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KURT SCHLOUGH can't remember a time when he wasn't drawing or painting. Some of his favorite childhood memories involve different moments that revolve around art. At some point in the fourth grade, Kurt received accolades from his teacher for a watercolor of a covered bridge. When he stumbled upon the piece years later, he laughed at the simplicity of it. However, Kurt says that painting and the remembered experience achieved its purpose--it was an early block that helped build his career.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Kurt's parents encouraged his artistic side through various art-based summer classes. In addition to his love for creating art, Kurt was always drawn to architecture, the built environment and spatial relationships in general. When deciding on a direction for his college studies, Kurt realized working in an architectural field would allow him to combine art and architecture. Visiting K-State's Open House, and particularly viewing the interior architecture displays, helped solidify his decision. He found the interior architecture exhibits showed not only the creation of space, but also the attention to detail upon which he had been learning to focus in his art.

While at K-State, Kurt benefited immensely from the variety of the curriculum and the discourse with students in the College's other programs. During 1991 and in his second year of study, Kurt was awarded the "Outstanding Student Portfolio Award" from the interior architecture faculty. In his fourth year, Kurt spent a semester abroad with five classmates at the Fachhochschule Rheinland-Pfaltz in Trier, Germany. Those months in Europe were incredibly fulfilling in both design study and personal experience. Kurt's "Gazelle" chair, designed and built in fifth-year furniture design workshop, won first place in that year's Kansas City Architects, Designers, Dealers and Representatives (KCADDR) Design Competition. In that final year, Kurt also worked as the College's graphic designer, producing posters for various lectures and Chang Gallery exhibits, and he also exhibited a painting at the K-State Union's juried student show. Other achievements during his time at K-State include being on the Deans List for the last five semesters and membership in Tau Sigma Delta architectural honor society. To round out his real-world experience while a college student, Kurt worked as an architecture intern during the summers of 1992 and 1993 at Stone, Marraccini, & Patterson, St. Louis.

After receiving the Bachelor of Interior Architecture in 1994, Kurt moved back to St. Louis for a brief period and worked for an architectural illustrator. However, that position was short-lived--a friend in New Orleans told him about an opening at the firm where she worked. A visit based upon a single interview at The Mathes Group, a large interdisciplinary firm, resulted in a job offer and a quick move south. The largest project that Kurt worked on at The Mathes Group was overseeing the design and construction of a local casino's entertainment facility which included several restaurants, a lounge, and administration offices.

Shortly after graduating, Kurt started working on paintings that soon evolved into a sizeable body of work. Those pieces were based on figures and characters of his own creation set in imagined environments. In the fall of 1997, K-State interior architecture faculty member Fayez Husseini helped organize an exhibit of the figure oriented pieces for the College's Chang Gallery. That exhibit, entitled "WORKS," was Kurt's first solo art show.

Around the same time Kurt's art career was starting to take shape, three partners at The Mathes Group decided to form a new firm, Howard-Montgomery-Steger Performance Architecture (known as HMS Architects). They offered Kurt a position as the sole interior architect at a firm that would be focusing on university performing arts facilities and hospitality projects. Over the next eight years, Kurt became the design director for the 13-person firm. He managed and designed many large- and small-scale projects and worked as an integral member of various production teams. His tasks as design director varied widely on a day-to-day basis depending on the projects at hand. Kurt found that his interior architecture education benefited him greatly by allowing him to creatively solve whatever problem was in front of him. The project load at HMS offered many gratifying design challenges in locations that spanned the nation. Projects consisting of 200-room contemporary boutique hotels in the historic warehouse district of New Orleans were followed by new music schools with 600-seat concert halls and 150-seat recital halls in Washington state.

Another recent shift in firms occurred in January of 2004 when one partner from HMS decided to leave and start his own firm focusing on performing arts projects. Kurt joined him to form Performance Architecture and took a position as Vice President, Head of Design. In addition to the opportunity to design yet another new architecture firm's office, this new start has brought with it the responsibility to help make this firm a success. Current projects include managing the $15 million renovation of a 1929 Cadillac dealership in Hartford, Connecticut, into a performing arts center for the University of Hartford, and the final stages of construction administration for a new music education facility for Central Washington University.

Since his first solo art show, Kurt has continued on a path of creating both paintings and sculptures. He has shown in several solo shows and multiple group shows in New Orleans. In the planning stage for the spring of 2005 is an exhibition of several paintings at the Alexandria, Louisiana, Museum of Art. His continually evolving body of artworks, ranging from the early figure paintings and sculptures to the current more abstract figure and landscape derived topographical pieces, have always been strongly anchored by Kurt's architectural background. Kurt looks at both art and architecture as ways to constantly explore various spatial and visual ideas. He notes that each area of practice allows its own focus and that both art and architecture have the ability to affect people emotionally--to achieve intrinsic, fundamental and guttural responses. He finds himself striving to achieve those effects within people in both the art he creates and the spaces he designs. The balance of art and architecture has been fruitful and gratifying in Kurt's years since graduating from K-State.

To this day, Kurt still proudly call New Orleans home. He maintains close friendships with several K-State classmates from the interior architecture and architecture programs and sees several of them each year.