KALAMAZOO—June 3, 2026
The work of West Michigan’s talented artistic community is on view during the annual West Michigan Area Show at the KIA. This crowd-pleasing annual juried exhibition was carefully curated from more than 500 submitted entries, ranging from paintings, prints, and photos to mosaics, ceramics, jewelry, sculpture, and mixed-media works. Local artists from 14 West Michigan counties submitted their art for a chance to be juried into the show with more than $6,000 awarded to the winning recipients this year.
2026 WMAS Helen Sheridan Memorial Grand Prize Winner: Beth Purdy, Prosperity, collaged paper and oil on panel.
People’s Choice Award sponsored by Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo: Dan Giancaspro, The Beast In Me, ceramic, copper, brass, bronze.
2026 WMAS Awards
Congratulations to our award winners:
• Helen Sheridan Memorial Grand Prize: Beth Purdy, Prosperity
• Second Place: Michael Dixon, The Embrace
• Third Place: Guadalupe Perez-Duran, Where Light Finds Us
• Fourth Place: Erin Mullis, Pansy Party
• Fifth Place: Libby Bergeon, The Three of Us
• Director’s Purchase Prize: Sydney Higgins, Native Michigan Orchids
• Portage Community Art Award: Larry Sandt, Snowy Egret
• Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo’s People’s Choice Award: Dan Giancaspro, The Beast In Me
• The Martin Maddox Prize for Imaginative Realism: Lauren Tripp, Fine and Fancy
• Ninth Wave Studio Award for Ingenuity in Mixed Media or Intermedia: Heather Boersma, What She Carried
• Kalamazoo Art League Award for Excellence in Any Media: Douglas Brinks, Basket Weave Illusion
• West Michigan Potters Guild Award for Ceramics: Caitlin Zachow, Put it on the shelf
• Eclectic Glass Guild of Southwest Michigan: Judy Hallisy, Before First Light
• Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters’ Art Quilt Award: Nikki Horner, Hate Has No Home Here
• Southwest Michigan Printmakers Excellence in Printmaking Award: Felix Sunflower, ˆ
• Kalamazoo Book Arts Center Book, Print, and Paper Award: Jordan Szala, The Other Room
The West Michigan Area Show is made possible thanks to generous support from CWS Financial Advisors, and David Isaacson, in memory of his wife, Helen Sheridan.
2026 WMAS Juror
This year’s juror is Xuxa Rodríguez, Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator of Contemporary Art at Duke University’s Nasher Museum. Prior to her role at Duke, Rodríguez served as the Associate Curator of Contemporary Arts at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Rodríguez presented an ArtBreak lecture on her curatorial practice on May 27.
Click here to see upcoming events in connection with this exhibition.
About the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Founded in 1924, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) is a nationally accredited art museum and community art school that brings people together through creativity, learning, and shared experience. Each year, more than 100,000 visitors explore 10–15 rotating exhibitions across the museum’s 10 galleries, drawn from a permanent collection of more than 4,600 works spanning American, European, Asian, and contemporary art.
Beyond the galleries, the KIA is a place where art is not only viewed but made. The Kirk Newman Art School (KNAS) welcomes more than 3,400 enrollments annually, offering hands-on instruction in ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, drawing and painting, printmaking, fiber, photography, glass fusing, and enrichment programs for all ages. Students learn directly from professional artists and educators in a dynamic, studio-based environment.
The museum campus also includes a multi-media auditorium, a publicly accessible art library, an interactive children’s gallery, and the KIA Gallery Shop featuring work by local, regional, and international artists.
Through exhibitions, education, and community partnerships, the KIA serves as a cultural anchor for Southwest Michigan — a place where art sparks curiosity, strengthens connection, and inspires new ways of seeing. Learn more at kiarts.org.