Fan Club

The F.A.N. Club was founded on April 1, 1987 by a group of eight professional women artists in Lawrence, KS, USA. We have been meeting once a month since then. The F.A.N. Club was organized to provide a venue for support and nurturing of the members’ careers, and to address the specific problems and challenges experienced by artists in general and women artists in particular. It has evolved into an organization of leaders in the visual arts. The initials F.A.N. could stand for many different things, but primarily it just means we are each other’s fans. The original members have changed with time, focus, and moves from Lawrence. Of the eight original members, six remain in the group. We currently include nine sculptors, ceramists, fiber artists, painters, mixed media, performance and installation artists. As diverse as we are in age, medium, and artistic style and lifestyle, the one thing we all share is our total and professional commitment to our art.

Some of the activities and information the F.A.N. Club shares are: announcements and experiences about exhibits and competitions; materials, technical tools and processes; hosting workshops and demonstrations; representing one another to galleries and museums nation-wide and internationally; discussing aesthetics, ethics and philosophical issues; critiquing each others’ artwork; taking retreats to make art, to travel to national art exhibits, and for individual and group enrichment. We are very politically active, working for the betterment of all visual artists in our community and around the world. All F.A.N. Club members contribute to our community through donations and involved volunteerism. Through the F.A.N. Club’s seventeen-year stint, we have organized several group exhibitions at the Lawrence Arts Center, at the University of Kansas Museum of Anthropology, and a 2002 international exhibit in Ottawa, Canada, among many others.