Belger Arts director Evelyn Belger: KC is ‘a mecca’ for ceramic arts

Evelyn Craft Belger is president and CEO of Belger Cartage Service of Kansas City and director of Belger Arts Center. She and her husband, Dick, were recipients of a regional award of excellence from the National Council for Education of the Ceramic Arts at its 50th anniversary conference, held in Kansas City this month.

Other honorees were Victor Babu, excellence in teaching; Linda Lighton, outstanding achievement; Bill Bracker and Anne W. Bracker, regional award of excellence.

Belger was born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., and had a career in banking before becoming active in the arts in St. Petersburg, Fla., where she was director of the Morean Arts Center.

She met her husband while putting together a multi-museum exhibition of Robert Stackhouse’s work. (The Belger Foundation owns more than 100 of his works.)

After the couple married in 2009, Belger moved to Kansas City and expanded the company’s existing gallery by adding studio space and resident artist programs and absorbing Red Star Studios into Belger Crane Yard Studios, where this conversation took place. Visit the websites of the two locations for information on the 10 ceramics shows Belger mounted in support of NCECA; most continue through May 21.

Q: After living in Memphis and St. Petersburg, how do you like calling Kansas City home?

A: I love it.

Q: Why?

A: There is so much creativity here. There’s depth to the arts scene, whether it’s dance or theater or symphony or visual arts. We have some of the most major institutions in the country here, with the Nelson-Atkins (Museum of Art), the Kauffman Center (for the Performing Arts), Kansas City Ballet — it’s extraordinary.

Q: Were you interested in art when you were a little kid?

A: I was. There is a potter in Memphis named Agnes Stark, who is a friend of my mother’s, and as a young girl of maybe 8, I got to go to her studio and I saw how an object as simple as a cup could be a work of art.

I took art lessons and ballet lessons and all the expected things. I started out as an art major in college but got the business bug and switched over to that, but eventually I came back to my love.

Q: What would you say is your legacy at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg?

A: My history is facilitating growth. We took a tiny little arts center and with a lot of community support we connected seven buildings, developed a block and grew programming.

Q: Tell us about Belger Crane Yard Studios.

A: This had been warehouse space for Belger Cartage Service, and it was no longer efficient and not being used for much of anything. Lawrence Lithography Workshop and Gallery had been built out on the second floor.

I wanted to bring a hands-on component to what we were doing with the gallery, so I brought up some artists and community people from Florida that had helped me with expansion there, which included a clay facility.

And Kansas City has such a rich tradition of ceramics — it’s a mecca because of the Kansas City Art Institute. So ceramics seemed to be the next logical place to go in building a studio program.

And this location was good for an atmospheric kiln — you can have a kiln outside and there are no neighbors to bother.

Q: That would be a practical consideration.

A: (Laughing) I had that experience, of bothering neighbors in Florida.

Q: What particularly do you love about ceramics?

A: Ceramic artists are using their hands, and people don’t do things with their hands so much anymore. They are playing with mud, and whether they’re making something that people eat from or a sculpture, they are communicating on a very basic level and in a centered way.

Q: Besides your art activities, you run Belger Cartage now that Dick stepped down from that role last year. How’s that going?

A: I learned the company from the financial side first, working up to CFO. Dick is still able to give advice — and does (laughs). And that’s very helpful, but I’ve got to make my own mistakes.

I’m excited about being part of the transition, after three Belger males running the company, to be the first female Belger in that role. Dick doesn’t have kids and my kids all are on different paths, so it’s up to me to mentor the next generation of leadership from the talented group of people we have at Belger Cartage. I like that — maybe it’s the mother in me.

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Belger Arts director Evelyn Belger: KC is ‘a mecca’ for ceramic arts."