Collection: April Lemon Artist Collection

April Lemon was born and raised for the first seventeen years of her life in the small town of Muscotah, Kansas.  She has had a passion and propensity for art since her childhood.  At the age of five she drew a picture with her name at the bottom, handed it to her mother and said, “Save this because someday I’ll be famous and my autograph will be worth a lot of money.”  By her senior year in high school in 1987, April was spending almost her entire day in the art department, she served as the Art Club President and was elected to paint a tiger (her school mascot) in the high school at Atchison County Community High School in Effingham, KS, which is still there today and commonly used as a backdrop for group photos.  Along with this April designed and painted a mural for the entrance of the local middle school.  The completed mural was an approximate 6’ x 15’ scene of a tiger in a jungle looking over the existing brick wall.  Every year since, one senior was chosen to continue another section of the work she started more than twenty years ago.  

Following graduation from high school, April lacked the funds to pursue her artist’s dreams, so instead, as a chance to see the world beyond the small town in Kansas; she joined the Coast Guard and started a family.  She dedicated almost six years to the service and spent the next twenty years after high school dedicating herself to her family.  In 2010, April received the opportunity to return to the passion of her youth and not only to the creation of art, but to learn the art form that had been her dream form more than 20 years.  She began attending Emporia State University to study Glass.  She has had work selected in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 for the juried competition to be shown in the ESU Department of Art Annual Juried Student Exhibition in the Eppink & Gilson Galleries resulting in an art scholarship in 2011 for the following school year.  April also had one piece shown in the 2011 Salon Des Refuses at the Emporia Art Council and one piece in the 2012 Salon Des Refuse as well. 

After being selected as one of the artists whose works were to be shown in the St. Joseph Trails West Fine Arts Festival, a juried show, she was honored with being selected as the overall artist best in show over all for 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional work in 2014, then 3 years later was welcomed back to receive 1st place for 3 dimensional work in 2017. 

She purchased a 130 year old building in 2015 in the small town of Holton.  Since then she and her husband have completely remodeled this treasure.  More Than Lemons includes a beautiful art gallery that displays and sells the art of 45 Kansas artists, with a hot glass shop in the back of the building where people can not only observe the art of glass blowing but on Saturdays can actually participate in its creation.  She purchased a custom built mobile glass blowing unit that allows her to travel taking the art of hot glass on the road to the people.  She has been frequenting art festivals and has been working with Kansas art teachers to bring the art of glass to their students. 

April plans to continue to pursue her dream to learn and create for the remainder of her years.