This is shaping up to be a huge year for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, one that will determine the future of the institution for decades to come. A three-year plan to restructure the museum’s employee benefits programs led to nearly two dozen retirements and early retirements in recent months.

You could almost call it art by accident. Ben Wills and a friend were tossing a paper airplane back and forth in their Atlanta studio. The plane had been constructed by a man in prison. It was sturdy. It flew straight and true. Wills and his friend had been playing catch with the construction for several days in a row.

Using colored pencil, graphite and gel pen, Kansas City/Lawrence artist Fuko Ito conjures imaginary worlds in her entrancing small works featuring “fumblys,” the artist’s name..

Hadley Clark wants you to think twice when you open your closet or dresser drawer in the morning.“ We all have a relationship with clothes,” she observes. “Every day we wake up and we make a choice.”