Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire St.
Lawrence, KS 66044
785-843-2787
Business Office Hours Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm
Gallery Shop Artists
Featuring a different artist every month
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.
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 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 and is currently Associate Professor of Design at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. 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 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 200. 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 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
“I love the materials: stones, pearls, shells
and silver. It’s a joy to combine them in wearable form for others
to enjoy.”
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.
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.
“Little Bluestem Baby specializes in affordable limited
edition and one-of-a-kind blankets and accessories for infants.
Inspired by fine art, high design, and vintage textiles, our
products are practical, stylish, and nostalgic.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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
“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.”
“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.”
