First Friday art show, sale will feature pieces of a late artist’s massive ceramics collection
For the past few weeks, Trish VanOsdel, the co-owner of Reuben Saunders Gallery, has been both a sleuth and a scavenger as the gallery prepares for an exhibition that follows through on the wishes of a local collector to keep the ceramics he curated over decades — including pieces by well-known artists — in the hands of other local art collectors.
In October, Andy Kenyon wandered into the gallery at 3215 E. Douglas, just down the street from his Hillcrest apartment, to visit with VanOsdel about consigning several pieces from his collection.
When she and her husband, Bruce, who is also a ceramic artist, got a look at what Kenyon had collected, they suggested that the collection be featured and sold in one of its monthlong shows that opens during Wichita’s First Fridays art crawl.
The showing and sale of the collection will open with a reception from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7. A smaller show, “Lover’s Eyes Deux,” will feature miniature artworks of eyes created by local artist Sara Grant.
Both shows will be on display through March 1. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.
Generally, a collection with the caliber of artists and pieces Kenyon amassed over more than 50 years would be sold through an auction. But Kenyon wanted to offer it to fellow local art enthusiasts.
“It’s a fantastic collection that includes some top-notch stuff and really choice pieces,” said Ted Adler, an associate professor of art and head of ceramics media at Wichita State University.
VanOsdel had asked Adler, who spent two years as an artist-in-residence with the premier Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, to help track down the identity of the potter’s marks on several pieces.
The collection includes works by Ken Ferguson, whom Kenyon studied with at the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1970s; Richard St. John, a WSU professor Kenyon studied with for his Master of Fine Arts degree; Chris Staley, a now-retired Penn State professor whom Kenyon also got to know when Staley was at WSU; and David Shaner, another icon in the ceramics field.
“These are all nationally known, if not internationally known, as top-tier artists that have made their mark on ceramic arts history and our American craft history,” VanOsdel said.”
Originally, the 82-year-old Kenyon had planned to help VanOsdel organize the show and sale, but his health suddenly declined, and he died on Jan. 11.
While Kenyon had displayed many pieces of his collection on pedestals, on the tops of cabinets in the kitchen and in cases in the living room, he’d also tucked away several pieces in boxes and even in the back of his closet, said VanOsdel and Kenyon’s sister, Maggie Viani, who helped sort through Kenyon’s possessions.
“We opened one box that had an old computer hard drive, some plumbing parts, small zip ties and then underneath, a piece was carefully packed in bubble wrap and newspaper,” Viani said.
She and her husband, Pat, located a platter created by St. John on a closet shelf.
Fortunately, VanOsdel’s efforts to track down pieces of Kenyon’s collection and identify their makers were helped by Kenyon’s meticulous records.
Folders in a file box, alphabetized by artists’ last names, yielded purchase receipts and even clippings about the different artists in his collection. He also had a partial inventory list compiled on a flash drive.
While the records were a welcome find, both VanOsdel and Adler said they would have loved to hear Kenyon’s stories about how he knew some of the artists and acquired their works.
Viani called her brother’s passion for making and collecting art “an insatiable quest.” Only one quarter shy of finishing a Master of Business Administration degree, Kenyon had switched to studying art instead.
In a sense, Kenyon’s association with the Reuben Saunders Gallery has come full circle.
Saunders helped organize one of Kenyon’s first exhibitions of his own works at the former Art Works gallery on East Central. A review of the show was published in The Wichita Eagle on Aug. 17, 1979.
Several of Kenyon’s pieces will be included in the February show and sale, as well.
