Local StoriesNovember 4, 2022

Rising Stars: Meet Angie Evans of Downtown Wichita in the Douglas Design District

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Angie Evans. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Angie Evans is a native Wichitan who has produced original artwork and design work for over 20 years. Her passion started with black and white photography at a young age and ultimately grew into a business where she specialized in portrait and wedding photography. She continues to use the fundamental rules of composition, typography, and color theory to expand into other mediums and industries.

Angie has been involved in the local Final/First Friday gallery walks and artisan markets since 2006. She has displayed fine art and photography in numerous exhibitions over the years. She and her husband purchased a commercial property in 2019 and have completed renovating the space for an art studio, workshop, and gallery space. Art House 310, which opened in June 2020, focuses on creating a physically dedicated space to work in, an area for others to explore art. However, shows, participation in monthly gallery walks, and a space for others to come and participate in workshops and learning opportunities. Angie’s goal is to encourage others to explore art and have access to art.

“I like to think of our target market as an “everyday artist.” With the opening of Art House 310, I am one step closer to this reality of creating a hub for art in Wichita.”

ABOUT ART HOUSE 310
Art House 310 is a dream in the making! Art House 310 is a space for visual artists. Our mission is to help expand the arts in Wichita and be a resource for all artists. Art House 310 opened in June 2020. Since opening, Art House 310 has featured over 100 local artists with monthly featured artist gallery shows, Holiday Artisan Markets, Artist Invitational group shows, and resident artists. Our vision for Art House 310 is to help emerging as well as seasoned artists a place to exhibit and sell their work. This vision is rooted in our own experiences navigating the art world. We welcome new and emerging artists! We want to be a welcoming face for artists just starting their exhibition careers and seasoned artists who wish to exhibit at a gallery that encourages art marketing and sales. We strive to be a resource for information on exhibition best practices, event marketing, post-opening marketing, and sales.

Our ideal artists:
– Are local artists! Some of the best talents are right in our backyard!
– Are eager to sell their artwork to viewers and collectors.
– Conduct themselves professionally and timely in business practices.
– Understand the most successful exhibitions are where the artist and the gallery work equally hard in the promotion.
– Are actively engaged on social media to aid in their work’s promotion, marketing, and sales, both before and during the exhibition.
– Are willing to reach out to their collectors, family, friends, and mailing lists to promote their exhibition.
– Are excited to tell the story of their practice to viewers and collectors at an opening and closing reception.
– Have an online presence for their work with business cards or other materials as a take-away for viewers and collectors.
– Are willing to abide by Art House 310’s Artist Professional Guidelines.
– Are prepared with several quality works to hold an artwork exhibition. (Minimum of 20-30 pieces)
– Understand that only some artwork is a good fit for Art House 310. Keep making art!
– Understand that artwork is fun work!

Owned and operated by Angie & Rhett Evans, Art House 310 is a (likely never-ending) work in progress to become a space for art exhibitions, workshops, group shows, and eventually, the ability to offer private rentable art studios. We believe in Wichita. We believe in art. Some of the best talents are in our backyard; we decided to buy into this life. We sold our home, rented a loft in Old Town, and used our private investment to build this dream. After what felt like an eternity of looking for a location, including 3 other property deals that weren’t meant to be. Art House 310 finally found a home! We chose a location just off the beaten path to hopefully be a part of further growth in our downtown area. Our necessities included: space (but not too much), a close to downtown proximity, an inviting street presence, and blank exterior wall space for murals to help drive traffic to this “off the beaten path” area. What looks like a plain, old little warehouse to some looked like a future to us! We are so excited to see how Art House 310 will evolve! Since our opening, we are beyond blessed to have had such a great response from the Wichita community and local art community. We are thrilled to announce that we are booking almost 2 years out for featured artist gallery shows.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Opening a business during a global pandemic is not for the faint of heart! The silver lining is that we had ample time to do renovations for a June 2020 opening date. We had no idea what that might look like with Covid, but we slowly started having small events with many precautions until we got the start we had hoped for before Covid.

We entered this endeavor knowing that this business would essentially be a second full-time job for us. Do we joke that how else would we pay for this glamorous lifestyle? The idea to purchase a commercial building is rooted in need to get our art and everything that comes with it out of our living space at our home. What was needed was a studio space. After a long year or so looking for a suitable space and a few other deals that fell through, we finally found the perfect spot. This property had enough additional space, so we decided to use it as a platform for other local artists to show their work.

We would want to do things a little differently. Learning from our challenges in navigating the art world, we decided only to showcase local artists for the foreseeable future. Several other galleries in our area showcase regional and national artists, which is wonderful. Still, often, it takes more work for local talent, especially emerging artists, to get a platform to show their work and break into the art scene. We wanted to be open to seasoned and emerging artists, allowing them to show their work alongside those seasoned artists. This not only allows for great viewership for both groups but also allows for several learning opportunities for those emerging artists.

Another thing we made a point to focus on is utilizing social media for marketing and promotion. Angie’s background is in marketing, so this was a no-brainer. Most other galleries in our area still relied on more traditional media for marketing and promotion, and only a few of it at that. We wanted to make our featured artists feel like rockstars and feature each artwork they had on display. We strongly encourage the artists to share in the show’s promotion and their work, and the result has been tremendous. We have frequent visitors to the gallery that see the work on our social media channels and come in specifically to see one piece and end up leaving with sometimes multiple pieces. It’s been a great way to showcase some of our more seasoned artists.

Our biggest goal in changing the traditional art gallery narrative was to have each artist that walks through our doors have an experience that exceeds their expectations of what a gallery provides. We know we have achieved our goal through feedback from our post-show surveys, the desire from many artists to get on the calendar for future shows, and the vast support we hear each month from artists and patrons during our gallery openings. The response has been more than we ever could have imagined! We are proud to say that we have provided a platform for over 100 local artists in the short two years we’ve been open, and we are booking artists upwards of two years in advance.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Angie attended Johnson County Community College, Wichita State University, and Wichita Area Technical College/WSU Tech and studied marketing, graphic design, photography, and general studies. Throughout her professional career, Angie has been an influential part of many companies working in creative direction, commercial printing, strategic marketing, graphic design, web design, photography, UX strategy, multi-media design, and production.

Angie’s design and commercial work has been seen in international, national, and local advertising for various products and industries. In contrast, her photography work can be seen displayed by numerous individuals and companies and published in The International Library of Photography’s “America At the Millennium; Best Photos of the 20th Century”. Angie is a former Gallery XII Artist member and the youngest member ever to be inducted. Angie is a self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur. In addition to owning and operating Art House 310. Angie has been a part of the WSU Tech (Previously Wichita Area Technical College) Strategic Communications team as the Creative Director and Marketing Strategist since 2015, in which she and her team have aided in continued enrollment growth with a nearly 20% overall increase over the past 5 years.

Professional Organizations and awards:
• Wichita Chapter for American Institute of Graphic Arts – member
• Interaction Design Foundation – member/student
• Wichita Chapter for American Marketing Association – member
• National Council for Marketing & Public Relations – previous member
• Wichita Women Artists – member
• The Arts Council – member/supporter
• Professional Photographers of America – previous member
• Team Red, White & Blue – previous member
• Wichita Homebrewers Organization – previous member
• Wichita American Marketing Association – 2017 Gold Award to Wichita Area Technical College Marketing team for their work with Wichita Promise
• Wichita American Marketing Association – 2017 Gold to Wichita Area Technical College Marketing team with Intake Studios for the “2016-2017 School Year Commercial.”
• Artist INC 2020 Cohort – member/participant
• Named one of Wichita Business Journal’s 2020 Career Women
• Wichita American Marketing Association – 2022 Gold to WSU Tech Strategic Communications team for Brand Engagement
• Wichita American Marketing Association – 2022 Silver to WSU Tech Strategic Communications team for Brand Engagement
• Wichita American Marketing Association – 2022 Gold to WSU Tech Strategic Communications team for Digital Media Campaign
• Named one of Wichita Business Journal’s 2022 Marketing Awards Honorees

Volunteering:
• Wichita Literacy – design work
• Avenue Art Days – mural
• Alzheimer’s Association of Central & Western Kansas – design work
• Future Hope Haiti – design/photography work
• Team Red, White & Blue – design work
• Wichita Police Foundation – design work
• Help-Portrait – photography work
• Great Strides Walk – photography work
• Tanganyika Wildlife Park – photography work
• ArtAid – artwork
• Love Wichita – labor volunteer
• WSU Tech Foundation – committee member

What makes you happy?
There are so many things that make me happy! Knowing that if I can imagine something, I can create it or at least attempt to. There is so much opportunity and adventure when living a creative life. Watching others embrace their creativity and ambitions makes me happy, and providing a space for that to thrive makes me happy! Outside of my creative endeavors, I feel most comfortable when I get travel. I have a special place in my heart for the beach, and I feel most relaxed and at peace there. I love spending time with my family and friends, and when all these things collide, there is no happier place in the world.

Contact Info:

Website: https://arthouse310.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arthouse310/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtHouse310
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCajapxeJdPvP44jWRPzP6hQ

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