Gallery Shop

Gallery Shop Hours: Tuesday-Saturday noon until 5pm


The Lawrence Arts Center Gallery Shop features original work from over 90 local artists. We offer a wide variety of mediums, such as jewelry, ceramics, paintings, photography, textiles, books, cards, prints and much more.

We are open from noon until 5pm, Tuesday through Saturday, as well as for special events. Our shop is staffed completely by volunteers who are willing to donate their time towards supporting the arts. Please stop by and visit the Gallery Shop and experience what the Lawrence Arts Center has to offer.

We are now offering limited edition lithographs by Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton.

If you are interested in offering your work for sale in the shop or volunteering , please contact Lee Saylor at lactech@sunflower.com.

Gallery Shop Artists

Ben Ahlvers
Ben Ahlvers

Ben Ahlvers is the Education Coordinator at the Lawrence Arts Center. Ben holds a BFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a MFA in Ceramics from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. While maintaining an active career as an artist with various solo and group exhibitions around the nation, Ben is also a dedicated educator.

Debbie Baker
Debbie Baker

Debbie Baker has always been an avid nature lover and began amateur nature photography while working on a Master’s thesis in Wildlife Biology at the University of Nebraska. Wanting to share her photos in a useful way, she created greeting cards from them to give to friends and family, who encouraged her to sell them. A recent trip to Haiti rekindled her interest in sharing her adventures through photography. Debbie is using the funds from card sales to purchase bird books and binoculars to take back to Haiti to help people start ecotourism businesses through birding. Be on the lookout for new scenes from the 2009 trip!

Ellie Blair
Ellie Blair

Ellie Blair has a degree in Ceramics from the University of Kansas and has been doing pottery in her studio since 2002. She loves Crystalline Glazes because of the unpredictability of the glaze.

Vernon Brejcha
Vernon Brejcha

Vernon Brejcha is a native Kansan from Holyrood. He considers himself a storyteller whose art is about life, passion, and the wonders of nature. He has a MFA from the University of Wisconsin. He retired in 2001 after 25 years as Associate Professor of Design at the University of Kansas. His work is represented in over 40 major museums and public collections as well as numerous corporate and private collections throughout the world.

Grace Carmody
Grace Carmody

Grace Carmody has been a professional designer and silversmith since 1976. Graduating from the University of Kansas with a BA and MFA, she taught classes at the university in the Design Department as well as the Lawrence Arts Center. She taught classes for 18 years at a private art center in Atlanta, GA, and returned to Lawrence in 2000. She now works exclusively in her home studio doing special commissions and silver works to be displayed and sold at the Lawrence Arts Center Gallery Shop. Her work has been exhibited in over 100 exhibitions and many galleries and is included in collections in the US and abroad. The Lawrence Arts Commission selected her as the designing artist for the Phoenix Awards 2004 presented to individuals who are recognized for their contributions to the arts.

Louis Copt
Louis Copt

Louis Copt was born and reared in Emporia, KS. He graduated from Emporia State University in 1971 with a degree in art. Copt began his career as a full-time artist in 1984 after returning from a summer of study at the Art Students League in New York City. The focus for Copt’s painting has been Kansas in general and specifically on the Flint Hills, the annual prairie burning and most recently, figurative painting. New works include a series he calls “remembered landscapes,” relying on impressions and recollections of past encounters with nature. His goal is to create ambiguity or mystery, to reveal what is felt but not seen, to create something absolutely unique, to explore form out of curiosity and to reveal his private vision.

Dee Ann DeRoin

Jewelry

Dee Ann DeRoin

“I love the materials: stones, pearls, shells and silver. It’s a joy to combine them in wearable form for others to enjoy.”

Avis Garrett-Baptist

Registered Art Therapist

Dr. Garrett creates original art in her home, the Gingerbread Castle. She paints using a wide variety of media. She also sculpts magnificent towers based on the beautiful Spanish towers of the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, MO. Dr. Garrett recently coauthored Drawing and Coloring for Your Life, a 200-page book, including 92 drawings by Elizabeth Layton.

Jan Gaumnitz
Jan Gaumnitz

As a child I lived on a farm, near a lake in Minnesota. The close association with nature had an enduring influence on my life and art.

I prefer to be outside “seeing, experiencing, remembering, collecting and photographing”, then creating a work of art in my studio.

By investigating sources for new or old ideas, challenging new techniques and materials, yet following basic fundamentals of art, I work to present a unique expression in a variety of media.

Bob Gent
Bob Gent

Bob Gent, glassblower, creates one of a kind pieces of art from his home based studio in Lawrence, Kansas. He spent most of his life making things of one sort or another and made his first series of lamps as a teenager, figuring out how to drill holes in glass insulators in order to put a wire though the top. Upon earning a degree from the University of Tulsa, he moved to Kansas to start at a family and establish his own glass studio. For several years, he exhibited his work on the craft show circuit mainly throughout the Midwest but occasionally on both coasts. Currently, his work can be found in fine galleries, artisan shops and online at www.bobgent.com. Originally trained as an offhand glassblower, he became interested in fusing and built an impressive fusing studio in order to explore this new means of creation. Glass offers a chance for a myriad of juxtapositions of color, form, and shape within the rigid confines of the material's technical limitations. There's always something new to try, a different and surprising effect to discover or a new piece of equipment to build. Gent continues to be captivated by glass and finds gratification in discovering new ways to mold and shape his art.

Lisa Grossman
Lisa Grossman

As a painter and printmaker for the past sixteen years, my work's central theme has been open space. I've found my inspiration in the wide skies and prairies of Eastern Kansas and the Kansas River Valley. The power of this place, and my emotional responses to weather and shifts in light, color, and seasons, are the true subjects of my work.

My work has always been about shifts and ephemerality. I'm not so much trying to freeze moments in time as much as I am attempting to convey my experience of them. My wish is to share some of what I've discovered, offering a new way a seeing these waterways and open prairie spaces that hopefully, ultimately, awakens a new appreciation for them.

Keith Lemley
Keith Lemley

Sharing experiences is the core of my work. I use materials in unexpected ways, drawing attention to viewers’ preconceptions. Ephemeral substances such as air, light, electricity, cooking grease, and food emphasize the constant change occurring around us. Usually interactive, my work creates direct conversations through the inclusion of viewer’s own body. This links the making of art and the seeing of art into a single ongoing event.

The tension felt when approaching an interactive work in front of a group of strangers is much like the sensation of questioning the status quo – it is not easy to ignore the “hands off” notions we are raised with and single yourself out of a crowd. Why are things the way they are? Is there a better solution? The active shift between viewer and participant is a reminder that the world is what we make it. By guiding viewers to interact with objects in ways they normally wouldn’t, I challenge viewers to rethink their decisions and consider new possibilities.

Marilyn Pilkey
Marilyn Pilkey

A passionate environmentalist, I am committed to creating functional and decorative art using pre- existing materials. I reclaim discarded mill ends, samples, and scraps - many of them vintage prints from my mother's collection. Mary Johnson loved to sew, and she loved to entertain! Our Kansas City home was often filled with guests, many of them college students, foreign missionaries, or needy children.

When Mom passed on in 1997, I inherited her fabric "stash". It makes my heart sing to resurrect her fabrics, giving them new life as wallhangings, pillows, and place-quilts, which others all over the world can use to welcome their own guests. I like to think that Mom is watching over each family, giving them her special warm blessing, as some of her fabrics grace their walls, couch, or table.

My respect for history and nature also prompts my choice of materials for other products. Doll's facial features are created using antique costume jewelry and buttons from my mother's and grandmother's collections. Pouches and bags come from mill ends and fabric samples. Each hobby horse head comes uses one sheet of an upholstery sample book. Thus each item is truely one-of-a-kind, made in America, signed and dated.

Amy Plymat

Hand painted silk scarves

“Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Drake University, with a minor in Horticulture from Iowa State University. I work primarily in earth tones with images of flowers and leaves on silk scarves.”

Nan Renbarger
Nan Renbarger

I have a strong connection to fiber. My interst runs the gamut from whole grains to bark, vines, twigs, and grasses to the cotton, rayon, wool and metallic yarns, threads, and fabrics I use to construct clothing, hats, bags, bowls and sculptures. I have always been attracted to color, texture, and fabric. Nature is a constant inspiration to me. I haven't had formal art education and tend to forge ahead on projects, learning as I go. Spontaneity is precious to me and I let my whims guide me. From flat, straight-edged materials, I fabricate three-dimensional fiberscapes. I often dive into a piece not knowing where it will take me, but am always happy to go along for the ride. As I venture forth, I encounter spirals, curves, angles and loops that create peepholes for color, peaks and valleys, grottos, winding rivers of color, wacky paths, refelective pools, and fauna and flora of fantasy. Befreo the trip is over, colors, textures, and shapes appear, disappear, and reappear. I am bewitched by the trek as discoveries along the way entice, humble, and charm me. Some pieces become vessesl, some become sculptures, some become wall pieces. My work embraces the notion of duality--inside/outside, front side/back side, highly textured/smooth, solid/open, on-the-wall/off-the-wall. An amalgamation of what I see, feel, hear, and sense flows through my fingers, out onto thephysical plane via fibers of every description.

Libby Schmanke

Painting

Libby Schmanke

I am a native Kansan who has drawn and painted since childhood. I studied art and psychology for my bachelor's degree, returned to school for a certificate in substance abuse counseling, and earned a master of science in art therapy. I have worked as a substance abuse counselor, program director, and art therapist for over eighteen years and have been on the faculty of the graduate art therapy program at Emporia State University since 2002.

Richard Scott

Richard Scott was born and raised in Kansas City, MO. He graduated from Park College with a degree in Chemistry was employed in his profession for 30 years. Richard has been involved with photography since his teens when he built his first darkroom and worked as a portrait and wedding photographer for his hometown Portrait Studio. Through the years, photography became his main hobby, with specific interest in wildlife and nature photography. Richard's wife, Jackie, is an accomplished gardener and nature lover. Together they seek out everyday beauty that is often passed by in life's fast pace. Richard's creative eye for detail and composition illuminate his printed images. For Richard, capturing these images is "Just a walk in the Park".

Celia Smith

Acrylic Painting

“I am inspired by ideas, feelings and stories, and use the natural world and people in my renderings of them. In my simple landscapes I like to catch the essence or ‘soul’ of the scene.”

Shala Stevenson

Pysanky Eggs (a Ukrainian folk art)

“Pysanky eggs were once a common tradition in the Ukraine. Decorated with a stylus ("kystka") patterns are drawn with melted wax then placed into progressively darker dyes with new patterns drawn on each layer. After the last dye, wax is melted off to reveal the eggs' brilliant colors. Shala is a graphic designer at the University of Kansas.”

Ed Tato

Poetry

Ed Tato

“I have performed locally in the Bopaphonic Circus Poetry Show at the Lawrence Community Theater, in Three Minutes or Less and had a reading at the Bourgeois Pig. I also read regularly at Prospero’s Books in Kansas City and at the Jazzhaus and Aimee’s Coffeehouse locally.”

Jeff Thomas

Wood

“My approach to woodturning is very simple; I walk the forest and find a tree or branch or log that says ‘ I have spectacular potential’ . From there I let the wood define what it will become by revealing to me the natural beauty within.”

Elinor Tourtellot
Elinor Tourtellot

I consider myself to be an abstract expressionist who uses colors, textures and movement to create various spaces. Sometimes my images are taken directly from a figure or landscape; other times they are purely abstract.

What compels me to paint is the pleasure I recieve from the act of painting. It is the process and not the end product that motivates me. Most of my paintings and monotypes are made in the studio but occasionally I work directly form nature. I use oil or acrylic paint on canvas, or water based inks for making monotypes, applying various techniques to achieve the colors, light and textures that I want. My goal is to express the feelings I have about my experiences in nature.

Katie Van Blaricum
Katie Van Blaricum

I've been fascinated with bugs ever since I can remember. My mom read lots of science books to me, and I was out collecting cocoons and caterpillars as soon as I was able. I had several "bug boxes" full of captives, and I spent many hours reading bug field-guides. I used many of the insects I found outside to make my own "closet museum", which included everything from bird eggs to fossils.

When I grew up, I took a class at KU called "The Biology of Spiders". That class rejuvenated my scientific inclinations. It taught me how to professionally collect and display spiders, and I became very interested in making my own "grown-up version" of the closet museum I had as a kid.

It's easy to buy a butterfly mounted on white paper, but I wanted something more, something unique that would be suitable to display outside of a stuffy museum. In other words, I wanted an insect display that was also a piece of art. Thus, the concept of Insect Art was born. After I had handled a few basic butterflies, I decided to move onto insects that you wouldn't find in your usual nature shop. It's my goal now to make pieces of art that are unlike anything I've ever seen.

Insect Art is made of real insects from around the world. They come to me all dried out and folded up. I re-hydrate them in a special chamber to make them flexible again. I then spread them out on a styrofoam board with sewing pins and plates of glass. Finally, I analyze the color and form of each insect in order to match them with the perfect art background. I then creatively arrange the insects and mount them into the frame. The whole process takes several days, and each end result is unique.

Lois Van Liew

I grew up in Lawrence, KS and after graduating in art from Kansas University, lived in Kansas city, KS before moving to Austin, Texas, and then Milwaukee, WI. I lived in Milwaukee for many years, as a practicing artist, while juggling the rigors of raising two daughters. In November of 2004, I moved back to Kansas. In Wisconsin, I shared a loft studio with another artist for 21 years. The studio was located in a historic wooden mill on the Milwaukee River. The studio has yearly exhibits as well as classes, workshops and weekly life drawing sessions. The studio had a large printing press to which I had access. I paint in oil, watercolors and acrylic, draw in charcoal, prismacolor and oil pastel and I have worked in handmade paper. I have studied lithography and etching as well as printing monoprints. I have a special love for drawing and painting the figure but have also have times when I am inspired to do landscape and florals. I am eager to explore the prairie theme again after being away for so long.