KTWU Sunflower Journeys 1607A - Kansas Postcard Art
Produced by Bill Shaffer
Narrator: This unique collection of Kansas Art Postcards represents 25 years in a series supported by the Association of Community Arts Agencies of Kansas. it started with 15 winners per year, expanded to 16 and then added another 10 for touring. so far, the collection totals over 600 pieces of art. (pause) a single juror selects all of the cards for each year and artists submit their work from all over the state.
Mary Moore Mckown - Artist / Anthony, Kansas: I think it's wonderful. I love it and I'm sorry it's coming to an end because this is the final one. (Referring to her painting) It's acrylic Michael Jilg - Artist / Hays, Kansas: The first small painting I ever made in my life is in this room. What I started doing was making etchings that size and so this show actually got me started making small work which turns out to be a lot more profitable and easier to handle and easier to show so what developed from that was that I started making etchings, postcard size etchings, printing them up and it's a lot easier. I can send out a whole book of them to galleries and to dealers and things like that so, from just participating in the postcard show 25 years ago or whenever it was, I ended up doing...I've done hundreds of small works, all in a postcard format. Sheryl Sigwing - Artist / Douglas, Kansas: There's so much talent here. It's just incredible. Like she said, there's over 600 pieces of work over the last 25 years. It's a wonderful exhibit for anybody to come see and be involved in. Actually, I did a portrait of my cat that I entered and this is the second year that I've won. Narrator: The postcard series was started in 1978 by then Executive Director, Romalyn Tilghman. Romalyn Tilghman - Past Executive Director / ACAAK: We were really interested in getting both the performing and visual arts into small rural communities in Kansas. We had a very successful project in the bicentennial year of putting a story teller into ninety Kansas communities, all with populations of less than 3,000 and we'd really been looking for a visual arts show that would do the same thing. That could be relatively small, relatively low security, relatively inexpensive...that would show off the best of Kansas and could go anywhere. And so I had this little idea to do little art and put it in little towns and look what's happened to it. It's just pretty amazing. I walked in today and I just cried because I can't imagine that it's grown to this in this many years. Narrator: The whole exhibit of all 25 years of Kansas Art Postcards was only shown at the Lawrence Arts Center in July of 2002. Parts of the exhibit will continue to tour for the next few years. Ann Evans - Exec. Dir. / Lawrence Arts Center: This is the fourth exhibit that we've had in the new Lawrence Arts Center and what a wonderful thing to have the 600 little paintings that we've known about for years so it's....and to have it be the last time that the exhibit is in one place...to have it here, I feel very fortunate. We don't know what will happen to the collection, but the Association owns all of these pieces. It's the largest collection of art work in Kansas of Kansas artists. Ellen Morgan: We kind of thought after September 11 that (and) with the Anthrax thing that people would send postcards more, but they just don't. I think part of it is e-mail has taken a lot of that.
This transcript is from KTWU's Sunflower Journeys 2003 season. A production
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