Art Appreciation

Last night after our monthly Irish Fest committee meeting, the staff stopped by Kelly's Westport Inn for a little refreshment. Those meetings build a powerful thirst, what with all the motions and seconding and objections and gavel banging and shouting. Kelly's is one of the world's truly great pubs and has been holding down the corner of Westport and Penn since 1947. And of course owner Kyle Kelly is a founding board member of your Kansas City Irish Fest, the actual birth of KCIF having taken place in his kitchen in 2002 when the decision to combine the Brookside and Westport festivals was made. You could spend hours in Kelly's studying the 61 years worth of stuff on the walls. It's a gallery of Kansas City history. A gallery that serves beer in huge paper cups and a slice of pizza in the back.

I don't want to brag, but I've got art on the walls of Kelly's myself. My own collection of work, as a matter of fact. Not behind the bar, exactly. Or in the front room. Or the back room. Okay actually it's the men's room. The series of posters I've illustrated for the Boulevard Brewery over the years are proudly hanging on the walls of the jax, slowly being destroyed by men who apparently just can't stand there and pee without messing with the art in front of them. They're those posters advertising Boulevard Dry Stout, the ones with "Stout On The Town" and "Stout To Lunch" and that sort of thing on them. The copies in Kelly's have been scribbled on, scratched on, scorched with lighters, and God knows what else. But still in spite of the abuse my work's taken, I'm honored beyond words to have my private gallery in the toilet of Kansas City's greatest bar. It makes all that time and money I spend on art school worthwhile. When you're in midtown next, stop in and check it out. If you're coming to K.C. for Irish Fest, make sure to add a visit to Kelly's to your agenda. Have a beer, say hi to Kyle and his co-owner brother Pat for me. And check out my art.

Sadly, my gallery is not open to women, being located in, you know, a men's toilet.