Fall travel throughout the Sunflower State is especially rewarding. The cooler temperatures allow for open car windows, removing a barrier to the sights — and smells — of the changing season. A leisurely drive down a two-lane highway, backroad, alley or Main Street, connects us to places and people we never knew existed and leads us to charming treasures for the eye.
No matter where the roads lead, you likely will discover public art, much in the form of community murals. Dave Lowenstein, muralist, writer and printmaker based in Lawrence, Kansas, estimates there are more than 1,000 publicly accessible murals across the state.
If you attended grade school in Kansas, it’s likely your first introduction to large-scale murals was during a field trip to the Kansas State Capitol. The John Steuart Curry murals, in particular the gigantic figure of John Brown, captured our senses and imagination at a time we were learning about Bleeding Kansas (Bloody Kansas or the Border War) and the territory’s early beginnings.
Kansas has followed the trend of the resurgence of community mural projects across the country since the early 2000s. Within the last year alone, 37 murals were completed in 14 Kansas communities through the Office of Rural Prosperity’s (ORP) Rural Mural and Public Art Grant Programming; many more were completed and funded privately or through community organizations.
I share with you a mural (above), one of two in Tonganoxie completed by my husband’s cousin, Kelly Poling, who passed in December 2018. Kelly’s artistry lives on in Kansas, and in Chillicothe, Missouri, where he created more than a dozen murals now considered one of the great treasures of the Chillicothe community. A fun-loving, creative and gentle soul, Kelly understood that art can bridge differences and bring people together.
