Once again, our visitors weigh in on the current exhibition. I look forward to reading these and posting them at the close of every exhibit.

Recent Acquisitions is now closed. We'll be down for a couple weeks installing the next show, the Topeka Competition 29, and will open again for First Fridays, November 6 at 9AM. If you missed this show, remember, you can catch them all at our Flickr page. Enjoy!

  Click image to see full-size PDF.

What is the Topeka Competition?
Fun, whimsical and highly-crafted.

Over thirty years ago, Larry Peters, former Sabatini Art Gallery Director, created The Topeka Competition—TC for short—to give local ceramists, woodworkers, fiber artists, jewelry-makers and other crafts artists an opportunity to show their work at a time when most galleries weren’t yet interested in craft media. This event has grown into a national, biennial, juried...

Our current exhibit, Recent Acquisitions, features the work of 75 artists from the Library's permanent fine arts collection.

You can learn more about the people behind the pieces by clicking this link to our Artist Biographies. The list isn't complete, as some of the artists are relatively unknown or don't have a website available to browse, but there are plenty here to help you get started.

This list is available in hard copy at the Gallery desk, too. PS—if you haven't...

Bicycles in Steel and Copper: Sculptures by Robert Heintzelman

will be on display in the Library’s Rotunda starting Jul 6 and runs through Aug 31. Robert (gallery staff know him as Bob) has been been a volunteer in the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery for a few years now and we wouldn’t trade him for the world! We hope you will enjoy the exhibit.

Bicycling can be transportation, recreation, fitness, competition, and just plain fun.  For me, bicycling represented one of my...

Your summer vacation just started, but ours just came to a close.

What I did on my summer vacation, the Sabatini Art Gallery's 2009 annual exhibit for children, saw 4419 "vacationers"—532 of whom were school children from 15 different group tours—HOORAY!

Constance Ehrlich's paintings were a big hit with kids and adults alike. Toys vacationing at famous landmarks—ie Yoda at Giza, a Stormtrooper at the Great Wall—caused screams of delight, but also allowed us to sneak in a...

I just finished scanning the last of the Telling Secrets postcards and uploading them to our Flickr page.

As I was going through everything, I wondered what people several hundred years from now will think reading through these body image confessions. I wondered what the current fashion industry will be dictating as "beautiful". How we'll compare to 2209 standards of beauty, status and pop culture expectations. What will one have to do to be famous in 2209? Will bodies be...

Want to read what people said about Lauren Greenfield's Girl Culture exhibit?

We truly appreciate it when our visitors take time to sign our guestbook. We learn a lot, from opinions about the show, where visitors are from and how far-reaching our efforts can be (we had a man from Turkey to see Lauren's work).

We also learn what people want to see. Guests make suggestions about artisits they like or encourage/discourage us from repeating an exhibit or artists again.

Feel...

It's an odd year, and at the Sabatini Gallery that means it's Topeka Competition time.

Started by former Sabatini Art Gallery Director, Larry Peters, this biennial, national juried competition for artists working 3-dimensionally has entered its 29th "year" (we began hosting this every other year in 2005 to make room for The Printed Image, our even-yeared national printmaking competition).

The Topeka Competition features cutting-edge contemporary work in clay, metal, jewelry,...

We've had several people ask us recently about Girl Culture's mature content and what happens when a young person expresses interest in seeing the exhibit.

New customers receive a vast amount of printed information from us. I usually give gallery visitors a copy of ConnectNOW, our monthly (and soon to be bi-monthly magazine of events and resources), Library Policies and Procedures, information about joining the Friends of the Library, the Exhibit Schedule, the current exhibit...

Art has the power to bring about change, and change often begins with dialogue. Telling Secrets intends to facilitate taking that challenging first step: talking with each other about difficult subject matter.