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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.17 65 continued growth of the restaurant scene and health of galleries as signs that the city's arts are thriving. He can't say enough about the expanded Speed and its current staff. Amenities and activities like the skate park and the gallery hops, both of which began under Mayor Dave Armstrong's administration, enrich the culture as well. And in Morrin's opinion, the quality of the city's art has improved. But he also sees negatives. For one, the city's wealthy art collectors buy from outside Louisville. A recent blow, he says, has been the Courier-Journal letting arts critic Elizabeth Kramer go. "e cultural ecology is outwardly strong, but it's also extremely fragile," he says. ough Morrin's association with U of L might make him a little biased (and in his opinion, the work of KyCAD students has so far been inferior to that of U of L students), he says that as long as KyCAD is here, it will do good things for the city and broaden access to visual arts. "e more the merrier," he says. "I think unless it's endowed heavily within the next five years, I don't know how it's gonna survive." He pulls out a rumpled postcard advertising a solo exhibition of a KyCAD grad at Moremen Moloney Contemporary Gallery in Butchertown. "is young man would not have a show if KyCAD didn't exist," he says. "He was the most impressive artist in that first show." e grad's name is Vinhay Keo. He grew up in Bowling Green after his family emigrated from Cambodia when he was 10. He knew he wanted to do something with his life that didn't involve a 9-to-5, and he was interested in film. At first he thought about going away to a big school in California but realized the expense and competitiveness of that. en a KyCAD recruitment officer visited his school. Keo, who was the first in his family to graduate from college, is now a KyCAD success story. He has attended two competitive summer programs: at Yale, which he says invigorated his ideas as an artist, and at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Colorado. His interdisciplinary work incorporates photography, multi-media and installation and expresses his expe- rience of living in two different cultures. For his senior thesis, he spent more than six months going to all the dumpsters on campus collecting shredded paper, which he used in one of the spaces he built for his show. In several photographs, Keo has painted himself white and is reclined among mounds of the paper. After seeing the show, Susan Moremen later reached out to him about creating an installation for her gallery. e opening recep- tion was in September. Keo is now an admissions officer for KyCAD. He gets to keep a studio space on campus, which he shares with another grad who's also an admissions counselor. He's currently researching MFA programs he'd like to attend. Overall, though, the city seems to be in a good posi- tion to support the school — and vice versa. Earlier this school year, the students had a show in the ArtxFM space, down the street from cam- pus. ey've been involved with programs at LVA. Payne, who has bonded with many of the arts leaders in town, says the school is working on a collaboration with the ballet. It helps that the 13 professors, who all have degrees and work histories from recognized art schools, are also working artists and often have their own shows and projects in town. One of the newest professors, Gwendolyn Ker- ber, started last year as a rotating faculty member — she would come in for six weeks and teach a course — and then got a permanent position. She's spent her career between Berlin, Germany, and the New York area. For the past 10 years she's been a working artist, but she says she wanted to teach again for a while and was impressed with the students, energy and vision for the school. "We've got a long way to go, but not in terms of the quality of the education we provide. We have first-rate faculty," she says. Fader's color and design 1 class is calming. e room is silent, apart from an old air-conditioning unit that hums in the corner. It's full of natural light and overlooks a gleaming landscape across Breckenridge Street. Fader has the undivided attention of her 10 or so stu- dents, mostly freshmen. She takes a pin and tacks one student's work, a drawing of a green walnut shell, to the wall and invites the others to critique it. None really has the vocabulary to say what they think of it or how it makes them feel. "It's aesthetic," one girl says. "I don't know. I just like it." Fader says to the class, "ere's like this little energy in there, this little flickering because it's made with so many different colors. And the other thing that I'm really impressed with is what's going on around the edge in terms of the figure ground — if we squint, the edge disap- pears. I think it's a feast for the eyes." "I'm a painter," Fader later says to me. "e most ambitious painting I could ever imagine was building this school. It's starting to feel more like a school rather than an experiment that was a chance. "(Churchill and I) were talking a couple days ago — 'Back in 2002, would you have ever imagined you'd end up in Louisville with a school like this?'" She's 62. He's 73. Is this where they've landed for good? "I don't think a day goes by when I don't think about that," she says. "I'm not sure." Before the start of the 2017 school year, Payne set up a PechaKu- cha, or creative gathering, with school faculty and board members and leaders from the arts community. Each person went around and gave a presentation on who they are as people and artists, as parents and pet owners. Payne talked about herself as a painter. "Terribly nostalgic for it," she later says in her office, which is painted blindingly white and has nothing on the walls, save for an old Kentucky School of Art logo stamped in red on the back of the door. (In early September, Payne's belongings hadn't yet arrived "off the lorry" from Seattle.) She mentions how, during the interview process, McClure showed her her basement workshop. "Underneath the whole of her house is this massive space with tools," Payne says. "She's building boats in her basement. I kid you not. It was immaculate. I was so impressed by that. I thought, wow, if the president of Spalding can do that, maybe I could get myself back into a place or a position where I might be an artist in a studio again. at's kind of a dream. "But not yet," she says. "When I come in and I see the work that has to be done here, this will be my artwork for the next few years." "We desperately, desperately need our own art spaces so we can have gorgeous facilities," dean and president Moira Scott Payne says. "I couldn't believe it — when I came in they were painting on a carpeted floor. I thought, no!"