If you are an art lover on a search for unique, hand-crafted items for gifts or for yourself, we’ve spent our share of time looking for those locally owned go-to places. Here is our list of shops that exclusively feature the fine hand-crafted work and designs of artists and artisans.
Gallery Shops
Several Galleries in the area bring a collection of work from local artists together into engaging retail environments that complement their current or past exhibits.
We love The Phoenix Gallery in Lawrence, with a large retail space upstairs on Massachusetts Street (Mass Street to locals), and two gallery spaces that feature exhibits by local artists with Final Friday opening events. In the retail space you’ll find blown glass, hand thrown ceramics, smaller prints from featured artists and handmade jewelry, among other things.
The Crossroads is filled with galleries featuring incredible exhibits and collections of local artists. The Leed-Voulkis Gallery has added a retail shop of small prints and giftable objects from 40 artists, with the intent of offering a selection of artist-create goods that are accessible in both format and price.
Arts Centers & Artist Collectives
Two local arts centers in the area bring together a mix of arts classes, studio spaces and exhibits, with artists’ work offered within a retail shop environment as well. Belger Arts brings together a beautiful collection of objects by artists from the region and US to the Crossroads, with work presented both by medium and by artist. You can shop in person at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery (2011 Tracy Ave., KC, MO) or browse their collection in their online shop.
Englewood Arts brings this concept to the Eastern part of the Metro area in Independence, MO, with a gift shop featuring blown glass, fiber and mixed media works by local and EA resident artists.
Local Artist Collective retail spaces feature a mix of products created by local artists and artisans in stores run by the artists themselves. Eclectics Gallery is in the Waldo neighborhood in Southern Kansas City, and Northland Artists Gallery is in the charming downtown area of Weston, Mo., on the Northern end of the Metro area. Both stores offer a variety of beautifully crafted objects and jewelry.
Museum Stores
There is nothing like a museum shop, filled with art and design-related books and beautiful objects derived from the museum’s collections, paired with the curated collections of work by local artists and jewelers. We love the Nelson-Atkins Museum Store, housed near the entry of the museum in the Bloch building. Visit in person or browse online if you can’t get there in person.
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art brings their modern aesthetic to the art and objects in their store collection, including works by local makers and prints of artists featured in their Atrium project, which annually presents the work of emerging and mid-career Hispanic and Latinx artists at the museum. In Johnson county, check out the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art shop near the museum entrance on the Johnson County Community College Campus, also showcasing a curated collection of books and work from local artists.
Uniquely KC
A small group of area shops bring handmade artisan work and unique KC swag products together to present a retail environment that supports the KC makers community more broadly. Here you’ll find the unique KC souvenir to bring home or swag to wear to the game to show your local pride. Made in KC has several locations around the metro area, as does Shop Local KC. Crafted Collective brings a world-view to this approach, featuring artisan-crafted fair-trade objects from 40 countries in downtown Overland Park in Johnson County.
For Makers
If you also love to craft your own projects, two locations in the KC metro have caught our eye as locally-owned, unique maker boutiques. Florilegium brings unique finished objects together with “rare and beautiful ingredients to fuel your creative fire”, and a host of classes to show you how to use the unique products and ideas they bring to market. The ADHDIY Craft Cafe brings a unique menu-style approach to the place-based crafting movement (or get a to-go box!)
We hope you’ll support the unique, the local, the artist-crafted collections wherever you find them around town!
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