Meet our Faculty and Staff

Jason Bly earned his BA degree from Eastern Illinois University and MFA degree from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He began teaching at Midwestern State University in 2017. He is currently a board member for the Texas Association of Schools of Art and contributes to various events and conferences held throughout the year.

His paintings have been shown in solo, invitational, and juried shows. In his current work, Bly creates oil paintings that explore the connections between technology, simulation and the everyday experience. Traditional paintings methods are used to mimic graphic design sensibilities combined with realistically painted objects from life.

Leah Gose is a photographic artist and educator. She is an Associate Professor of Photography and the Dean of the Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts at Midwestern State University. She holds a B.A. in photography from the University of Colorado, and an M.F.A. in photography from Texas Woman's University.

Her work seeks to challenge the viewers relationship to their own perception, and ask questions on the reliability of memory. Her work has been exhibited in various venues, both nationally and internationally.

Steve Hilton earned his MFA in Ceramics at Arizona State University in 2005. He also holds an MS in Art Education, and a BS in Geology from Missouri State University. In the past 15 years, his work has been placed into the permanent collections of museums, universities and individuals in the United States, and internationally.

During the same timeframe, he has been juried into numerous international and national exhibitions in conjunction with curated solo shows in the United States. Steve is currently the full-time ceramics and art education faculty member at MSU Texas and is a Fellow of the Council of NCECA.

Suguru Hiraide was born and raised in Nagano Prefecture in Japan. He moved to the United States in 1993, where he received his BFA in Sculpture and Graphic Design from West Virginia University and his MFA in Sculpture from California State University, Fullerton. Since 2003, he has taught Sculpture and Metals at Midwestern State University (MSU Texas) in Wichita Falls, Texas.

His recent exhibitions include "The 1st Cross Current Exchange Exhibition Yokohama-Houston 2019" at Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery in Yokohama, Japan and "The 5th Cross Current International Exchange Show U.S.-Japan" Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. He has also curated several international exhibitions and organized symposium/presentations in the U.S. and Japan.

Ann Marie Leimer received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin where she trained in Art of the Americas and Latin American Art and specialized in Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art. Her published work has appeared in numerous journals and books.

She is currently coediting a book on artist Consuelo Jimenez Underwood with Dr. Laura E. Pérez that will be published by Duke University Press.

Catherine Prose holds a Masters of Fine Art from Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and joined the faculty at Midwestern State University in 2005. Professor Prose successfully directed MSU's Juanita Harvey Art Gallery for over nine years and administrated the O'Donnell Visiting Artist Program for eight years. In 2008, Prose began directing the printmaking program where she made significant contribution in transitioning the print studio into a non-toxic working environment and effectively contemporized the technology used to teach students.

Professor Prose's artwork is exhibited extensively nationally and internationally in both group and solo showings. Prose's artwork is in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia; Colorado Special Collections, Boulder, Colorado and in the Printmaker Research Collection at the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Prose has been an active member of the Wichita Falls arts community serving as Board Vice President 2014-2017 for Wichita Falls Alliance for Arts and Culture; serving on the Wichita Falls Arts Commission from 2007-2016, of which five years were as Chair, and currently serves on the Board of the River Bend Nature Center.

Michelle Castro
Visiting Assistant Professor
Graphic Design
(940) 397-2801 ⨠ C107
michelle.castro@msutexas.edu
Profile

Michelle Castro is a studio artist and educator in ceramics and mixed media. Her artwork explores the emotional weight of hateful comments and microaggressions, using the convergence of the eyes to make these visceral experiences both accessible and resonant for the viewer. 

She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major emphasis in ceramics and a minor emphasis in graphic design from Midwestern State University. Michelle currently serves as a board member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) as the Director at Large, where she oversees the Emerging Artist Fellowship and the International Creative Research Fellowship.