Vernon Filley Art Museum

06/03/2026

On Monday, The Filley hosted the Miss Kansas Women’s Empowerment Workshop.
We were impressed by the thoughtful, engaged, and insightful conversations that took place between the delegates with admired and empowered women in our community. Seeing this group of young leaders interact with this exhibit and related social issues was very meaningful to us.
Thank you Miss Kansas Organization for letting us be a part of an amazing day! Thank you Lisa Perez-Miller for her exceptional leadership in developing the concept for this event, facilitating, and her advocacy for mentorship and supporting development. Thank you for the pictures and documenting a unique experience at our museum.

06/02/2026

06/01/2026

The Vernon Filley Art Museum extends a warm welcome to Miss Kansas and Miss Kansas Teen delegates, their families, and judges to Pratt this week!
👑 Make our Queens exhibit part of your visit! Read all about this moving and powerful show here! https://www.vernonfilleyartmuseum.org/current-exhibits.cfm

05/30/2026

Today we honor Emily "Mimi" Filley on what would have been her 107th birthday.
She was born May 30, 1919 in Omaha Nebraska, the fourth daughter of Andrew and Katherine Horwath. Sometime during childhood a neighborhood girl could not pronounce her given name of Emily and began calling her “Mimi”. That name stuck and from then on she was always called Mimi.
Mimi became interested in art during an elementary school field trip to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. After visiting the museum and noticing that many of the works of art were donated, Mimi’s dream became to collect art which could someday be donated to a museum to enhance the lives of others.
The Filley's owned a second home in Santa Fe, New Mexico where Mimi became personally acquainted with many artists and gallery owners. She commissioned, bought, and collected art in the Southwest style. Her purchases were based solely on whether she liked the art piece.
In 2014 The Vernon Filley Art Museum opened and it fulfilled Mimi's childhood and lifelong dream of providing accessibility to the arts in a community that she loved. She was a fixture at many of the events at the museum where she enjoyed visiting with guests and seeing others enjoy the arts.
The Filley is Mimi's enduring legacy. We are so very grateful to her and to Dr. Warren and Karen Filley who continue to honor her through their advocacy and involvement with the. museum!
We are sharing pictures and videos that evoke fond memories of Mimi and the gift she has given us. Because of her, people young and old have access to art in our community!
Happy Birthday, Mimi!🩷

05/29/2026

Across history and culture, the title Queen has symbolized strength, dignity, and public expectation. This exhibition explores how women navigate and redefine those expectations through identity, creativity, and self-representation.

Featuring ceramics, paintings, textiles, and mixed media, QUEENS examines the many roles women inhabit—from historic monarchs to pageant participants, including traditions like the Miss Kansas Pageant. The artworks highlight how beauty ideals can inspire pride yet impose pressure, and how women use humor, resilience, and imagination to reshape what it means to be seen and celebrated.

QUEENS invites visitors to look beyond conventional beauty to discover the personal power, complexity, and everyday royalty women claim for themselves.

Linda Ganstrom
Powder: Mature Marie Antoinette (2018)
Ceramic, Steel, Tulle. Painted Porcelain on a welded steel skirt covered with tulle.
77" x 36" x 36"
$5000.00

Lil Marie (2012)
Stained and Painted Porcelain on Tulle over Steel Skirt
65" x 34" x 34"
$5000.00

05/29/2026

Filley Fridays: A weekly look at a piece from our permanent collection and the artist who created it.
Doug Dawson
"Billie in Purple" (1987)
Pastel on Paper
30.75" x 28.75"

Our piece this week is a beautiful pastel by Doug Dawson, a highly regarded American artist primarily known for his exceptional work in pastel, though he is also adept in oil and watercolor. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1944, Dawson initially pursued a career in science, earning degrees from Macalester College and Drake University before moving to Colorado to teach biology. After witnessing an art demonstration, he decided to transition to art full-time.

He describes his paintings as "visual songs," where subjects are the lyrics and the underlying abstract shapes and colors are the melody. Doug is widely celebrated for his mastery of the pastel medium, particularly in capturing light and color in a way that feels both realistic and musically abstract. He often begins with a monochromatic or contrasting underpainting to set the "color story" and anchor the vibrancy of the final piece. He teaches 7 principles for creating the illusion of depth in a flat painting, often starting with black and white thumbnail studies to work out the composition before color is ever introduced. Dawson emphasizes three essential skills for any painter: The ability to see and interpret values, Creating the illusion of texture through careful edge treatment, and Massing shapes, or visualizing a large mass as an assemblage of similar-valued smaller shapes. He has famously used baby wet wipes to wet down hard pastel underpaintings, turning the pigment into a watercolor-like wash that dries in minutes.

Doug is scheduled to present at Cloudcroft Art Workshops in 2026, where he is known for being a generous instructor who covers every phase of a painting, from initial shapes to soft-edged finishing strokes. You can stay updated on his specific travel schedule by joining his email list directly through Doug Dawson Fine Art.

05/28/2026

🎸🎹🎷🎻 Calling ALL musicians!!!

We are looking for musicians who can play indoor or outdoor small stages for our THIRD ANNUAL FILLEY FEST!!!

The festival celebrates the arts in our community by providing an admission free opportunity for artists to share sell their art in booths on Jackson Street from Fourth to Fifth streets. We are looking for music, solo or band, to add to the festivities.

Apply at https://forms.gle/siAW6yQDQiTPCn9WA
Questions? Call (620) 933-2787 or email [email protected].

05/27/2026

Lexus Shambria Giles (Helena, MT)
Cornrows
2026
Clay, underglaze, luster.
12" x 11" x 1"
$1,500 per tile.
Part of a larger optional installation. Additional tile commissions available.

Textured is a series of wall installations composed of clay tiles arranged into patterns, styles, and sculptural reliefs that mirror the versatility of Black hair. Each tile functions like a strand—individually formed, yet most powerful in collective rhythm. Through repetition, texture, and dimensionality, the work draws a parallel between clay and Black hair as materials that are both malleable and resilient, shaped yet inherently self-defining.
Clay and Black hair share a quiet kinship. Both respond to touch. Both hold memory. Both can be stretched, coiled, molded, and formed into intricate structures without losing their origin. In this series, I explore that shared language of texture—how pattern becomes identity, and how repetition becomes adornment.
The first body of work, Braids and Beads, honors the architectural brilliance of braided styles and the cultural symbolism of ornamentation. Black velvet matte underglaze creates a deep, light-absorbing ground—rich and unapologetic—while bright matte primary and secondary colors punctuate the surface like beads woven into hair. Vibrant gold and silver luster move across the tiles as accents of value and radiance, elevating what has historically been dismissed and reframing it as precious.
The use of relief allows the surface to rise and curve, echoing the dimensionality of braided hair. The wall becomes a head; the tiles become strands; the installation becomes crown.
Textured celebrates Black hair as covetable—worthy of admiration, study, and reverence. It resists narratives that frame texture as something to tame or minimize. Instead, it positions texture as luxury, as artistry, as inheritance. Like clay transformed by fire, Black hair carries history yet continues to evolve. It is adaptable without surrendering its essence.
Through these installations, I invite viewers to see texture not as excess, but as excellence. Not as difference, but as design.
Black hair is not simply styled.
It is sculpted.
It is adorned.
It is crown.

05/27/2026

Laura Krusemark (Scottsdale, AZ)
Pleiadian Queen (Left)
Spring Queen (Right)
2016
Charcoal
30" x 24"
$2,000

There is beauty, and then there is the soul of beauty captured in a single gaze.

Laura is a queen in her own right, known for her breathtakingly lifelike drawings and paintings. Her work doesn't just depict a woman's face; it explores the very fine details that define it—the light in the eyes, the subtle expressions, and the quiet power within. In this exhibit, her pieces serve as a masterclass in the "Performance of Beauty."

We are honored to have her back in our gallery. 🖼️✨