What inspires Wichita artists? Find out at the art museum

All artists worth their snuff claim inspiration from past greats.

And for many local artists – some of whom grew up and developed their craft here – that inspiration was found at the Wichita Art Museum.

The museum, with its massive collection of American art, has long been a source of fascination for creatives – paintings like Grosz’s “The Pit” and Curry’s “Kansas Cornfield” are often remembered fondly years after grade-school field trips.

So why not curate an exhibit entirely dedicated to what inspires those Wichita artists?

The Wichita Art Museum recently opened “The Artist Project,” an exhibition featuring 48 works selected by the artists profiled in Sondra Langel and Larry Schwarm’s 2016 book, “Wichita Artists in Their Studios.”

Every artist came to the museum, perused through its vaults and picked one piece that inspired them. In the exhibit, each artist explains why that particular piece was chosen.

Sounds like the resulting exhibition would be a haphazard jumble of art with no particular theme, right?

Patricia McDonnell, director of the Wichita Art Museum, doesn’t think so.

“To a certain degree, I thought we were creating a monster for ourselves, because to have a collection of such variety, how do you then place all that in the gallery in a way that makes sense and looks good?” she said. “Ultimately it wasn’t a monster. I think this really worked out very nicely. I’m really pleased with our hang.”

It’s plain to see why some of the works in the exhibition inspired the artists who chose them – the pieces selected by artists Kent Thomas Williams and Patrick Duegaw could potentially pass for one of their own pieces. Hugh Greer selected an idyllic landscape scene, paralleling his own work, and Rollin Karg selected a glass sculpture.

But then there are artists like Jennie Becker, who chose an 18th-century religious depiction, “Blessing of the Dominican Order.” Becker has done projects as varied in scope as the giant dragon sculpture on the wall of Botanica’s Chinese Garden of Friendship to glazed tiles and portraits.

“Certain artists picked things where you can see the relationship between their work and what they chose is just so direct I almost could have picked it for them,” McDonnell said. “Then there were other people who picked things that were way outside their wheelhouse, and it was just curious to see how that worked for different people.”

Fifty Wichita artists were profiled in “Wichita Artists in Their Studios,” but only 48 of those artists still live in town – hence the 48 works in “The Artist Project.”

McDonnell said the exhibit is a manifestation of a recent initiative by the museum to be a resource not only to the general public but to Wichita’s burgeoning creative community.

“We’ve been looking for a whole variety of different ways that we can engage with, have creative conversations with, and really serve the artists who call Wichita home,” McDonnell said. “It’s amazing that Wichita has a collection of this caliber, and artists know it. The general public, I don’t think so.”

The exhibition will hang at the museum through July 9.

This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 5:41 PM with the headline "What inspires Wichita artists? Find out at the art museum."