Cottonwood Connection

Art and the Story of Our Past

Season 4 Episode 5 | 24m 53sVideo has Closed Captions

A look at how artists represent our history through pen, paint and sculpture.

Aired 04/11/2024

Cottonwood Connection

Art and the Story of Our Past

Season 4 Episode 5 | 24m 53sVideo has Closed Captions

A look at how artists represent our history through pen, paint and sculpture.

A look at how artists like Jerry Thomas, Pete Felton and Bruce Burkholder and others represent our history through pen, paint and sculpture.

Aired 04/11/2024

Cottonwood Connection

Art and the Story of Our Past

Season 4 Episode 5 | 24m 53sVideo has Closed Captions

A look at how artists like Jerry Thomas, Pete Felton and Bruce Burkholder and others represent our history through pen, paint and sculpture.

Aired 04/11/2024

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Culture

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Walking into the Capitol Building in Topeka, Kansas, something quickly becomes evident. The importance and power of art in telling the stories of our history. With Cottonwood Connections, we talk a lot about history, that's what it's about, but also the preservation of history. And one of the ways history can be preserved is through art. We have a lot of artists in western Kansas and throughout Kansas and throughout the nation that have, I guess, a historic bent to them to present people as they are. With all the research and stuff that some of these artists do, it is very good. We have landscape art, for instance, Sandson, that's mostly around McPherson and Lindsburg, but there's a lot of stuff that Sandson did, a lot of his sketches and stuff in Graham County, just to the east of Cottonwood Ranch, to the south on the Smoky Hill Trail. Thomas Lane Curry, who was an art instructor at Colby Community College, did his rendition with research of stage stations along the Smoky Hill Trail. Yeah, the capital of Kansas at Topeka is full of artwork. There are all sorts of murals along the walls that took years to do, and they were depicting the early history of Kansas. But also, Pete Felten did some incredible artwork and carved statues of President Eisenhower as a general, Senator Arthur Capper, who is very famous as a United States Senator and as a newspaper publisher, William Allen White, who is famous for his publishes in Emporia, and also Amelia Earhart. But with Pete Felten and Hays, there's so much stuff in Hays, there's probably everything from the people, trains, the bison, lawmen, and of course the prehistoric thing with the Long Interstate 70, that kind of promotes Sternberg Museum, which is just west of where this sculpture is. Of course, there are a lot of them at Hays because he was a native there, but they're also scattered in some of the small towns, such as Victoria and some of the others. Bruce Berkholder has been a longtime friend of Pete Felten's, a friendship that started with Berkholder producing a painting of Felten at work. After I'd done the painting of him, he called me up one afternoon and said, "Hey, who are you?

I see your work at these juried competitions, and I want to know who you are.

" It was a joy to be on the road with him because he'd always give me history lessons, or he'd talk about the areas where we would be, and at the time what it meant of the struggles that these people had. I probably learned more from him than any book could give me because it was built into him. Through his stone pieces, his stories are told, they capture a certain moment in time.

They'll be everlasting, far longer than we'll ever be, but a person can still go up to that piece and say, "Wow, this is part of what we were.

" Like with the statues in the Topeka Capitol Building, he has four of the famous cans under the rotunda, those were huge.

I mean, those were like nine foot tall, and I marveled at those when I started to do that painting of Pete, which I call "Emerging Life.

" To me, it was a stone that he found life in it, and he dug the life out of that stone and made it into something that is lasting forever. When he did the buffalo out at the fort, oh my gosh, I mean, 24 tons, a big block of Indiana limestone out there, and he started in 1967, I believe it was for the Kansas Centennial that he was commissioned to do. I think he carved on it for two years, give or take, and he'd be up on of a ladder in his truck just hammering away.

The sculpture pieces around town, he felt like the town needed the imaging of what we were. On Felten's invitation, Burkholder started his own journey with a painting about the area's history, a painting that now hangs in Fort Hays State's Memorial Union. For me, after listening to and talking about the history of this general area, I decided I wanted to tell a story.

I just thought, you know, doing one landscape ain't going to work. And so after being with Pete and traveling with him, I started to learn more about the history of this area, the hardships these people had just to survive. And so that's why I wanted to present all the different images into one painting, which I didn't think was going to be as long as it did, but 23 years later, before I finally signed my name on the piece, and that was like, oh my gosh. So my large painting was, "The History Holds the Future," is that the past and present and the future's left up to us how we want to do it, but we can look back at the past and realize, you know, where our mistakes might be. And to me, if we can preserve the history that we have and learn from it, back to "The History Holds the Future" and give us a whole lot. This piece right here, this was about 1928, I believe.

It's hard to recreate what they did back in those days.

I mean, when you think about it, think about 1890 or something like that when this church was first started. But these craftsmen and these people that built these churches, they knew what they were doing.

They built them to last. And so what you're kind of doing there is you've taken the old photo so that you can represent what it was at a different point in history. Right.

Before I started doing the study of this, I'd go back in and start looking at the church's of the area now, and I was able to pick up some of the colors. So you put some research into it. Oh, yes.

Yeah, same way with the history painting.

When I started doing the history painting, I'd go to the library, I'd do the historical society. I went through a lot of photographs of what I felt comfortable with to use for that piece. I can't imagine what they were thinking, but yet I was able to time travel back into their era of what they had, and their wagons and the horses and, I mean, the winters and the things they had to go through. And yet they found a way, some of them. And their story is still worth telling. Still worth telling. Clear farther west, not quite into Colorado, is the Norton family of Charlie Norton.

He did the work at Oakley for the Buffalo Bill Center. But his wife Pat is a very good artistic ceramist. Art has always been a major part of my life.

And also the history that goes with this country, and primarily Buffalo and people that live in the community. And I'm very proud of my work. I actually have my degree in elementary education, and it was through elementary education that I realized the importance of art and being able to express yourself. So therefore, after teaching for several years, I started an art program here in our local town. I loved to paint, loved to do plein air painting, and I did pottery for a good many years. That whole project, that Buffalo Bill piece up there, that whole thing, Lou Evans is the brain behind that. I got the big picture, I could see that he was right spot on, and that's the way to go.

So we got after it. We actually did three pieces. The small piece, you work out your detail, and then we did the bigger piece, and you just keep getting larger, and then you go to the big enlargement. And that alone, the whole process, between foundry people, about 60 people worked on that piece, or had a hands-on. No one does that all by themselves.

It's a labor of love, and you better appreciate all those people to help you. It's kind of like life in itself. Each large piece that you do has its own little unique story that goes with it, of things that happen in events, and not only within your family, because they're always there helping you. Another one is the big bull and bear that we did, a life-size bull and bear, and that was specifically for the stock markets. Another piece that might be of interest is the Buffalo Woman. She is a life-size down here in front of the Leoti Courthouse, Wichita County Courthouse. Yeah, that's just paying tribute and recognition to the native people across the plains, or anywhere as far as that's concerned. When we unveiled the big piece at Colby in front of the courthouse, and the lady, after the dedication, she asked her if the daughter could feel of it, touch it.

Well, sure. I learned right there, that's a dimension, yeah, sight, feel, one thing or another.

It's important, so there's people that can't see. We have three children.

We have Tanner, Tonya, and Carson. Tanner, our middle son, is more or less on the carpenter end. He can build about anything you want to.

He's in charge of redoing a lot of buildings. Tonya is the oldest.

She is into pottery, and she just recently done Sophie's Moccasins for Fort Wallace. I'm Tonya Lamb.

I live on a ranch north of here.

Raise Angus Cattle, but I have stepped back into the art because it's been my whole life and archaeology and museums. I still work in a museum and then help other museums out. Last fall, I was working at the Butterfield Trail Museum, and all of a sudden it just hit me one day because I had been doing all these little Pueblo Moccasins. It's like, why don't I do Sophia's, Sophia German, that was the German massacre site out Easter Russell Springs. Fort Wallace has, they're just having the 150th anniversary, and they always have an artist of the year. Well, with doing the Moccasins, they had me as the artist of the year, and it's a really neat program. They have artists from all around the surrounding area really help them out and really bring art and history together. Carson is our right-hand person, but then he has his own talent as well. Another major piece that we don't want to forget about, and I'll let Carson talk about that, is "Duty Called" at Womego. Basically, the idea of that was to try to create a monument that would memorialize the Big Red One, the 1st Infantry Division, which is locally right there based at Fort Riley. Personally, World War II has been like, that's my thing. World War II history has just been something I've been passionate about. When we were working on that piece, I wanted to try to tell the story of that 1st Infantry Division and their experience throughout World War II, specifically after the Normandy Invasion. We did that through the different types of equipment that he had, and just knowing the history of all of the different accouterments. We had a soft unveiling before we actually mounted it in its location now. There was a World War II veteran, I believe he was 95 at the time, so he rolls up in his wheelchair, and he's looking all over the piece. He's kind of leaning forward, and he's looking at it, and he's looking at it, and he says, "Yep, I had one of those. Yep, yep, yep.

" For me, I just know that I'm hitting all those points that are important to the guys that were there. I've worked with my dad for, oh gosh, ever since I was a little kid, scooching around on the floor in the studio. Some of the main sculptures that I had started working with him on that I can really remember, like helping build the molds and helping sculpt and everything, was the Cattleman's Harvest piece over in Scott City.

That was one of the first, and then after that it was called Up the Limit. That was the bull in the bear Fighting.

So Duty Called was a collaborative piece, and then Dr.

Crumbine we worked together on, and then Bat Masterson we worked together on. Bat Masterson started, we got a call as we were working on the Dr.

Crumbine piece, which is just across the street from the state capitol. With Bat Masterson Whenever we were trying to do that piece, it's like what is he known for?

When you think about the epitome of what Bat Masterson was, because he's a huge figure in Dodge City, not history, in American history. So what was it really that everybody thinks of with him? And one of those is he's known as the Dandy. And he's always sharp dressed to the nines, kind of wanted to capture that idea, like you walk in and here he is leaning on the bar of the saloon. And he's got a shot of whiskey there, and he's got his watch chain, and just trying to hit all those small details that really are kind of the icing on the cake to a sculpture. For future generations, they may not pay that much attention, but there will be somebody that will hopefully appreciate that, and that can kind of solidify that moment in history for them. Jerry Thomas, native of Scott City, has done a lot of historic artwork, placing historic figures in my mind and some of the primary geographic points or landscapes throughout Kansas. We have quite a historic area out here in Kansas, but out here some of my relatives were homesteaders, my great-grandfolks homesteaded north of town. I ended up hearing various things that happened on the trail.

One of their friends was Thomas Lamb, a corporal that served with General Custer. This painting was one of my very first pieces "Left behind."

It portrays an actual incident that happened on the Smoky Hill Trail in 1867. Thomas Lamb, whose wife delivered my grandmother in 1911, they, Thomas and Maggie, homesteaded north of Scott City way back in 1886 and became good friends with my great-grandparents. Thomas said that he was left behind by Custer's column because his horse grew tired, so I captured him with another man named Kinsman as they walked past the monuments in 1867 in June. And he said as they walked by, they came by often groups of buffalo. Scouting the trail represents a 7th Cavalry column that had progressed along and near the monument rocks and near Monument Station. The patrol was coming from nearby Fort Wallace, headed to the council that was taking place near Medicine Lodge. Up on the heights up here, several relics were found up here to signify that the troopers were up there, probably scouts that were watching the trail. It was quite a procedure to put this all together with the models, the right time of day, with all the research that went in here, of course finding the artifacts and then doing the research on what all the folks were wearing, the accoutrements. It really means a lot for the realism and for inner peace to do it correctly.

If you don't do the paintings correctly, somebody will draw it out. You have to have the uniforms, you have to have the accoutrements correct.

Time of day is always a challenge, but I try to make sure we do the research, find that. But if I am not able to find it, we have other folks friends that are very fine researchers and then we can proceed with the modeling, proceed with the painting and go forward with that. It's very rewarding because you know you've done it right, you just didn't piece it together. A few years back I was asked by the Frontier Forts of Kansas Network and I went to each fort and created paintings of the buildings and had models model for me, Fort Riley, Fort Wallace and on around the kiosk here we got all eight of the eight Frontier Forts of Kansas that were put on the book covers for Leo Oliver and various other authors that put out the publication. They are still being offered today by the Kansas State Historic Society and we are very proud to have and be a part of this. So we have those ties here, of course we have at our beautiful state park here we have El Quartelejo National Historic Site and Punished Women's Fork National Site. So we have all interests here and I've become very involved, we've done a lot of images of many of those things, put that together with the artifacts and has been very successful. The artifacts reflected in this exhibit case, many of them are found in our area here portraying the military aspect that was here at various forts or sites along many of the rivers that we have here in the state. Very proud to have found some of these sites that we can use those sites in my artwork to capture a particular moment.

I love that part of it. The relics and the artifacts are you know somebody held those once upon a time.

You want to find out who that person was, that native Cheyenne Indian or Sioux, you want to find out that military officer, that cowboy or that settler or whoever. And then you wonder what can I depict and it grew to be quite a collaboration between the artifacts and the folks who actually carried them. Many of the things that I've done today in fact I am this year's Custer Battlefield Artist of the Year. I have some of his artifacts here, I'm able to look back on those artifacts or the photographic research material I have and collaborate and put that all together which creates a very unique gallery here plus my artwork creates all that reality. In her books, Libby Custer, Custer's beloved wife would write that they spent one beloved day, one perfect day at Fort Riley riding horses when Custer came back from an engagement. One perfect day.

My dear friend Marla Macan posed for this, Steve Alexander and W.W. Cook is Ron Glasgow out of Montana. Marla has portrayed the West in dramatic fashion and she is also modeled For many of my things including Maria DeGere statue that is shown in Scott City, Kansas. The painting A Touch of Fall features my dear friend, Micah Highwalking.

Micah is wearing a Hudson's Bay blanket. It was unveiled at Custer Battlefield a few years back. One of the first times that a painting has been unveiled at the battlefield. Not only is she in the painting, she is the very first person to graduate from West Point of the Northern Cheyenne people.

Wonderful young lady and a wonderful painting to depict of her. We tell history of our national history both featuring the Native Americans, the military, the Confederates, the Union, the Cowboys, the settlers, all of that. We tell the history and let everybody else decide and make their own opinions.

In this we show both the Confederate and Union artifacts here. And after the Civil War we have military soldiers.

The folks who modeled for me for this painting are from the Commanding General's Mountain Color Guard at Fort Riley.

A unique, wonderful outfit that we have at Fort Riley. The story behind this is Homer Wheeler was the first suttler in Northwest Kansas.

In Fort Wallace he had the herd that he would furnish the goods at the suttler store. And one night a big storm came up and scattered his herd from his own words that obliterated the trail of his cattle by the wind and hail. So Homer Wheeler with his horse looking for his lonesome cattle.

We had a model, Lynn Kirkham, posed for me in the gear that is over here. A very well known piece in the state of Kansas and abroad is the Monument Rocks. And hearing about a lot of the Native American things that I've researched over the years, up on the Monument Rocks they also said they would post stakes to let everybody know whatever group they were with. Muffalo skulls and marking stakes that signified what group of what sect of the Cheyenne Tribe had came by. This is titled The Sacred Place.

A very sacred place to the Cheyenne because nearby this is where they had the sacred Sundance. I love doing the paintings, doing the sculptures, doing the research on these folks, and really trying to find the personality that was there, the backgrounds they had, the significance that they played, and then trying to portray them in that realm is challenging, but when you do it and you see it in their eyes, or however they are captured, it is very rewarding. I find that if we could all just take time and pay attention to our history, that it fulfills our circle of life, just like the beginning and the end of each painting. There are so many things here that happen that we tend to overlook, or we pass by, or we may not know of. And here, we try to tell that story. One thing that I personally try to incorporate into all the sculpture that I do, in public sculptures, is that it creates a moment to try to pull that personal connection. And so these people are preserving the history of it. By doing the research and depicting these people, and it's a cultural history of the thing. I love doing the historical research, whether it be a pattern on a Cheyenne arrow, whether it be a significant emblem on a military artifact that you can look up, or a cowboy artifact from an old cowboy that come up from Texas, just tells a story about that location where they must have been settling down and enjoying the evening.

I love to go back and think, and I'm very inspired by that.