Landscapes and memory shimmer in selections from Barton Community College art collection
The college's new president and his wife curated "Executive Collection," on view at the Shafer Art Gallery in Great Bend, Kansas, through March 1.
When I was 6, I met my first artist. He came to my first-grade classroom in Great Bend, Kansas, to present a lesson. My three memories of that day are the much-loved and soon-outgrown cotton dress printed with tiny stars I was wearing, the man with glasses who walked among our desks, and that he encouraged us to stand as we drew on large pieces of paper.
That man was Gordon Zahradnik. His acrylic painting “Cityscape” is displayed prominently in the exhibition “Executive Collection” at the Shafer Art Gallery in the Fine Arts Building at Barton Community College. Zahradnik was a well-known central Kansas artist, teacher, and professor. Though to me, when I encountered him in his early career, he was Mr. Zahradnik, and a little striking for the musical sound of his Czech last name and for his appearance as a male teacher in an early 1960s school full of women at the heads of classrooms.
“Cityscape” is a whimsical depiction of rural, domestic, and urban architecture under a darkening sky. Images that suggest a string instrument with frets and a pattern of vertical music notes along with repeating grid and circular patterns supply the painting with a soundtrack. It’s a noisy picture, from the tiny farm workers wielding tools at the bottom to the rays of sound projecting from a bell tower or alarm at the top of the tallest building.
This painting, along with 42 other two-dimensional works and ceramics, were selected for exhibition by Marcus and Kacie Garstecki from the community college’s permanent art collection. Marcus Garstecki was named president of BCC last summer.
Installation views of "Executive Collection," on view through March 1 at the Shafer Gallery on the Barton Community College campus. Photos courtesy of the Shafer Gallery.
Gallery director Alyssa Bliven invited the Garsteckis to curate their first exhibition as a way for viewers to experience the college’s holdings through the lens of its new leadership. “Their thoughtful choices breathe new life into these pieces, and I’m eager for everyone to see them,” Bliven said.
The selections present a strong representation of landscapes and works by Kansas artists of the past, including two Birger Sandzén landscapes and standout watercolors by Charles B. Rogers. These are on view alongside works by contemporary artists, like the abstract shaped-paper paintings by Kevin Kelly, from Wichita, landscape pastels by Bev Simonson, of Great Bend, and ceramics by BCC faculty member Mark Freeman and other clay artists.
The Shafer Art Gallery is a well-appointed, large space that displays bronze sculptures by its namesake Gus Shafer as well as paintings in the outer gallery. The theme of this permanent exhibition is the rural Western past. Horses, cowboys, and farmers figure prominently. However, in the inner galleries, the landscapes have more variety in the locations painted and in the artists’ approaches, from Sandzén’s glittering impasto in “Aspen Tarryall County” to Simonson’s abstract Southwestern pastels like “Canyon Wall.”
From left: Birger Sandzén, “Aspen Tarryall County,” 14.5 by 18 inches, oil on panel; Bev Simonson, “Canyon Wall,” 17 by 14 inches, pastel on paper; Bev Simonson, “Untitled (Abstract Coral and Blue)” 14 by 14 inches, oil on gesso board. Photos courtesy of the Shafer Art Gallery.
Two tiny paintings of houses, Jessie Rasche’s oil “House Down the Street” and W.W. Peck’s “House and Trees” watercolor, are comforting rural and domestic scenes I imagine my first-grader eyes would have loved. These works capture a kind of late summer afternoon temperature in color and light while the stillness of the dwellings surrounded by trees and plants communicates how homes might stand for tranquility and refuge.
From left: Jessie Rasche, “House Down the Street,” 9.5 by 11.5 inches, oil on canvas; W.W. Peck, “House and Trees,” 17 by 21 inches, watercolor. Photos courtesy of the Shafer Art Gallery.
Freeman’s ceramic shapes, including “Molaris Dens,” are organic and unusual at once, perched like spiky sea creatures on their pedestals. (“Dens molaris” refers to molar teeth we use to grind while chewing.) Would my six-year-old hands have kept to themselves when tempted by the compelling shape?
Kelly’s shaped handmade paper with acrylic paint and paint skin adds an abstract and colorful element that contrasts with the mostly representational, two-dimensional works in the rest of the show. It’s Ellsworth artist Charles B. Rogers’ watercolor “Landscape” that connects me most to the small child I was. That girl grew up in Great Bend aware she was missing something, but didn’t know what until her parents took her to Rogers’ studio and gallery. That child loves the big blobby clouds over the multi-colored rocks and hills in their loose and eloquent green and blue language. It was art I had been missing.
From left: Kevin Kelly, “Grump,” 20 by 20 inches, acrylic and acrylic paint skin on handmade paper; Charles B. Rogers, “Landscape,” 22 by 28 inches, watercolor. Photos courtesy of the Shafer Art Gallery.
The Details
"Executive Collection"
Jan 31-March 1, 2025, L. E. "Gus" and Eva Shafer Memorial Art Gallery in the Fine Arts Building, Barton Community College, 245 N.E. 30 Road, Great Bend, Kansas
The Shafer Art Gallery is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Sunday Monday-Friday with the exception of academic holidays.
Free
Learn more on the gallery's website and Facebook page.
Lori Brack is a writer and arts worker based in Lucas, Kansas. She is the author of three books of poems and many essays in anthologies and journals. Links to her writing and full bio are at www.loribrack.com.
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