On the last Friday of every month, the city of Lawrence transforms into a massive art walk from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. Starting in August 2010, Final Fridays is a community-driven event in which storefronts and businesses in Downtown Lawrence serve as temporary galleries, hosting diverse art exhibits and cultural events. Lawrence, KS, has one of the highest rates of working artists per capita in the country. Hence, the Lawrence community recognizes the value of the arts and sees this as an opportunity to bring them to the wider public.
The Bourgeois Pig, a downtown cocktail bar, contacted Haskell Indian Nations University and invited students to have an art exhibit at their bar for this month’s final Friday event. This is Haskell’s second time being invited to participate in the artfest. Their first exhibit, titled “Interrupting the Imaginary,” featured summer school students drawing on old Edward Curtis photographs.
David Titterington, an Art instructor at Haskell, assigned students to draw something from the news and connect it to a personal or Indigenous experience. With this assignment, they had the choice to draw whatever they wanted to present or what really mattered to them.
Titterington collaborated with the Bourgeois Pig to uplift native artists. He stated that inspiration from this event was drawn from noticing that Haskell students are put in a position to record and archive what matters to Indigenous people, while also communicating deeper periodicities, cycles, and events that nourish them as Indigenous students.
“I want them to reflect on what Indigenous people are thinking about, and what matters to Indigenous people,” Titterington said. “…To better appreciate drawing as a medium for archiving, communicating … Because most of the people who are going to see this are non-native.”
This exhibit is on display from February 27 to March 25, 2026, at the Bourgeois Pig. Haskell invites students, faculty, and community members to visit the exhibition and view the art at the cocktail bar. All pieces presented will be for sale for $100 each, with proceeds going back to students.
