Opening reception: Friday, November 1 from 6 to 8 pm; 6:30 Holiday toast with artists in attendance

Belger Crane Yard Studios
2011 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64108

‘Tis the season to dream of wintery weather and get an early start on holiday shopping at Belger Arts!

Holidays at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery is an annual exhibition that opens November 1, 2024. Over 80 artists from across the country have created artwork for the holiday season that make the perfect gifts for family and friends. Shoppers can choose from an array of unique artworks in a range of mediums: ceramics, glass, metal, textiles, wood, and more.

Artworks will be available for purchase from November 1 through December 31, 2024.

One of the underlying premises in assembling the Belger Collection is the importance of collecting multiple works over time by the same artist. Collecting in depth provides a glimpse through the artwork into how the artist approaches life, love, loss, and the other inevitable changes over the course of time. The viewer brings a perspective through unique memories and personal experiences that leave a mark and inform identity.

The artists in Whispers and Screams explore their memories and perceptions of people, places, and moments in time. Some of those memories are loud and jarring while others are more reflective and have softened with the passage of time. There are examples of stereotypes, idealized love, lust, romance, excitement, loss, and regret. There are glimpses into the complexity of communities at all levels, the commonalities and the differences.

The works selected for this exhibition focus on people, histories, and relationships. Human beings are pack animals. People look for their communities and how to understand their place in them. In the course of that exploration, an understanding develops of the past, present, and future.

Artists included in the exhibition: Terry Allen, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Nick Bubash, Clayton Bailey, William Christenberry, Robert Cottingham, John De Andrea, Viola Frey, Michael Hannon, Jasper Johns, Guy Johnson, Kate Kretz, Wes Lyle, Ed Massey, Jack Mendenhall, Jerry Ott, Joey Quiñones, Mel Ramos,Robert Rauschenberg, Don Reitz, Larry Rivers,Alex Siburney, Herb Snitzer, Robert Stackhouse, Renée Stout, Akio Takamori, William T. Wiley, and Winter & Williams.

To round out our fall/winter exhibition series, SLCA presents Animal House, a small group exhibition featuring works by represented artists that explore the playful relationships between humans and the animal kingdom. Through a variety of mediums including ceramics, paintings, and mixed-media sculptures, we hope these works invite viewers to reflect on the beauty and complexity of humanity’s relationship with the world around us.

Holiday Reflections, presented by BOK Financial, opens for the 2024 season on Friday, November 22, when it returns for a fifth historic season bigger and better than ever!

This spectacular indoor holiday experience fills Union Station’s massive Grand Plaza and features towering lights, dozens of decorated trees, giant forest creatures, colossal mirrored ornaments, 3‑D animated window displays, Santa appearances, animatronic displays, the award-winning Model Train Gallery with an expanded holiday model train layouts, a bigger-than-ever Rudy’s Wonderland where kids (under 48″) can ride the beloved Jones Store mini train, a holiday-themed VR ride, spectacular holiday-themed photo ops, and much more. PLUS, watch for sneak peeks of exciting new 2024 Holiday Reflections additions! It’s the most holiday family fun in Kansas City, and it’s all indoors with the unique beauty and history of Union Station included.

Pricing:
General Admission is $10
Children 12 months and under are free

Holiday Reflections Hours:
November 22 — January 1
10am — 8pm daily
Closed November 28
Open 10am-2pm December 24
Closed December 25

Nancy Newman Rice was born in New York City and was educated at Cornell University and at Washington University, where she earned a BFA with honors and an MFA. She has received awards that include a National Endowment for the Arts/MMA Fellowship for painting, and nominations for a Tiffany Award and an AVA Award in the Visual Arts. Rice has exhibited her work internationally and her work is included in private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Using Euclidian geometry as the skeleton of the experience is an approach rooted in Art History; Poussin and Cezanne both seized upon this method of pictorial organization through subtle designs and simplified spatial effects. The Sacred Space oil paintings began as an attempt to define the interiors of identifiable architectural structures by inventing elaborate geometric scaffolding to map the space within the confines of each edifice. As the oil paintings evolved the walls disappeared, seemingly erased by time, and what remained was the skeleton of intangible space, in essence, geometry as a sacred artifact.