Belger Crane Yard Gallery presents Ways to Train Songbirds opening Friday, September 1, 2023, at 2011 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64108. The public is invited to the exhibition’s opening reception to view the work from 6 to 8 pm. The exhibition includes work by five artists who are members of the Sticky Gold Collective: Ben Galaday, Padyn Humble, Matt Mitros, Danni O’Brien, and Matthew Wicks.  “There are numerous ways to train birds of prey, yet songbirds are incredibly challenging. Many ornithologists consider songbirds to be exceptionally intelligent but not always the most trainable . . . the same could be said about artists.” -  Sticky Gold Collective, August 2023”  The Collective, formed by Matt Mitros in 2018, includes artists from a range of backgrounds who share an irreverent appreciation for the intersection of craft and art. While the artists do not align to a common theme or subject, they share a quasi-humorous tone and campy bravado regarding material usage and illusion. Padyn Humble is a sculptor from Montana whose work investigates social norms and the way they influence identity. He utilizes Western iconography and his inspiration stems from influences like cartoons, truck stop souvenirs, and queer pop culture.  Matt Mitros uses a visual language of botanical pastiche to depict the emotional relationship between plants and machines. Themes of survival, growth, and metamorphosis are prevalent in his work through visual displays of conflict and celebration. Danni O’Brien’s work is rooted in play, collecting, and constructing and is informed by an education in assemblage sculpture, fiber arts, and ceramics. Her fantastical cast-offs from upcycled materials marry construction and wood working with traditionally feminized and domesticated systems such as stitching, beading, and rug making to compose dually hard and soft objects. Danni O’Brien and Ben Galaday wield nuanced abstraction to engage the viewer with blurred dreamlike compositions. Galaday’s work, however, is a dark counterpart to O’Brien’s flamboyancy. Oscillating between demoralizing and seducing, Galaday taps into the truths of the human condition creating kaleidoscopic approximations of life, death, decay, rejuvenation, and apathy. Matthew Wicks uses kitschy, everyday symbols such as suits of playing cards or domestic objects to subvert ideas of hypermasculinity in Western culture. Altogether, Sticky Gold Collective questions various aspects of gender, orientation, and societal expectations through a mixed media approach to ceramics, while relieving the viewer of certain preconceived notions that come with “traditional” craftsmanship and material expectations embedded within the canon of ceramic art. This exhibition will remain on view through December 30, 2023.