The Lawrence Art Guild’s signature event of the year – Art in the Park is approaching. On September 19th and 20th, the sidewalks of South Park in downtown Lawrence, Kansas will be lined with artist tents, each tent holding unique and creative work. Patrons and visitors are invited to stroll along the shade-covered sidewalks to take in a large display of fine art. Artists working in a wide range of media are selected to participate. This ranges from woodworkers creating striking two-dimensional pieces and abstract sculptures to ceramic artists producing sgraffito-etched or painted wares. Jewelry artists will be ready to talk about how they set stones or solder silver; and glass artists can talk about how they fuse or blow their brilliant work.
Just as Art in the Park has a large selection of different types of media, within each medium something for every taste can be found. Paintings include large florals, landscapes, trees, or abstracts, from tiny treasures to large statement pieces. Those working in pencil have intricate line drawings or sensitive animal portraits. Mixed media work includes images of whimsical scenes, or evocative abstracts.
This year’s Art in the Park featured artist comes from St. Louis Missouri. Shannon Roman is a painter whose bright and expressive works are inspired from her family trips to national parks. “My work explores the wonder of wild places—how nature grounds us, surprises us, and stirs something timeless inside. Inspired by the call to adventure found in national parks, I use layered textures, vibrant color, and stylized abstractions to capture the awe we carry home from the trail, the overlook, or the edge of the sea.”
Additional Art in the Park artists also create landscapes inspired by the natural world including Wichita painter Alaina Pompa; Lawrence native, Jenni White; and Darien Bogart from New Mexico.
For those looking for something other than a landscape, Art in the Park 17 mixed media artists, 13 printmakers, 8 photographers and 27 painters including Ziyadath Radji with her lyrical still-life works, David Nicolson with his urban, geometric abstractions, and Angie Pickman with her cut-paper collages.
