Resident Artists

Laura Orr is a Kansas City based artist who often references her East Coast roots in shoreline and nature works. Laura began painting during her years as a Critical Care Paramedic in Connecticut as a decompression practice. The hand steadiness needed with the lessened life-or-death outcome ignited a creative fire that continued for years. A self-taught and continually progressing visual artist, Laura started entering shows and galleries with watercolor paintings, mostly shorelines and birds with an evolution of nature pieces. What was once a small cathartic hobby expanded to acrylics, oils, and eventually large-scale murals. With a move to KC only a few years ago, Laura left the medical field to start a mural business, Harpy Art Studio. Continuing her original works in studio, she expresses with illustrative pieces demonstrating realistic representation of familiar subjects in familiar places, with questions of the representation itself 

Born and raised in the Funeral Industry, Elise learned at a young age the value of life and the preciousness of time. After leaving her small hometown in Illinois, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, concentrated in ceramics, from the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri. Elise considers her work a direct reflection of her emotional state. Not limiting herself to material bounds, she describes her artistic process as therapeutic and uses art to process hardships and celebrate her life experience. Elise studied oil painting under the guidance of David Anderson and Pat Bereskin at Bereskin Gallery and Art Academy in Bettendorf, Iowa. Through spending her spare time outside, Elise uses nature to inspire, whether making landscapes by squishing clay under her feet in the rain or volunteering to assist in the Glass Lab at Englewood Arts in Independence, Missouri. She continues her practice by collaborating with other creatives and investigates forms and surfaces by manipulating material in ways she would approach different mediums. Through capturing light and little moments in time, Elise hopes to leave a glimmer of empathy in the world. 

Artist, educator and advocate, Calder Kamin, transforms trash into beautifully crafted creatures and opportunities to inspire others to be creative and courageous about the future. Kamin's recycled art and public workshops have traveled to museums across the states including The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Utah MOCA, The American Museum of Natural History, The Wolf Museum of Exploration and Innovation, The Amon Carter Museum of Art, The DoSeum, The Currier Museum of Art, the Contemporary Austin, and Women & Their Work. From 2021-2024, Kamin hit the road and traveled to 16 residencies in 9 different states including The Bryn Du Mansion (OH), Wassiac Project (NY), Bunker Projects (PA), SiNiCa Studios (TX), and Oak Spring Garden Foundation (VA). Kamin and her work have been featured on the Disney Channel and the PBS series Craft in America and Arts in Context. She recently completed her first permanent 2% for the arts commission for Austin Art in Public Places. Kamin holds a double Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Kansas City based artist Lula Renee Edwards Smith explores a multitude of mediums surrounding concepts of memory and home. During their time studying at the Kansas City Art Institute, Smith had developed passion for clay, fiber, and community teachings. Capturing memory through material became of interest to Lula and developed quickly through different means. Gravitating towards processes that required many steps through preparation and execution, the work itself became a practice of memory. From material to performance, every detail of her work comes from a place of intentionality. This brought Smith to explore concepts surrounding evidence of existence both with themselves and the world around them. Intrigued by memory and this evidence of existence within the world, community teachings became a passion to Smith as it allowed them to contribute to concepts of collective memory through art. From clay to basketry weaving, Lula began hosting classes to bring community members together to learn from one another and continue this necessary tradition of gathering and holding space with one another. Smith hopes to carry on and explore concepts of material, intentionality, and leaving evidence of existence in connection to memory and home.

Cole Kennedy was born in Overland Park, Kansas in 1996. Growing up, art was something he’d always been drawn to, which led him to Emporia State University where he attended from 2016- 2020. He triple majored in Glass Forming, Sculpture, and Printmaking. He focused on creating work that dealt with nature and the creatures that dwell there, and how the impact of humans has on the environment. His focus was on using recycled and found materials to fabricate the work, while using a bit of humor to get across his ideas. Working in a production shop refining hands skills and getting to fabricate large scale armatures and equipment. After the production shop he went to work at art centers which lead to the residency at Englewood Arts.

Maya Jones (she/her) is native to Pittsburgh, PA and recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. She primarily works as a draper and designer in the costume industry. She has been sewing professionally for four years, and on her own time she enjoys testing her skills by creating historical garments for exhibition. One of her goals is to make historical fashion feel more accessible and engage audiences with modernized exhibits. In her costume designs, she blends period and contemporary silhouettes and plays with fabric choices. She is currently interested in sheer fabric and how they can be used unexpectedly to create dimensional pieces. She has previously designed four shows at Pitt Stages and completed the Frederick Honors College Creative Arts Fellowship. That fellowship resulted in the construction and exhibition of an 18th century French court gown, which was displayed alongside an Interactive Digital Wall exhibit that she put together to help educate audiences about the fashion and its historical context.

Joe Tong is a glass artist based in Ohio, shaping molten light into surreal reflections of thought and form. For the past nine years, he has worked with furnace glass, drawn to its fire-born fluidity and its ability to capture the ephemeral. His creations live at the edge of dream and distortion—where the everyday bends into the extraordinary.

Inspired by surrealism, Joe’s pieces challenge perception, conjuring otherworldly shapes that feel both ancient and futuristic. Each sculpture is a meditation in motion, frozen mid-shift—organic, abstract, and often unexpected.

Glass, for Joe, is not just a medium, but a moment: one of heat, pressure, and intuition. Through his work, he invites viewers to linger in that moment, to see beyond the visible, and to imagine what lies just beneath the surface.

Annie Honn is a Kansas native who began working with glass at Emporia state, where she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts. Annie’s primary focus is blown glass vessels, exploring patterns, line work and bold colors. Annie’s love of glass is fueled by the intensity of the craft and the coordinated dance your whole body performs when creating each piece.

She enjoys making objects that have use in everyday life and aims to make glass a part of an individuals’ daily routine. Annie’s primary drive in glass is mastering techniques to make objects that are finely crafted and feel good to use while being visually pleasing and engaging.