Art and Design Faculty

“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.”
— Robert L. Peters, designer and author

At a young age, Jay Wallace visited many historical sites during his formative years, which helped him grow a love for history. Jay undertook architecture and drafting courses and frequently incorporates architectural elements in his work.

Jay worked as a Graphic Designer / Desktop Publisher in the commercial printing industry for over 15 years before turning to the fine art of Printmaking. In 2010, Jay received a BFA in Design & Illustration with an emphasis in Printmaking at Utah Valley University. He was offered a graduate teaching assistantship at the University of South Dakota and received an MFA in Printmaking in 2013.

Jay served multiple years as an assistant for the nationally recognized Frogman’s Printmaking Workshops and has been active in exhibiting nationally and internationally in the past. His work has been published in a number of print and online publications. Jay has also been a Graphic Design and Printmaking instructor at Utah Valley University and Provo College. He has also enjoyed working with museum fossil restoration and mounting at a Paleontology lab. Jay currently resides in Atchison, Kansas with his wife and children.

Bryan Park was born and raised in Greenville, SC. He began studying metalsmithing at The Fine Arts Center in Greenville during high school. After studying metalsmithing, design, sculpture, and installation at East Carolina University and the University of Kansas, Bryan taught for a year at Idaho State University in Pocatello.  Upon returning to the Kansas City area from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Bryan worked for the University of Kansas and the Lawrence Arts Center before beginning teaching at Benedictine College in the spring semester of 2011.  Bryan served on the Board of Directors of the Society of North American Goldsmiths from 2011-2013.

Bryan’s work consists of individual artworks and site-sensitive installation that explore the relationship between identity and place. In the past few years, Bryan has focused on site-specific and functional commissions, both public and private.  Since 2003, his work has been featured in over thirty exhibitions across the United States, and in Italy.

Dr. Stewart began his teaching career in 2001 as an associate instructor at Indiana University. From there, he became the visiting professor for the art department at Miami University in 2008. The same year he earned his PhD in the History of Art at Indiana University. After Miami University, he became the Assistant Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture at UST in Houston, Texas, while he simultaneously worked as the chairman from Art History at the University of St. Thomas where he started in 2014 as well as Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Archaeology, Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences, which he started in 2017. Dr. Stewart began teaching at Benedictine College in the Fall of 2020.

He specializes in the development of Late Roman and Early Medieval architecture, especially in the eastern Mediterranean region. In general, his research investigates transitional periods of history, as well as artistic, technological, and economic exchange between neighboring cultures.

These interests have led him to study the development of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in Central Asia, North Africa and Europe.

Regarding periods, his publications have explored the development of classical Greek and Roman Art and its continuity and adaptation into the early Middle Ages. His present research, likewise, explores intellectual movements, such as humanism and Thomism, within the late Middle Ages that led to the Renaissance artistic norms.

Sue is excited to bring her experience to Benedictine College. She is a graphic design communications professional and educator. Having a successful design career foundation spanning more than twenty-five years, she’s has been graced with varied roles as designer, marketing director, and business entrepreneur running her own design firm. Because of her experience, she brings a unique and comprehensive practical perspective to teaching graphic design. Sue has received local and national awards in graphic design, illustration, and packaging design.

Sue has worked as a design professional in Fortune 50 companies, for advertising agencies, and for fifteen years in her own successful design firm. She has developed a wide body of work for her diverse clients—from brand identity work to packaging design, print, advertising design, web development, social media, interactive, wayfinding, infographics, and multi-media design. She has provided design services for a variety of business sectors including but not limited to non-profits, manufacturing, finance, banking, service, food, scientific, retail, high-tech, Christian and educational markets.

Inspired to give back to the profession, she pursued her terminal degree in graphic design to teach the next generation of emerging designers at the college level. She has been teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in graphic design for more than ten years since earning her Masters degree in 2010. She also has done private consultation and tutoring in Adobe and Microsoft software applications.

Sue brings a career of practical experience, expertise, love of design, her contagious enthusiasm, and the gift of joy to her teaching.

Christa Kagin was born and raised in Kansas. She is a wife and mother of three children. She began her studies in art at Southwestern College, a liberal arts college similar to Benedictine. She then pursued art history in Florence, Italy and art therapy studies as a Rotary Scholar at the University of London, Goldsmith’s College. She earned her Master of Arts in Expressive Therapies from the University of Louisville, in 1999, and also received the Clinical Excellence Award.

As a registered art therapist she has worked in juvenile justice facilities in Kentucky, long and short-term residential psychiatric facilities and as a consultant for foster care transitions. Specializing in trauma, and working also with dual diagnosis, grief and depression, Christa has worked with children and adults. Her current work is in private practice. She is the co-author of the soon to be released Implementing the Expressive Therapies Continuum: A Guide for Clinical Practice, Routledge Press.

Christa’s primary medium is watercolor, though she is also a mixed media and encaustics painter. Her current work explores time, the temporal identity of self and the connections of life and memory.

Christa currently chairs the Art department and teaches painting, drawing, art history and art therapy. She has been an educator in primary school as well as the graduate and undergraduate levels.

In all endeavors, therapy, education or creating art, it is her desire that people find a way to connect visual arts to their spiritual lives, wholeness and overall well-being. Central to this is belief in the power and love of Jesus Christ to transform, heal and make new.

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

Gary Rittermeyer was born and raised in Greater Kansas City. After graduating from Liberty Senior High School, he joined the United States Navy. He was stationed in Bangor, Washington, and served aboard the USS Alabama (SSBN 731), an Ohio class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. He spent the second half of his enlistment as a Hospital Corpsman in Charleston, South Carolina.

Following military service, Gary graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2002 from the University of Central Missouri with a Bachelor of Science (Broadcasting & Film major and Photography minor). After college, he worked as a Production Assistant at KSHB – TV 41 in Kansas City and became a wedding photographer.

Gary is a published photographer whose work has been exhibited in Southern California and the Midwest. He has taught traditional film and digital photography courses since earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2013 from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Gary is a member of the Society for Photographic Education, Kansas City Society of Contemporary Photographers, and a former member of the American Society of Media Photographers. From 2015 to 2020, he was a part-time video camera operator for the Kansas City Royals.

MFA – Drawing/Painting, University of Kansas, 2017

Research/Studio Interests
Modern and Post-Modern art histories. Exploring the visual interactions of forms, mark-making, and composition through drawing and painting. Preferred mediums include charcoal, graphite, beeswax, and various painting media.

Gina Pisto (she/her) is an artist currently living in Kansas City, Missouri. She completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics at Ohio University in 2022 and has exhibited her work nationally in various group and solo exhibitions. She has been awarded recognition from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) and the Michigan Ceramic Art Association (MCAA). Pisto most recently exhibited her work in Milestones: Belger Arts’ Tenth Annual Resident Artist Exhibition at Belger Crane Yard Studios and Coalescence at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. Pisto is an adjunct professor at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, and regularly teaches private lessons and community classes at Belger Crane Yard Studios. Currently working in her second year as an artist-in-residence at BCYS, Pisto’s work utilizes various materials such as clay, plastic, and flowers to explore notions of loss, memory, and permanence.

James Patrick Reid has been painting since childhood – historical scenes, portraits, and landscapes. He studied at the Catholic University of America and the New York Studio School, and earned a master’s degree in painting at Indiana University.

A particular interest, which has grown over the years following his spiritual awakening at age fifteen, is the intersection of art with theology and the spiritual life. He has written and lectured much on this subject, beginning with an M.Div. thesis at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary.

Reid comes to Benedictine College after decades of teaching painting and drawing in New York City, at the Art Students League, the New York Academy, and the Fashion Institute of Technology, as well as teaching online the history and theory of Catholic art for the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

His paintings can be viewed at JamesPatrickReid.com and SacredPaintings.org, and some of his published writings can be found at TheCatholicThing.org and TheImaginativeConservative.org.