Category: Event

Join us in celebrating the 8th year of the Tallgrass Artist Residency in Matfield Green! Events are free, but bring cash for meals.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

10:00am-12:00pm – Community Open Studios by Matfield Green Works (multiple locations)

12:00pm-2:00pm – Lunch Break (local lunch stand or visit Cottonwood Falls)

2:00-3:15pm – Artist Symposium Part 1 (at the School for Rural Culture & Creativity)

3:15-3:30pm – Break

3:30-4:30pm – Symposium Part 2

4:30-5:30pm – Music & games outside the School

5:30-6:30pm – Dinner at the School ($15 suggested donation)

7:00pm – Bonfire at Timber Arches

10am – 1pm
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
Strong City, KS

Join artist-in-residence Elizabeth Wenger for a free writing workshop at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve on Saturday, August 19. Registration is strongly encouraged. Participants are also encouraged to bring their own snacks or sack lunches.

In this free generative writing workshop, Elizabeth Wenger will guide participants in taking the prairie as inspiration to create poetry and/or prose pieces. The goal is not to create finished, polished products, but to use writing as a tool to connect with surroundings and the land. 

As part of this workshop, Elizabeth will read nature poetry and discuss the various ways language can be used to describe, recreate, and humanize landscapes. After reading and discussing a few poems, participants will embark on a short nature walk taking notes on what is seen and heard, followed by responsive writing. 

No prior writing experience is necessary. Come ready to write with paper and a pen or pencil. 

Elizabeth J. Wenger is a queer writer from Oklahoma. Wenger is currently an MFA student at Iowa State University’s program in Creative Writing and Environment. She is at work on a collection of essays, but still manages to pump out the occasional short story. Wenger is interested in exploring various ideas and definitions of ‘The Natural’ in politics, culture, technology, and the built environment. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Hopper, orange peel literary magazine, Utah Lake Anthology, Litbreak, and more.

11:00am – 12:30pm
Prairy Market & Deli
Newton, KS

Join artist-in-residence and sourdough bread baker Rebecca Vaughan for a lecture on the intersection of how local Kansas grain affects her bakes — and her artistic practice. Sharing her research into regional grains available from farmers and millers. Rebecca will also present research from the archives of the 18th Century Foundling Hospital in London, along with centuries-old Croatian tattoo designs, and how these seemingly disparate worlds contribute to her art and bread.

Rebecca Vaughan was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University and BFA cum laude in Sculpture at the University of Colorado, Boulder.Rebecca is a member of ArtNauts, an art collective which exhibits only in countries experiencing conflict and contention. She previously served as the Artistic Director of PlatteForum, a non-profit which hosts artists-in-residence from all over the world. While in residence, the artists are paired with under-resourced youth to create artworks which address topics of social justice and community. She recently served as the Program Director for the Art Students League of Denver and was the Chair of Fine Arts and Head of Sculpture at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design.

4-5pm
Konza Prairie Biological Station
Manhattan, KS

Join artist-in-residence Dana Fritz for a presentation at Konza Prairie Biological Station in Manhattan, KS about her recent work with the Nebraska National Forest at Halsey, “once the world’s largest hand-planted forest,” and the resulting publication “Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape”. 

Dana Fritz uses photography to investigate the ways we shape and represent the natural world in cultivated and constructed landscapes, and her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and also in Canada, The Netherlands, France, China, South Korea, and Japan. Fritz is currently Hixson-Lied Professor of Art in the School of Art, Art History & Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

4-6pm
206 Bocook St.
Matfield Green, KS

Join artist-in-residence Cody Norton for a campfire conversation about his work with queer communities in realms of hunting, fishing, camping and more. Participants may be invited to share some of their experiences in the outdoors, and discuss how to create open space for queer people and other minority groups who have historically been excluded from these traditions. 

Note: This event is meant to be a safe and welcoming space, and any hatred or homophobia will not be tolerated. This event is being hosted on private property, and anyone exhibiting inappropriate behavior will be asked to leave immediately.

Cody Norton is an Elgin, Texas-born and raised artist. He is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture and Post Studio Practices at the University of Colorado Boulder. As an interdisciplinary artist, he is exploring the ways humankind has disrupted and intervened in ecosystems across North America. With specific insight into the hunting industry here in the United States; he investigates how marginalized groups such as queer people are intervening and disrupting heteronormative white male-dominated spaces.

11am–1pm
The School for Rural Culture and Creativity
Matfield Green, KS

Join artist-in-residence Alex Myers for a free workshop and artist talk in Matfield Green. Directly following a local morning coffee and music event at the School for Rural Culture & Creativity, Alex will guide participants in a photogrammetry and digital collage workshop about digitizing the everyday in order to realize the fantastic. All you need is a cell phone with internet access! Following the workshop, Alex will give a talk about his work at the Matfield Community Church at 205 Bocook St.

Alex Myers is Associate Professor of Interaction Design in the Department of Computer Science, Design, and Journalism at Creighton University. Often interrogating issues of immersion, affect, violence, and interactivity, Alex’s new media work has been widely exhibited in international venues across North America and Europe. His work has also received numerous grants and awards, including the Provincie Groningen Kunst en Cultuur Prijs in 2009 and 2014; the Electric Objects Artist Grant in 2016; and the “Best Interactive” Award from the Austin Music Video Festival in 2017. As a visual artist, he explores the use of video game technologies in media art. In his work, Alex interrogates the critical roles which technologies familiar from mainstream media contexts can play in experimental art practices.

1-3pm
Historic Barn at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
Strong City, KS

Join artist-in-residence Vidya Giri for a free, drop-in workshop exploring different methods to “sampling” your environment. Find Vidya at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Supplies will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring your own sketchbook and drawing tools. 

Vidya Giri is an artist from Houston, TX. Her art is reflective of her background: balanced between cultures, environments, and disciplines. Her work has spanned between online spaces, printed media, projection, and painting on physical and digital canvases. Her explorations revolve around collecting from one’s surroundings as a form of reflection and the parallels between natural and human-made identities and the environments they encompass.

2-5pm
Symphony in the Flint Hills Signature Event
Eskridge, KS

If you happen to be attending the 2023 Symphony in the Flint Hills, stop by the Meet & Greet Tent between 2 and 5pm to hear from artist-in-residence Sandra Scott-Revelle about her textile work and research into Black history. 

Sandra was born in Sedalia, MO but spent most of her life in the southwestern desert regions of Arizona, then the open spaces of east Texas. Sandra gained basic sewing skills on her mother’s antique Singer. From an early age, her interest in personal stories expanded to Black history during her college years. As an adult she discovered the treasures of slave narratives. Her growing compilation of historical fiction weaves color into the white spaces of their accounts, granting access into likely events and conversations.

5-7pm
Tallgrass Film Association
Wichita, KS

Join artist-in-residence Travis Neel for a screening of the short film “The Mesquite Mile” at the Tallgrass Film Association in Wichita, KS. 

“The Mesquite Mile” is a short film by Lubbock-based artist Travis Neel in collaboration with Erin Charpentier, Kim Karlsrud, and Daniel Phillips documenting the relocation of regionally historic mesquite trees from commercial agricultural land (where they are considered a nuisance) to Lubbock’s urban core, creating a resilient, drought resistant shade canopy across converted front lawns of the Heart of Lubbock neighborhood. Travis and his collaborators were awarded an Interchange Artist Grant from Mid-America Artist Alliance in 2021 to produce the film.

https://www.facebook.com/events/231421546161809/

https://tallgrassfilmcenter.eventive.org/schedule/645810cae9f155006558415d

1pm – 3pm
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
Strong City, KS

Join artist-in-residence Emmy Lingscheit for a come-and-go zine workshop in the limestone barn at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Supplies will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring your own collage elements.

Emmy Lingscheit is a visual artist working in printmaking, installation, comics, and zines. Across recent bodies of work, she explores our entanglements with the non-human world: interdependencies between beings and across time, and from a microscopic level up to the scale of our global economy. Emmy grew up in South Dakota, holds a BFA in painting from St. Cloud State University, and an MFA in printmaking from University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She currently lives in Urbana, IL, where she is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

https://www.facebook.com/events/203640532469041/