Most holiday markets and pop-up shops are in the rear-view mirror, but it's not too late to buy thoughtful artist-made and other creative gifts.

From specific to general, a few dollars to a few hundred, here are a some suggestions to get you started. Our first holiday gift guide includes items by makers we've admired for years as well as products that just caught our eye this season.

1. Hannah Lee Scott's Kansas wildlife glasses ($19.95 each)

Vortex Souvenir, 607 W. Douglas Ave. in Wichita, stocks lots of products carrying the illustrations of Kansas City-based artist Hannah Lee Scott, but I'm particularly fond of her glassware designs. The latest celebrates Kansas flora and fauna, and it might be my favorite to date.

Vortex offers a dizzying number of excellent gifts, including a plethora of prints and some of the sweetest stationery in town. Browse in person at Vortex Souvenir's Delano storefront or shop online.

#2 T-shirts & hoodies by Sheldon Draper ($25-50)

Wichita artist Sheldon Draper's apparel designs share the spirit of his pop-culture and jazz-infused paintings, which incorporate ephemera such as product labels and magazine clippings.

Find a variety of styles available on his website. (Order by December 12 for delivery by Christmas.)

You can also see Draper's 2D works in person this month at Vagabond Cafe in Wichita, 614 W. Douglas Ave.

#3 Maven Holiday Calendar ($60)

For the past eight years, Wichita-based photographers Austin Mann and Esther Havens Mann have produced an annual desk calendar featuring their work. The collection of 5-by-7-inch prints comes with a simple, handcrafted walnut wood stand. (You can also buy the prints by themselves for $40.)

The calendars are available for purchase at Maven Gallery in Wichita, 3238 E. Douglas Ave., or online. Place web orders by December 15 if you want to receive your items before the 25th.

4 ICTMF Apparel

One of the tenants in the Ballroom Collective, located on the second floor of The Workroom in Wichita, 523 E. Douglas Ave., ICTMF offers a range of merch that puts an irreverent spin on local pride.

I was particularly taken by the sweatshirt that references a well-known painting by Blackbear Bosin in the collection of the Wichita Art Museum (and currently on view in WAM's permanent collection galleries alongside works by other Native artists).

Wichita celebrated the anniversary of Bosin's iconic "Keeper of the Plains" this year, so it feels like a particularly appropriate time to give a gift honoring the Comanche and Kiowa artist.

If you want to hew closer to the original, The Workroom also offers framed Bosin prints — including "Wichita, My Son."

#5 Earrings & necklaces from Archival Jewelry

For more than a decade, Wichita-based jewelry designer Channing Taylor has been combining vintage odds and ends with her own designs to create one-of-a-kind pieces.

Find her work at Wichita's Lucinda's, 329 N. Mead St. in Old Town Square, and Reuben Saunders Gallery, 3215 E. Douglas Ave.

#6 Subscription to The New Territory ($30-60)

This beautifully produced journal covers the "Lower Midwest": Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and thereabout. The magazine, which releases two issues per year, offers prepaid subscription options that begin at $30.

Get the independently published magazine that’s been called, 'powerful and necessary,' 'like The New Yorker except more raw and real,' and 'a kind of falling to Earth.' Radically slow and lovingly produced, each issue dives into the psyche of the Lower Midwest across 112-128 full-color pages.

Indicate the subscription is a gift at checkout, and they'll add a note.

Bonus: "Lingering Inland" + other Kansas and regional titles

Selections from The New Territory's "Literary Landscapes" series are now available in anthology form with the release of "Lingering Island." Each short essay is a meditation on a place connected to a Midwestern literary figure. The collection includes essays by SHOUT contributors Leslie VonHolten (James Tate) and Jeromiah Taylor (Gordon Parks).

Wichita's Watermark Books & Cafe, 4701 E. Douglas Ave., offers a robust selection of Kansas and regional titles, including recent releases "Eat Your Words: A Kansas Poetry Cookbook" and "Kansas Matters: Twenty-First-Century Writers on the Sunflower State."

You can find local literature at many other independent bookstores around the state, including Left On Read, Kansas' only Black-owned bookstore. It's located in Gallery Alley at 612 E. Douglas Ave. Suite 200.

#7 Twist T-shirts at Midwest Drum and Percussion (starting at $20)

Midwest Drum owner Matt Jansen also runs a screen printing business, and you can buy some of his original creations at his Douglas Avenue shop. Some designs reference music, while others celebrate a certain NFL franchise.

I learned about this shopping opportunity from members of Punkadelic, who wore Kansas City Chiefs/Taylor Swift-themed Twist shirts at a September show at Central Standard Brewing.

In the words of Punkadelic's Nikki Glaspie, "Support your local drum shop."

#8 Art

I treasure the paintings, prints, and ceramics I've received as gifts, and it's fun to pick out art for people I love and whose taste I know well.

Why not consider adding original works to your holiday shopping list?

Often when you buy an original piece of art at a gallery, you have to wait until the exhibition ends to pick up your purchase. But many Kansas galleries have leaned into the gift-gifting season with shows featuring works that you can take home (and wrap!) right away.

These include "Funsize" at Reuben Saunders Gallery, 3215 E. Douglas Ave. "Gathered in Gratitude" at Art & Frame, 1317 N. Maize Court.

Galleries can also be a good source for small to-go items at any time of year. RSG carries small ceramic objects that make great gifts, and Mulberry Art Gallery, 2721 E. Central Ave. Suite 215, recently installed a small gift shop that includes prints by artists such as Dominique Joiner and Kamela Eaton.

A couple of options outside Wichita: Cecilia Green wrote about the holiday exhibition at Lindsborg's Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in a holiday art market roundup last year. The annual exhibition includes work in all kinds of mediums, from jewelry to paintings.

And Switchgrass in Lucas, Kansas is one of the best places to buy work by Kansas artists year-round. Some of my favorite past gift purchases include wheat weavings by Doris Johnson and sequined ornaments and prayer card hearts by Barbara McCreery. You can shop for works in person or online.

What would you include on a holiday gift guide? Send me an email at emily@shoutwichita.com with your suggestions for artful gifts, and we'll include our favorites in an upcoming newsletter.

— SHOUT editorial assistant Taylor Waller contributed to this list.

Emily Christensen is one of the co-founders of The SHOUT. She is a past fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and a recipient of an Arts Writing Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation. Send her a message: emily@shoutwichita.com. 

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