Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: April Lemon, More Than Lemons
At a glance: April Lemon enjoyed art as a child and took up glassblowing as an adult. She enjoyed it so much that she began her own glassblowing business from which she has shipped glass products around the world.
More information: Ron Wilson, rwilson@ksu.edu, 785-532-7690
Photos: Ron Wilson | April Lemon
Website: Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
July 15, 2026
By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
“Don’t blow it!”
That statement tells someone not to make a mistake, but it would absolutely not apply to an artisan who is creating beautiful blown glass artifacts that are going around the globe from rural Kansas.
April Lemon is the founder and owner of More Than Lemons, a glassblowing shop and gallery in Holton. She grew up in Muscotah in far northeast Kansas. “I’d always done art,” Lemon said.
She wanted to see the world, so she joined the Coast Guard and served during Desert Storm and Desert Shield before coming back to Kansas. In 2005, she and her husband moved to Holton when her husband took a position as a woodworking instructor for Washburn Tech in Topeka.
“He asked me, ‘What have you always wanted to do?’” Lemon said. “Glass always intrigued me.”
She was interested in using molten glass to create beautiful artifacts.
Lemon took classes in glass to earn her bachelor of fine arts degree at Emporia State University. Two weeks before graduation, she and her husband bought a historic 130-year-old building in downtown Holton. After a major renovation, it became the site of her glassblowing business.
She named the business More Than Lemons as a play on her last name. More Than Lemons has an art gallery in the front and a workshop in the back. The family lives upstairs.
“The gallery started with just me,” Lemon said. “Now there are 56 artists who display their work here.”
The workshop in the back is where Lemon can heat glass to 2100 degrees, color, and shape it, plus do the cold grinding and polishing to finish the products. Visitors can not only observe the art of glass blowing, but can actually participate in its creation on certain days. “I do experiences,” Lemon said.
“I have stadium seating in my hot shop so people can observe. I enjoy hosting school tours. Students don’t know that creating art in this way is an option.”
In 2018, she bought a mobile glass blowing unit so she could demonstrate her art on the road. She also was selected to the touring artist roster of the Kansas Arts Commission.
“I enjoy sharing it with people when they’ve never seen it before,” Lemon said.
She adds: “I like to create. I do a lot of sunflower bowls and other sculptural items from nature.”
Her art collection includes her boulder series, log series, and what she calls Hunter’s Paradise, which features glass creations on deer antlers.
She also produces vases, flowers, animals, bowls, drinkware, ornaments and other designs.
A special product is memorial glass including cremated remains of loved ones or even a beloved pet. The cremains are mixed into hot glass with a swirled pattern of color that results in a beautiful remembrance. These can be shaped into hearts, roses, orbs, pendants and more.
In 2024, Lemon had the unique experience of assisting with the filming of the movie “25 Miles to Normal.”
“I got to teach (actress) Michelle Hurd how to blow glass,” Lemon said. “I directed one scene and was in another.”
Her gallery and hot shop in Holton have become a major draw. “In my first year, our guest book showed visitors from 34 states and 14 countries,” she said.
Each one of Lemon’s products is unique. “It’s not an assembly line,” Lemon said. “Each one is handmade.”
Lemon has shipped products all over the U.S. and Mexico, and as far away as China, Pakistan, England, Germany and Guam. “I did a cutting board that went to Paris,” she said.
That is an impressive record for an artist who began in the rural community of Muscotah, population 155 people. Now, that’s rural.
For more information, see www.morethanlemons.com.
“Don’t blow it!” We may use those words when telling someone not to make a mistake, but in this case, a rural Kansas artist is blowing molten glass into beautiful creations.
We commend April Lemon for making a difference with her artistry and creativity -- and that’s no mistake.
Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at www.huckboydinstitute.org/kansas-profiles. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit www.huckboydinstitute.org.
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