Artist Kevin Mullins passed away unexpectedly last year in Wichita at the age of 68. His passing marked the end of an amazing life and prolific career that will become so apparent once you arrive and step into the retrospective show being given in his honor at the Ulrich Museum.

From February through March, the Fisch Haus had an artist in residence who recently moved back to North America from Scotland where she received her MLitt in Fine Art Practice from the Glasgow School of Art. She is Sukaina Kubba, an Iraqi-Canadian artist and architect.

Saturday, March 30, will mark the opening of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum.To honor the occasion I will read a few passages from her letters to her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, taken from the book My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, edited by Sarah Greenough.

I was asked by a friend recently if I’ve ever stood before a work of art that brought me to my knees. I told him the story of a road trip I had taken years back, along with my wife, to view a group exhibition that one of our friends was involved with in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Art and Design Advocates is a Wichita group that supports the WSU School of Art, Design, and Creative Industries and its students by providing funding for special needs, travel, and opportunities not financed through state or municipal funding. These funds help to enhance excellence within the art and design program.

I remember back in the mid '90s when selling a painting for $200 was a hard-fought victory. The idea that somebody would buy local art and wanted to live with it was cause for celebration among local artists. An artist could have an exhibition and if she or he walked away with $600 it was a real success.

Wichita artist Bill Goffrier told me that he has strategically steered clear of showing his art in larger spaces.Over the last year he has concentrated on getting his work into every local space he could manage, as directly and personally as possible, to promote his paintings to people who literally told him they were intimidated by the formal gallery scene. He says his latest show at CityArts is a chance to bridge the gap between folks he has reached through what he calls “indie-level” shows, social media postings, and the local art establishment.

A couple of weeks ago, Reuben Saunders, owner of a local art gallery that bears his name, took to social media with an idea to change the legendary Final Friday art crawl event to first Friday. Saunders finds that since most large cities offer a First Friday event it tends to confuse traveling art patrons and places us out of step with the national scene.

Do you feel like you got kicked around in 2018? I know I do. The political climate in the country is at an all-time low. I think people feel down. The “shock” volume has been on 10 for so long, over so many issues, that I think we, as a society, have gone tone deaf. Things just seem meaner.

In July of this year City Manager Robert Layton introduced budgetary ideas to Mayor Jeff Longwell and the City Council that proposed drastic cuts and eliminations of some libraries, public pools, Cowtown, and City Arts in order to “balance” the increased costs of our police force.