Robert Frazier Art Gallery

Well, here’s a real gem. Sitting on a nondescript street (Troost near 31^st), in a space that had sit empty for a long long time, a gallery has sprouted seemingly out of nowhere. Except that the seeds for such a place have slowly been sowing with the industriousness of the Creative Minds Community Arts Center and the Desert Wisdom Bookstore/​Church, Project Breakthough, and south of 31^st there are a few gallery/​studio spaces being put to use. Let the gentrification begin.
On that note, there probably is not going to be a Crossroads-​effect happening anytime soon. Have you been to the West Bottoms lately? Still an industrial goldmine there, but no lofty lifestyle just yet (pun intended). As for Troost, it’s history as a dividing line of Kansas City puts it at a great position for positive change (see Cherry and Gilham St. to the north and west for an example of this), but just turning everything into expensive rent space and giving out a few tax abatements (i.e., Crossroads) isn’t going to help resolve the economic/​racial issues at hand in the forgotton parts of Kansas City (i.e. from swope parkway north to the river, east of Troost to 435). For example, 18^th and Vine had a lot of $ thrown at it, but one of the main tenets (Peachtree restaurant) is moving to downtown! But they can’t stay if it doesn’t make sustainable, economic sense.
But I digress. Here is not only a moment in time of what is possible in a transition-​part of kansas city, but it’s a great gallery. The space is bright, and pieces are close together but spaced appropriately apart. And the art is both individual yet connected among themselves. Overall, I’m no expert art critic, and I sort of wondered to myself, ‘why am I so excited about this stuff? Don’t I get out enough?’ But I thought, ‘no, I know, within reason, what is generally interesting and what is just so-​so. And this stuff is not so-​so.‘
So check this place out.