Featured Artist Showcase

I'm Margarita Aguilar, I'm an artist. I paint, draw, do crafts with different matters, sculpt, and sketch. I paint with acrylics and watercolors and sometimes with oil, but my favorite is acrylics. 

Art is the way I know how to make myself feel calm, relaxed, happy, and in my zone. A way to give me tranquility and peace of mind. I call it the zone because in there I'm in a calm peaceful place. Art is a place or zone where I keep myself balanced rational and reasonable but more patient with myself and others. Art is my world!!! 

Bethany Bates is a 26-year-old graduate student in the School of Social Welfare at Kansas University. She completed her undergraduate degree in Sociology at Kansas State University. 

Art has always been a love in my life for as long as I can remember. It wasn't until after getting sober that I began to consider myself an artist. For me, creating art is one of the greatest parts of being human. I can take heartache and pain and turn it into a painting or sculpture that could then inspire someone else or just make someone's day a little bit better. That makes it all worth it. 

Janelle is an illustrator and printmaker with a BFA in illustration from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and a master’s degree in Montessori education. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri with her husband and two young children where she works to educate about regenerative agriculture and rewilding. Her work has been shown in Woman Made's online show “Tickled Pink”, “stArt The Conversation” an art and mental health show for Wyandot Behavioral Health, and “Unfolded” at the Art School Gallery in Lee's Summit, Missouri. She was a 2023 Print Day in May winner. She has shown in many art festivals, including Lawrence Art in the Park, and Westport Art Fair, and received a Merit Award at the Smoky Hill River Festival. 

Jean Denney is an emerging visual artist working in watercolor, ink, and oil. She is an established movement artist and somatic practitioner with a career in performing arts since 1982.

 Jean's work is both representational and figurative. She often creates representational work when painting in plain air while communing with landscape and the natural world. She paints figuratively when responding to embodied memory or transmuting discomfort, trauma, or existential experiences of being human. Denney's work promotes art making as personally grounding and healing and advocates for process over product. 

Francis Dorrell is a 25-year-old artist, model, and actor living in Kansas City. Originally from the Wichita area, they have devoted their life to creating art to cope with the many things life has thrown at them. Coming from a queer and poor background, they have found art to be their escape from situations many times. They love local theatre and have been active as set painters and designers since they were 17, as well as acting in the plays they have helped bring to life. They have also finished 3 murals in Newton, Kansas. Always trying to make something positive out of a bad situation, they find sharing experiences with others through art to be a blessing. Frankie hopes to keep creating and living to do so, despite many years of trauma and resilience. 

My name is Antonio and I draw to help release my feelings to share with others. 

Teresa Hann is a 40-year-old female who identifies as a lesbian. She started painting as a creative outlet and coping tool when her father passed in July of 2022. It has immensely helped with depression and anxiety. She has found that it greatly helps her find her center and quiet her mind. 

 I have been drawing since I was 5 years old. I use to draw everyday. I am trying to get back into it. I believe Art is a major stress reliever. 

Aphra Maria Moon is a deeply hopeful and depressed almost 30-year-old witch and Mortuary Science student. She lives in Wyandotte County with her roommates, girlfriend, and three cats. She says the following whole-heartedly: Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Haiti, Free Puerto Rico, ACAB, No Gods, No Masters, No Politicians, No Police. 

 I am a trauma survivor. I survived an assault that was meant to kill me and left me with permanent physical disability and mental illness. While I loved creating as a child, I focused on science in school and never took a formal art class. Healing from the trauma was physical, mental, and emotional as I recovered from injuries and navigated through severe PTSD. I took a single-day art therapy class and discovered the magnificent healing power of art. It was deeply meditative, and I found peace and solace in it. I beaded, did some silversmithing, stained glass, and floral design but it was when I found painting that I found hope. I discovered I could advance my healing, as well as help others advance their healing, by exploring some of the darker themes of trauma as well as the available hope and the healing that can follow. The more transparent and honest I am with myself and others, the more recovery comes to me. This is where I found my artistic voice. 

Erika McCoy is an International OCD Foundation Advocate, mom of 2, wife, and curator of the IOCDF Creative Expression Special Interest Group (SIG) with a big heart for advocacy in our faith spaces. She has lived experience with OCD, C-PTSD, MDD, and a TBI. She first started experiencing signs of OCD at 6. Despite being in the mental health system since a teen she didn't receive an appropriate diagnosis till 25. Her mission is to bring advocacy into action through STEAM, help people find a sense of wholeness through the intersection of creative expression and faith across the globe, and bring hope and healing by spreading awareness to the general public. 

Alex is an artist and writer living in Kansas City, Missouri.

Of color. Queer. Born into a male body; our actual genders are winged.

Wonder, love and joy are our core values. 

Brian Shadensack is someone who turned to art to help him through a dark time in his life. They continue to use art as a form of self-therapy. His works reflect on experimentation and how it is ok to to fail. They have a baccalaureate in English and Philosophy from North West Missouri State University.  

Tyler Thornton was born in Overland Park, Kansas in 1992. In high school he was inspired by one of his art teachers. Motivated by her teachings, he became a quick study. Early on, Tyler recognized he was inspired by nature's vastness. He spent time working on hyper realist landscapes. In college, Tyler was challenged to let the subject become the painting. He began a series seen through the lens of a surreal landscape; portraying some of the deepest emotional tolls life can take with regard to decision making, personal relationships, and accountability.

Currently Tyler works on projects that tackle subjects such as death, suicide, and the nature of reality itself. He wants to travel near and far for new experiences and mentors to nurture his creativity. Tyler is a self taught artist, with commendable mentors and teachers along the way. Tyler’s skills in painting portray a wide range of disciplines. He works mostly in oil paints, experimenting with both molding and crackle paste to create depth and extreme layers. Tyler currently resides in Topeka, Kansas, where he hopes to inspire others with the depth, thought, and emotion that goes into each of his pieces.  

A seventh-generation Interdisciplinary Artist with German, Irish/UK and Indigenous ancestral lineage, Jessica is a musician, visual storyteller, art educator, scholar, spiritualist, counselor working in therapeutic expressive arts, mixed media, fibers found objects/recycled art, photography, sculpture, digital media and painting. She is the granddaughter of Henry Zahn, fine art illustrator, who was with Vile Goller Fine Arts in Kansas City (1930s - 1970s). She traverses phenomenological and inner  landscapes in abstraction, and creates original musical compositions or poetry to accompany them. She has completed extensive education in pyschology, fine arts, vocal perfomance, music technology, counseling and therapeutic expressive arts. Her specific ancestry is German, Irish, Metis, English, Anishinnabe (Ottawa/Ojibwe), Eastern Cherokee and Osage.