Thou Art Gallery

KC Kiner Wortman opened the doors to Thou Art Gallery in July of 2013. She has spent her life living and breathing art. The gallery was to support and showcase local artists with affiliations with Jones County. The space also served as classroom facility for teaching and studio for KC & Kompany. This was her dream job!

She has created images for a wide variety of products for the past several years. She gained national recognition through licensed products of gift items, greeting cards, invitations, announcements, scrap booking products, books, coloring books, needlepoint kits, etc. She has illustrated video games but her passion is in illustrating and publishing books…most importantly children’s books.

KC’s talents in illustration and design began at an early age. She sold her drawings door-to-door in elementary school. Her mother gave her an attic room to use as her studio when it became apparent that she could not stop drawing! There she painted murals on the walls and learned to paint on anything that got in her way. In high school she began free-lancing. After college KC pounded the pavement in the Kansas City/ St. Joseph, MO. area picking up free-lance work from manufacturers, corporations, and advertising agencies. She shared her talents and her love for children by teaching children’s art at an art museum for many years.

During the early 80’s, she opened a studio and continued her journey. She founded an art association to support local artists and exhibited her work at juried shows. She found that people really liked her cards and manufactured cards from Omaha when her family was relocated there. In 1991, her sister joined her and they began manufacturing cards from their warehouse in Dallas after they took a few designs to the national gift and stationary show at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York City. They were amazed at the response they received from buyers and licensing agents and continued to research the market and come up with new designs. Her birth announcements were marketed through hospitals across the USA. She continues to work with manufactures, corporations, organizations, individuals and publishers upon request. KC creates a wide variety of projects. She enjoys the adventure of never knowing what the next project might be and loves a good challenge!

Today, KC & Kompany has become an internationally recognized design studio with more than 35 years’ experience. KC continues to create award winning designs by thinking outside the box! Many of her clients have been returning for more than 25 years.

After a fire on February 18, 2017 KC and her husband Doug began the job of restoring and rebuilding the 1865 old bank building. During this period, KC rented space to keep her kids art classes going and operated her Vinnie van Vinos at restaurants and public spaces. She rented space for a small gallery and classroom in a Victorian house on Main Street while they worked putting a roof and second floor back on their building. They worked every night and weekends to get the gallery back up and running. It was a labor of love and on December 14, 2019 with the help of friends and family they were able to partially open the gallery again so that Thou Art Gallery could once again be a joyous and communal home for the arts in Jones County.