The Stiles Gallery at City Hall

Tamar Fares - January 2026

Tamar Fares is a self-taught artist from Kansas City, Missouri. Her earliest spark of creativity came as a child visiting Kaleidoscope, where she first fell in love with the joy of making art. That sense of wonder and play continues to inspire her work today.

Beginning with watercolor, Tamar sought out bolder, more vibrant tones, which led her to mixed media and eventually acrylic. Across all media, her work is unified by a passion for color.  She frequently incorporates bright, expressive hues that reflect her belief in art as a source of happiness and light.

For Tamar, painting is both an exploration and a celebration. Each piece is a reminder of the joy color can bring, inviting viewers to experience warmth, freedom, and possibility.

Matthew Crist - February 2026

Matthew Crist is an artist based in Overland Park.  A family man, and longtime Johnson County resident, he enjoys bringing elements of the fanciful into the natural world.  “I like making art that combines comfort with a touch of mystery,” says Matthew.  “Like opening an exciting book in a warm bed on a rainy afternoon.”

Matthew works primarily in watercolors, an unpredictable medium, as he calls it.  He enjoys the freedom and the challenge of working with the water, which can behave in so many strange ways on the paper.  “You’re not so much using the water as harnessing it,” Matthew says.  “It’s so unpredictable that all you can do is use it and let it guide you.  It’s like sailing rather than rowing a boat, and it can lead you to some unexpected and beautiful places.”  

Outside of his art, Matthew enjoys going for walks with his family and reading.  He is also an avid fiction writer and author of several novels.  You can find more of his artwork and purchase prints at www.matthewcristart.com.    

The Road Home Exhibit Presented by Restart - March 2026

The "Road Home" exhibit is a powerful storytelling project that aims to raise awareness and compassion for the unsheltered community. It features 18 portraits and stories of former reStart residents, along with a short film that illustrates the challenges faced by those in need of housing. The exhibit is a collaboration between Randy Bacon and reStart Inc., the nonprofit organization that operates the only homeless shelter in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, serving all populations. The exhibition is a testament to the efforts of reStart in providing resources and support to individuals experiencing homelessness.

Shirley Stiles - April 2026

April is the month you can get to know Shirley Stiles, the local artist and patron of the arts for whom the Shirley Stiles Gallery in Westwood City Hall is named.  Shirley was a 55-year resident of Westwood, where she moved with her husband and young family in 1952.  After the new Westwood City Hall was built, she was the driving force behind the establishment of a gallery dedicated to showcasing the work of local area artists, which formed the basis for the city’s well-deserved reputation as a unique venue for local artists to show without having to pay high commissions charged by commercial galleries. With her work in scheduling artists for monthly shows in Westwood, she became the city’s first Art Coordinator, a volunteer position that she held for a decade before her passing in 2006.  

Over the years as an active member of the Kansas City art community, Shirley served on boards and held office in art organizations such as the Kansas City Art Association and the Senior Arts Council.  She was instrumental in setting up links between artists and local businesses and community organizations - from banks to medical centers and nursing homes - making art part of the daily life of all who passed through their doors.  She was also more often than not the main team member who framed, transported, labeled and hung the work, whatever it took move art out of elite settings and into the mainstream.

Shirley’s creativity and artistic ability blossomed at a very early age when, as a young girl growing up in Depression-era Kansas City, she would use whatever materials were at hand to create pencil drawings of friends, family, and the movie stars of the day.  Some of that art is still in existence; the paper is crude, akin to paper bags, but the drawings are beautifully detailed and executed in subtle strokes and modeling.  As a child of the Depression, she was self-taught and, in fact, never considered herself a “real” artist!  

Raising five children in Westwood, her creativity found other outlets.  She sewed with a designer’s eye, making clothing for her four daughters, often adapting patterns and utilizing unique fabric and structural combinations, and was even asked to make church vestments. As a Girl Scout leader, she found ways to bring art into the lives of her charges, developing projects from printmaking to puppetry.  

As time passed, her own art matured and she began experimenting with other media: pen and ink, oil pastel, watercolors, acrylics, monotype and block and serigraph printmaking. In later years, she was able to work with other local artists, who were struck by her ability to master and create in diverse media.  Her subject matter was also diverse.  While she can be described as a regional artist because she recorded the people and places, farmhouses, bridges, roads, rivers and bridges of her beloved Kansas City, and the trains her engineer-husband drove, she also responded deeply to nature in all its forms, so found inspiration in the mountains of Colorado and the Sierra Nevada, the California coast, and in animals who never failed to touch her heart.  

The sheer volume and the variety of Shirley’s artwork are all the more remarkable because for the last decade of her life she was nearly blind.  She had battled macular degeneration for two decades. This disease, which she shared with artist Georgia O’Keeffe, steals central vision, which means that the viewer cannot see what they look at directly.  She painted using only her peripheral vision holding the paintings to the side of her head to try to see without really looking directly.  It is difficult to believe she worked under such heart wrenching obstacles when one views the beauty and power of some of her last paintings.  Shirley continued to draw and paint right up until her passing.  She and her fellow artists of the Westwood Friday Painters Group would meet nearly every Friday in the Community Room at Westwood City Hall to paint and critique each other’s work. It was her art and the camaraderie of her fellow artists that kept her spirit alive.  

Her daughter Kathy Butler, now of Parkville, MO, is keeping her artistic legacy alive by serving as the current Westwood Art Coordinator.  Each April, her daughters share her artwork with the local community.  Please stop by and get to know Shirley.  

Becci Schlotz - May 2026

Becci currently lives in Karlsruhe in southwest Germany.  She found her hobby of searching out and exploring abandoned buildings led her to her passion for photography.  One of the first explorations was an abandoned asylum.  There she found old wheelchairs, rusty beds, and even shoes and clothing left behind by the patients.  This fascinated her so much that she wanted to get a glimpse of how people lived in that environment.  She also saw the beauty in rusty and worn objects.   This beauty might be found in an abandoned building or an old car left to rot in the woods.  She has explored many interesting, forgotten places, including abandoned homes, hospitals, a bakery, hotels, a military base, and factories.   She has sometimes found rooms with dishes still on the table as though the occupants just left.   

Becci does not confine her explorations to Germany.  She has traveled to other countries to seek out these special places and things.   The red fire engine in one of her photos in this show was taken in Belgium.   Some of the other photographs were taken nearer her home, where she loves to explore backroads and forgotten places. 

Many of this show’s photographs were taken on a recent visit to the United States.  Becci started exploring an abandoned school and other buildings in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  

Becci was not formally trained in photography.  The photographs grew out of her desire to capture special moments and preserve the memories she witnessed while exploring. 

Linda Gust - June 2026

I see myself- and my art- as a continual work in progress. Each piece I create is part of an ongoing journey of learning, discovery, and expression. Compelled by an innate need to create, I find deep joy and purpose in working with my hands, exploring a wide range of materials and mediums. Art, for me, is both therapy and meditation—a space where I can relax, reflect, imagine, and respond to the world around me.

Nature is my greatest muse. The colors of a sunset, the delicate unfolding of a flower, the quiet rhythm of changing seasons, and the graceful presence of animals in their natural habitat all stir a sense of wonder and gratitude in me. These moments of beauty inspire not only my artistic practice but also my desire to share that beauty with others. Through my work, I hope to offer a moment of peace, a pause for reflection, and a renewed appreciation of the natural worth that surrounds us.

My art is not about perfection; it is about the connection between myself and the materials, between the viewer and the subject, and between all of us and the earth we share.

Current Art Affiliations:
Chairperson of the Resurrection Art Guild 2015 to present, member since 2005
Curator of Resurrection Leawood Galleries
Resurrection Sacred Arts Committee Board Member 
Miami County Arts Coalition, Past President, Board of Directors 2011 to present 
Curator of Reflections Art Gallery Miami County, Kansas
ArtBeat Volunteer Educator Miami County Elementary Schools
UMKC Alumni Masters of Art History Program

Melanie Nolker - July 2026

After raising three children and enjoying a career in early childhood special education, Melanie started creating artwork in her middle years. One Christmas, Melanie's husband bought me a book called ‘Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered’. It was printed on watercolor paper and had a built-in palette of paints at the bottom. It took several months and much coaxing to open it and begin painting, but since that first day, Melanie has lived and looked at life differently.  The colors are brighter, the contrasts deeper, and her joy is greater.  

Melanie considers herself an expressionist and a colorist.  She currently paints in oils with a palette knife.  In her art, she hopes to share the joy of color and the joy she feels when creating. 

Inspiration
Melanie describes her art as expressionistic in her use of color and impressionistic in style. She paints in Monet's color palette. The colors are exaggerated, and although you know what you are looking at, her renditions are not literal. She is inspired by nature, by travel, and by the energy of the many artists that she paints with.

Kevin Hobbs - August 2026

A native Midwesterner, Kevin Hobbs earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1974. After graduation, he started his professional career as an elementary art teacher in Eureka, Kansas, where he also maintained a private studio specializing in commissioned works for clients.

He soon became inspired by the rugged mountains and incredible diversity of the western landscape. In 1978, he moved to Denver, with plans to attend the Colorado Art Institute and concentrate on his painting.

However, his career changed course, and over the next 30 years, he held key executive management positions with Helzberg Diamonds, Gabbert’s Design Studios, and as CEO of Webster House Design and European Antiques.

In May 2014, Hobbs retired and returned to his original passion – landscape painting. For him, life came full circle when he enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute. Since Hobbs has studied oil painting with Kansas City artists David deRousseau and Anne Garney. He has studied drawing with Crossroads Arts District artist Wes Benson and with the Institute's art instructor, Christopher Lowrence.

Hobbs’s art has been featured during the annual Country Club Plaza Art Fair at Helzberg Diamonds and the Terrasi Living Store.  He was a featured artist in the “Kansas Landscape” show at Prairiebrooke Gallery and “Kansas on Canvas” at the Phoenix Gallery in Lawrence, KS.

His art has been accepted in multiple juried shows, and he produces private and corporate commissions.

• KC Stockyards Show (Landscapes to Explore)
• Prairie Village, KS (State of the Arts)
• Symphony in the Flint Hills (Art Auction 2024)
• Symphony in the Flint Hills (Art Auction 2025)
• Private Client (Lake Lenexa)
• Advent Health (Shawnee Medical Center)
• Advent Health (New Lenexa City Center Hospital)

A nationally recognized and collected artist, Hobbs’s work is held in private collections in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Texas, California, Colorado, and New York.

Artist Statement

“Painting brings me JOY!  I hope my work brings joy to others.  It’s an exploration of the physical world around us, and nothing brings more joy and awe than experiencing the Kansas Prairie. A lone road or distance horizon leads us to future possibilities.”

Maria Vasquez Boyd - September 2026

Maria Vasquez Boyd is a painter, designer, poet, storyteller, musician, and educator. She continues to exhibit her work through solo and group exhibitions across the country. Recently, Boyd’s work was exhibited in A Layered Presence at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Bunker Center for the Arts, the Mattie Rhodes Cultural Art Center, and the Metropolitan Community Colleges, KCMO. Her collection of Mexican Folk Dolls was on display in 2023 – 2024 at the National Toy and Miniature Museum.

Maria is a founding member of the Latino Writers Collective. Her poetry collection, The Weight of Recognition, was published in 2023 by Spartan Press. Her poetry appears in numerous anthologies, including Primera Página, Cuentos Del Centro, Duende, Everyday Things, Toasted Cheese, Kansas City Star, and No One Sees the Irony. 

Boyd is the producer/host, of Artspeak Radio a weekly live program on 90.1FM KKFI Kansas City Community Radio. Since 2012, she has featured local and world-renowned artists, writers, poets, playwrights, and performers locally and internationally. 

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My art is informed through things we cannot see, but those we innately feel. A fugitive paint stroke, a child’s toy from a thrift store, a found bird's nest, together may appear random at first, but like other objects in my studio, a narrative reveals itself on paper or canvas. The work I create is much like a journal; it records and reflects sounds, spirituality, history, petitions, and investigation into the human condition. Through decades of creating art, my work continues to be funded by trust and the certainty of an ever-changing narrative.

Tina Kolm - October 2026

Tina Kolm is a graphic designer and art instructor. She holds a Master's Degree in Graphic Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and a Bachelor of Arts in Art from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

Tina has designed and art-directed visual communications, including package design, corporate identity, product development, promotions, exhibit design, greeting cards, publications, and branding. After employment in New York agencies, Tina joined Hallmark Cards as an art director. She has taught graphic design and computer applications at Johnson County Community College and is now a full-time faculty member at The Art Institutes International - Kansas City. 

The Senior Arts Club- November 2026

The Senior Arts Club of Kansas City was founded in 1977 and is an organization of artists aged 50 and older. There are some 60 members. The group holds meetings on the last Monday of each month at the Roeland Park Community Center.  Election of officers is done annually.  The artists in the group include oil, acrylic, and watercolor artists, along with photographers and various other art mediums.   The group puts on a number of exhibits each year and has had exhibits at the Tim Murphy Art Gallery at the Merriam Community Center, the Endres Art Gallery in Prairie Village, the Johnson County Libraries, the Wyandotte County Libraries, the Unity Spotlight Gallery, and many other locations in the Kansas City area.  For those wanting further information on joining the group, they can contact Bryce Moore at 913- 642-1447. 

Bob Walkenhorst - December 2026

Bob Walkenhorst has been drawing and painting for as long as he can remember, and as long as he's not interrupted.  After receiving a BFA  from Northwest Missouri State University in 1978, he exhibited in national competitions at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the  Albrecht Art Museum in St. Joseph, and in juried exhibitions in Cincinnati and Little Rock.  But his efforts in painting were interrupted in 1983 by a detour into the world of rock n' roll.  As lead singer and songwriter for the rock group The Rainmakers, Bob released 5 critically acclaimed albums, and toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.  After getting that out of his system, and finding a real life with his wife and daughters, Bob rediscovered his love for painting in 2007.  An unapologetic traditionalist, Bob says his watercolors are "a moment, a place, a sharing of an observation that is, hopefully, also the sharing of a meditation on the beauty around us."