KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16,2010 / NEWS
15
THE ARTS
KU grads take their art to rural Oklahoma
BY MATT KUHLMAN mkuhlman@kansan.com
While most artists dream of doing their craft in New York City or another arts Mecca, Amber Hansen and Nick Ward opted for a less-traveled artistic path and took their skills to Tonkawa, Okla.
Hansen and Ward both earned their master of fine arts degrees from the University this spring. Before the spring semester was even finished, they found themselves working on a project in the town of 3,300 people just south of the Kansas-Oklahoma border with Lawrence muralist Dave Loewenstein.
Loewenstein met Hansen and Ward in 2008 when they headed their first mural project in Junction City.
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"It was almost torture because we didn't know what we were
doing," Hansen said of their first project.
Loewenstein remembered the pair when he was unable to find local assistants for the Tonkawa mural and asked for their help with the two-month project.
"I don't think they really realized what it was going to be like," Loewenstein said. "It requires a lot out of someone to do these things."
Hansen said one topic that came up in their talks was the Three Sands Oil Field, which quickly created a lot of wealth in the area and caused Tonkawa's population to grow to 15,000 people in the 1920's. Other things they learned were the importance of agriculture and the railroad in the town's past, and the nearby Tonkawa Tribe that the town is named after. She said these discussions created a lot of excitement among residents and informed their decisions on what to
One of their responsibilities was to design the imagery of the mural, which they did with the help of local citizens. For most of April they traveled to Tonkawa for days at a time to study the town's history and talk with the residents about what should be included in the mural.
"It's about having a really rich and unique experience while you're there. I think, from my perspective, that's what we had."
include in the munity's mural.
"It was like all these other conversations and events wrapped around this one thing. Like the mural itself was very tiny compared to all the activity and discussion around it," Hansen said.
Hansen and Ward lived in Tonkawa during the production of the mural, which began May 1 and ended June 5. They said their experience from teaching art classes at the University helped them manage up to 80 of the town's residents who came to help paint. They said they also enjoyed seeing the residents of the town bond with each other through the project.
Hansen said she observed this best when she saw two boys working with a woman who she assumed was their grandmother, only to later realize that they didn't
DAVE LOEWENSTIEN Local muralist
know each other.
"They had just seen themselves as this little team by painting next to each other," she said.
Loewenstien said the engagement that Hansen and Ward found in Tonkawa was exactly what he aimed to promote through his mural projects.
During their stay, Hansen and Ward helped organize other events for the community.
"It's about having a really rich and unique experience while you're there. I think, from my perspective, that's what we had," he said.
They began holding movie nights by projecting movies on the side of the Dollar General store. They also closed down the main street for an afternoon to hold a community dinner while kids did chalk drawings on the sidewalk and rode their bikes until sundown.
"Eventually we're going to paint a mural, but that's more of a catalyst and an excuse in a way, for the other things that took place," he said.
Ward said these kinds of happenings were the larger goal of the project.
Recent graduates Amber Hansen and Nick Ward worked with muralist Dave Loewenstein to paint this mural in Tonkawa, Okla. The project lasted about two months.
Contributed artwork
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