist Marcus Cain in 2004. Enthused about his work, she gave him a one-person exhibit at Greenlease in 2006. Last summer the two collaborated on works they exhibited at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom.

“She’s open to whatever possibilities may exist in a situation,” Cain says. “She’s a collaborator, whether she’s curating or exhibiting. She’s very inclusive and very generous in that way.

“She’s very resourceful and has fostered a lot of networking,” he says. “I don’t think people realize how much she’s been involved with over the years.”

At the Greenlease, Pearce is fond of pairing Kansas City talents with out-of-town artists. In 2006 she organized a two-person show of KC artist Susan White and Los Angeles artist Leigh Salgado. Both use burning tools to create their work.

One of the most important exhibits Pearce organized was a Mott-ly retrospective, mounted shortly before the popular local artist’s death at age 44 in 2007. She also produced a detailed catalog for the show, which serves as a lasting record of his life and work.

In addition to her curatorial responsibilities, Pearce also teaches two studio classes at Rockhurst. With all those claims on her time, she still manages to grow and develop as an artist.

This year she’s exhibiting work in a half-dozen shows, including the Drawing Center Viewing Program in New York City and a “KC in LA” group show at the Milo Gallery in Los Angeles.

SOMETHING'S AWFUL FUNNY

BY DAN LYBARGER

Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka and his Web site, somethingawful.com, are all about guilt-inducing delights.

For example, in a recent “PhotoShop Phriday” entry, users can see a series of altered photos of a formerly innocent science fair that now includes a display on how to dispose of dead bodies. Needless to say, don’t visit the page at work.

Still, mere tastelessness doesn’t cut it with Kyanka, who lives in Lee’s Summit.

“The whole thing I base all my decisions on is if it makes me laugh,” he says. “And so I only hire writers if they make me laugh, or I’ll only use your feature if I think it’s funny.”

Kyanka, 31, had originally started Something Awful as a personal site while he was working for gaming company GameSpy. But the site now includes thousands of amusing contributions from people who proudly dub themselves “goons,” providing Kyanka with his primary source of income.

A longtime cult favorite, Something Awful has at least 100,000 registered users in its forum and has inspired several similarly demented sites.

Kyanka says Something Awful survived and prospered after the Internet bubble-burst of 2000 because he had something other than money in mind when he founded it in 1999.

“All the stuff that died were people who were using the Internet just to make money. And when you have a bunch of people who see an opportunity to make money, and they all flock to it, it’s like the mortgage subprime industry. It just falls out. My mistake-slash-blessing was to start a business I never intended to be a business.”

The site includes short comic videos, Kyanka’s scathing reviews of energy drinks and transcripts of bizarre pranks.

“Originally our tagline wasn’t ‘The Internet makes you stupid.’ Before that, it was a tossup between ‘The Internet makes you stupid’ and ‘If you read it on the Internet, it must be true.’ ”

Attending Rockhurst High School had an impact on what he does.

“Jesuits will make you crazy,” he says. “Catholics in general make you crazy. I’ve always had that general sense of humor.”

Kyanka took his nickname from Tennessee politician Byron (Low Tax) Looper, who was convicted of murdering a rival in 1989. Kyanka, who was attending Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University at the time, almost became an intern for him.

The webmaster has endured his share of controversy. He attracted the ire of the Foreskin Restoration and Intactivist Network, who didn’t appreciate being lampooned on the site.

“I’m actually hoping those people take me to court, because I want to see ‘Richard Kyanka vs. Foreskin Restoration Society.’ ”

THE NONSTOP WRITER

BY JOHN MARK EBERHART

There are times Angela Cervantes would rather write than eat.

“Right now I am attached to a short story I am writing that could become a full-length novel,” Cervantes says. “It’s weird, but when I leave for work, I actually miss it. I am sitting there thinking about the characters and can’t wait to get back to them at the end of the day. I get resentful when grocery shopping, phone calls or having to eat gets in the way of finishing a line or chapter.”

Now that’s a writer.

Cervantes’ dedication has started to pay off. One of her short stories, “What’s up with dads and pork chop sandwiches?,” was featured in the 2005 anthology Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul. Her work has seen print in Kansas City Voices, Urban Latino and in the pages of this very magazine (“Abuela’s Revenge” in 2004). She has won honors from several literary organizations including the Missouri Review.

But she has yet to publish a full-length short-story collection or novel. She turned 37 earlier this month — and she’s not worried one bit that she hasn’t yet emerged as a widely known author. If it happens someday, of course it would be great. But Cervantes knows how difficult it is to get a book published these days.

“My goal for myself is just to keep writing for the pure love of it. I hope to send off a proposal for this novel this year and we’ll see what happens.”

“The pure love of it” describes half her feelings toward writing; it’s a love/hate relationship if ever there was one. Cervantes confesses she’s not always the kindest Latina soul when she’s in the middle of a project.

“I am a happy person in general. I love meeting new people and I love art and creating, so I am not easily depressed — but interrupt me while I am writing and you will find a different person. My self-esteem is at its lowest when I am writing. When dialogue is coming out right, it’s the best feeling and I am all at once in love, but mostly it is an agonizing experience for me. I have to lock the door to spare my husband from the Jekyll-and-Hyde madness that plays out while I am writing.”

Her husband, Carlos Antequera, runs a Kansas City software company and seems like the kind of man who would be very patient with his creative wife.

It also doesn’t hurt that he and Cervantes are newlyweds; the couple married last September.

As for Cervantes, she works for Children International, the child sponsorship organization headquartered here.

In short, life is pretty good these days — even when Cervantes is fuming over a tricky piece of dialogue or a phone call or some other interruption. Difficult as writing can be, she’s addicted to it. The plan is to never, ever stop.

“Even if I’m never published again.”

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Trussell is The Star’s theater critic. Finn is The Star’s pop music writer. Butler is The Star’s movie editor. Horsley is The Star’s classical music and dance critic. Thorson is The Star’s art critic. Lybarger is a free