About us
Five studios, two party rooms and a room full of people who make things. Everyone is welcome here, at any skill level and at any age.
KC Art Van Gogh is a working studio, not a gallery. Clay, plaster, resin and paint, plus woodworking, scrapbooking and the Imagination Station for the youngest makers. Come in for one class, take a membership and treat the place as your own, or book a room for a party.
The thing that makes it work is the mix. On a given afternoon there are children on their first plaster cast, retirees deep into a watercolour, and somebody three months into a piece that lives on a shelf between visits. They all use the same tables.
Cost should not decide who gets to make things. We accept barter, trade and exchange of services alongside the usual ways of paying. If that is what is stopping you, come and talk to us.
Raytown roots
We are on 63rd Street, a few doors from where Raytown started.
In 1848 William Ray set up a blacksmith shop at what is now 63rd Street and Raytown Road. The settlement that grew around it was called Ray's Town, and by 1854 it was Raytown. That corner is a couple of blocks from our front door, and the Raytown Historical Society Museum — in the old Fire Station No. 1, built in 1944 — is four doors east of us at 9705 E 63rd Street.
Historic downtown is a good place for a studio full of people making things by hand. It has been that kind of street for a while.
A.I.M. — Activation Impact Maker
A.I.M.'s stated mission is to assist in training, educating, equipping and imparting people to work using their natural gifts and talents. Much of that happens in this building.
Assessment and introductory classes. Working out what someone is actually good at, which is harder than it sounds and worth doing properly.
On-the-job training with mentors, through approved partners. Real work, supervised, with someone to ask.
Continued education, starting a business, or placement into employment — whichever fits the person.
If you want to know more about the academy, or you think it might be for you, call (816) 388-0089 or come in and ask. It is the same front door.
Partners
We partner with the Raytown Artists Association, organized in 1964 and promoting the visual arts in this city for sixty years. They run monthly meetings, educational programs and workshops, show original work in businesses around Raytown, and give a scholarship to a graduating senior heading into the visual arts.
Their annual Invitational Art Show puts over 300 works in ten categories by more than 80 Kansas City artists in front of judges, for ribbons and cash prizes.
Party add-ons — balloon artists, face painters, bounce houses, costumed characters and henna artists — come through Coba's Creations.
And we are four doors west of the Raytown Historical Society Museum, in the old Fire Station No. 1.
