There’s been a debate of late in Wichita over the importance of art, particularly as it relates to public funding, but artist Kay Ferris can make her argument for it in two words: It’s everything.
“Being creative . . . and playing with my ideas . . . is what has given me life and a hope for the future,” Ferris said.
“Right now, people are worried sick about everything that has to do with the future . . . Creativity is the answer to a lot of our problems.”
Ferris was rather surprised to learn she’s the featured Harvester Arts artist in September, including for the organization’s grand opening at its new space in the Lux during the Sept. 27 Final Friday.
“It scared me half to death,” Ferris said.
“Harvester Arts to me is a huge contributor to Wichita — to the city, to its people and to its creativity,” she said. “To be connected with them is an extreme honor. It’s been a life-changing event for me.”
She’ll be sharing her Kay’s Kritters, which are drawings of wild beasts that Ferris creates with inspiration from what she sees, including from everyday objects in her home.
The Wichita native used to work with other kinds of animals. She was a biology major and then received her master’s in zoology before working in the Smithsonian’s department of vertebrate zoology.
Ferris worked on her PhD in South Africa during apartheid.
“That caused me a mental breakdown. I couldn’t understand treating human beings the way they did.”
She left her work with epauletted fruit bats and began volunteering in hospitals for the South African Red Cross Society.
Eventually, Ferris returned to Wichita and worked in a yarn shop before getting her nursing degree and working at Wesley Medical Center. She then took time off to care for failing family members.
Ferris had created art since she was a small child, and with encouragement from a man at an art guild, she went back to it.
She and several others formed Mead Street Gallery, which was open in downtown for 16 years before closing in 2018.
It was there she began to develop her Kay’s Kritters. She’d draw something like a lizard or a turtle “and see if I could jazz it up.”
“Nah, this isn’t working,” she said she’d think. “I need something that’s wilder.”
Ferris started showing the Kritters at the gallery to see how people connected with them.
“One of the first things I learned is the Kritters have to have eyes.”
That’s because when anyone sees real animals, “You’re going to look that animal right in the face.”
Ferris also creates loveys for children by crocheting colorful skirts for stuffed animals she buys from dollar stores. She’ll sell them at Harvester Arts and donate the items and the money from them to the Treehouse, a faith-based nonprofit that offers moms educational programs, layettes and car seats.
She also she knits Twiddle Muffs, a type of fidget, for people with dementia to play with or for children or anyone else who would like the distraction.
When people connect with Ferris’ work in an especially deep way, particularly with her Kritters, she said it gives her a sense of purpose.
“The few times that happened, it made me feel like I wasn’t wasting my time. That if there are people out there that could react that way to them, then I should keep doing them.”
Ferris has never been married or had children.
“Being totally alone, you have to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning. Everybody does, and creativity is what does it for me.”
