Who we are
The Waiting Room is a 5,000 sqft. art space, founded by David Lieffring & SK Reed in the basement of the old Holsum Warehouse building located at 1106 Santa Fe St. in the West Bottoms district of Kansas City, MO. David and SK, two partners who have always wanted to run an art space, are taking on this new endeavor! The Waiting Room, which is currently under construction, will consist of five art studios and a gallery opening February 1, 2025.
The gallery is a continuation of a space formerly known as Beco Gallery, founded in 1999 by Rebecca Ederer and Collette Keenan as part of their business Beco Flowers. In 2022 Beco Gallery lost its 23 year old location in the Crossroads Arts District in Kansas City due to doubling rent prices. The flower shop continues in a new crossroads location, yet no longer houses a gallery.
After losing the physical location, Beco Gallery continued under SK Reed’s curation. SK curated 10 off-site exhibitions, thanks to the generosity of other spaces around Kansas City including Bunker Center for the Arts, Smalter Gallery, Kiosk Gallery, and Purple Window Gallery in Chicago.
Beco had two exhibitions at an office building in Kansas City, KS which had a reception desk. We named this space The Waiting Room. Although this location was short-term, the name stuck, speaking to the temporariness of art spaces in our current climate, despite your best efforts it can be hard to predict the length of time you might have with a specific building. The name feels full of other meanings, a reference to moments of transition, of hope or anxiety, a kind of longing without clarity.
Now that we have a physical location again— a new name feels right for such a big change! None of this would have been possible without those who carved out space for Beco Gallery, the founders who built a flower business and gave a portion of their space for the arts, the curators who invested their time and energy to bring artists and programming into the space, the artists who brought their ideas and hard work into the space, and lastly the amazing community who showed up and supported this space. As The Waiting Room continues we carry all of this history with us. We can't wait to see how Beco Gallery, now The Waiting Room, will continue to evolve in our new location.
Joining the curatorial team is Lily Erb! Lily & SK began working together in 2023. Lily applied to Beco's Open Call and was curated into an off-site exhibition, "Disconcerting Present... or was that a dream?" at The Bunker. With many shared interests, Lily & SK began co-curating, Queer Ecologies, a group exhibition scheduled for this February, 2025 at Purple Window Gallery in Chicago, IL. The curatorial duo can’t wait to break ground on our first project in our new gallery location!
Curatorial Team
Collaborative at its core, The Waiting Room is a joint effort of a growing curatorial team. Meet those who work diligently behind the scenes to create a space where emerging artists from marginalized communities present their full and authentic selves.
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SK Reed (they/them) is an artist and curator based in Kansas City, KS. They received an MFA from The University of Kansas in 2023, an MA from Eastern Illinois University in 2020, and a BFA and BSE from The University of Central Missouri in 2014. Additionally, they have taken courses with NYC Crit Club, New York Studio School, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Reed has attended residencies and workshops at Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Ranch, Awagami Paper Factory, MI-LAB International Mokuhanga Laboratory, and was a Wingate University Fellow at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. They have exhibited regionally at Leedy-Voulkos, Curiouser & Curiouser, The Kansas City Artists Coalition and nationally at Ground Floor Gallery in Nashville, AUTOMAT in Philadelphia, and Heaven Gallery in Chicago. Currently, Reed is a Lecturer in The Foundation Department at The Kansas City Art Institute. Part of many curatorial projects, they founded The Waiting Room, an artist-run studio and gallery space in Kansas City.
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Lily Erb is a trans artist living in Kansas City, MO. Lily received their BFA from Hampshire College in Sculpture and Printmaking in 2013 and their MFA from Ohio University in Sculpture + Extended Practice in 2022. They are a Teaching Artist for Community and Access Programs at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of art and a member of The Waiting Roo Gallery. Lily spent the first eight years of their creative career working almost exclusively with steel after signing up for a welding class in college and falling in love with welding. They have been focusing on soft sculpture after rediscovering a love of sewing while in residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in the fall of 2018.
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Abbie Stabno is a mixed media fiber and collage artist working primarily with the translation of vintage imagery. She received her BFA in Fiber and Social Practice from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2024. She currently works as a curator for The Waiting Room, and her past endeavors include studio assisting under Marie Bannerot McInerney and Garry Noland as well as engaging as a mentor artist for KCAI and the Arthritis Foundation. Abbie’s work has been exhibited at The Waiting Room, Holsum Gallery, Turnsol Books, Artspace (Kansas City), and Instituto Allende (San Miguel de Allende, MX).
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Rebecca Blocksome is an artist, writer, and educator currently working in the Kansas City area. Her interdisciplinary artistic practice spans installation, performance, book arts, and digital media; through it, she explores the interrelationships between art, science, technology, and religion in contemporary society. Blocksome also serves as the program head for the Social Practice minor at the Kansas City Art Institute. She holds an MFA in expanded media from the University of Kansas and an MA in philosophy and theory of visual culture from the University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia.
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Yasi Farah is an Iranian-born interdisciplinary artist and craftsperson. They use object making and installation to process immigration, explore identity dissonance, and recognize labor and tension. Material exploration is at the heart of Yasi’s practice; they marry synthetic and organic materials to challenge and liberate art objects of their functionality, spanning textile, print, sound, photography, and video. After receiving their B.A. from the University of Kansas in 2024, they took their practice on the road and to various craft institutions which brought forth the importance of community and skill sharing, as well as the relationship of environment, body, and labor to the process of making.
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Mia Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist and historian born in Redlands, California. She spent her childhood moving across the country from state to state with her parents and four siblings. Mia Received a BFA in Print Media & Photography and BA in Art History from Kent State University as well as an MFA in Printmaking from Ohio University. Mia has since held residencies at Zygote Press and Columbus Printed Arts Center and has exhibited nationally and internationally. She currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri and works as Director of Morris Gallery and Assistant Professor of Art at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, MO.
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Xiao Faria daCunha is a practicing visual artist, curator, art writer, and essayist musing about the living experience as a Chinese diaspora and woman of color in America’s heartland. Her visual art practice is multidisciplinary and ventures among mixed-media illustration on paper, textile, printmaking, and mixed-media collage. Xiao was the former Managing Editor for Urban Matter Chicago and her bylines have appeared in Chicago Reader, BlockClub, BRIDGE.CHICAGO, KCUR, The Pitch KC, and more. She considers all her practices essentially journalism practices to speak on behalf of those who haven't been heard and shed light on what hasn't been seen, whether it's emotional, cultural, or societal.
