Kansas City Kansas Community College

The photographic artwork of Felicia Drury will be one of the highlights of a Kansas City Kansas Community College End-of-the-Year Art Department Exhibition at the West Wyandotte Library throughout the month of May.

A showcase of the various art works of KCKCC students, the exhibition will open with a public reception from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, May 3, and run through May 30 at the Library located at 1737 N. 82nd Street.

A Visual Arts and Business major, Drury has been honored by selection of one of her photographs for showing at the 40th Annual Smoky Hill Art Exhibition opening at Hays, Kan., on Friday, April 24. Selection was made by Dr. Jan Schall, the Sanders Sosland Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

“It’s a photo I took at the outside entrance to the Nelson-Atkins Art Gallery,” says Drury. “It’s where the columns are and I leaned back and shot upward.” The photo shows both the rising columns and the ceiling of the entry way. Sponsored by the Kansas Art Commission, Emprise Bank and AT&T, the photograph will remain on exhibit for several weeks.

Drury, who will have several of her photos on exhibit at the West Wyandotte Library, has also had three of her photos published in a 2009 national art calendar.

“She is a natural photographer with the patience to wait for the right moment,” says KCKCC art instructor Norma Cowdrick, from whom Drury has taken three drawing and two painting classes and is one of Cowdrick’s work study students.

She particularly likes nature photos. “I’ve enjoyed photography for as long as I can remember,” says Drury, who was born and raised in the Rosedale-Argentine area. A GED graduate, she’s on a Presidential Scholarship at KCKCC.

“There’s a true serenity in getting lost behind the lens. If I am stressed, as long as I can get to the park or the woods or a lake to do some shooting, I can get lost for hours and forget about my troubles. I enjoy trying to capture all the little things that nature has to show us if we only bother to look close enough.”

Drury has even used her camera to rid her self of a lifelong fear of spiders. “I was terribly frightened by spiders, really horrified, but eventually the ‘need’ to get a good shot got me closer and closer until I now find myself within inches to capture it just the right way. I wouldn’t say that it has completely erased my fears but they certainly don’t control me.”

Drury has also broadened her photographic interests by going into Photoshop where she’s studied photo restoration, enhancements and alterations under Tom Besgrove. “He’s fantastic. So far, I have worked on about 450 photos and have repaired everything from overexposure to filling in huge tears and even removing eyeglasses,” says Drury, whose oldest image was the repair of a photograph taken in 1906.

Eventually, she hopes to be a professional photographer and own her own art business which would include Photoshop repair and restorations. She has her own website, www.thebearswares.com and her photos can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/bearseyeview/.