25 years of Seeking Grassroots Art 1995-2020

By Rosslyn Schultz, Executive Director

What a wild and fun adventure the last 25 years have been exploring Kansas and the Midwest discovering self-taught, intuitive, visionary artists! The relationships with these people, their art and stories, photos and videos of their environments will remain a cherished possession throughout my lifetime.

The diversity and differences of each artist is evident in this exhibit “Flying Free.” Yet they are all bound together in the fact that, “It’s in their DNA to create!” It has been an honor to document 122 Kansas and 43 Midwest sites. New self-taught artists and art environment will continue to shine in the coming years. As always, we need your help to identify new sites, so join the Grassroots Art Center scout team.

Artist Directory

Ron Alexander - Gypsum, Kansas - 1946-

Wood Carvings

A self-taught archeologist, botanist, and recycled artist, Ron Alexander, Gypsum, uses all things in nature for his art pieces - bone, stone or driftwood, and even roadside trash.

Anchor A

Anchor B

Dan Beck - Wichita, Kansas - 1949-2020

Limestone Yard Environment

Dan Beck was a laid-back individual and better known as "Local Diety" in Wichita. He brought in thousands of pounds of limestone from area quarries and used his artistic skills to cut, carve, and saw his yard environment into place. His love of vibrant colors can also be seen on the outside and inside of his home. Beck saw totem poles in other yards and wanted to make his different. So he started with a telephone pole, added horns and poker chips to represent wins in debating tournaments, window blinds, and a few miscellaneous items, and his totem was very unique. From his love of rocks, he began to cut, saw, and carve limestone, often adding splashes of color through landscape plantings. He loved to carve in jade and was a prolific painter. Beck was a college champion debater and loved working with school kids.

Chris Barbee

Bowling Ball Art

"I've been called everything from an artist to a crazy old fool," said Chris Barbee. His home in rural Nowata is located in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, about 20 miles from the Kansas border. Barbee's occupations during his working years were oil field worker and at a print shop. He began dabbling in bowling ball art in the early 1990s, when his wife Carol had a garden in their yard. Instead of decorating it with gazing balls -- which could shatter in Oklahoma weather --, the Barbees used old bowling balls.
Then Carol died. As a tribute, he took the balls -- which numbered maybe a dozen -- and started building a decorative fence along the road. He planned to add to it slowly, buying balls at yard sales. "I figured it'd take two, three years," said Barbee. "Then people seen what I was doing, and the balls starting coming in." He received gifts of bowling balls from all across the US and overseas.
The fence grew longer and longer with each donation, and Barbee finally stopped it at 108 balls -- but by then he had hundreds more. So he decided to use his surplus on other projects. Barbee's yard had about 70 of his bowling ball creations, ranging from single-ball versions of ladybugs and pigs to a large American flag (273 balls) and an Egyptian pyramid (1,015 balls), rosary (59 balls), robot (45 balls), and even king-size billiard table with (bowling) balls.
Barbee's bowling ball house (344 bowling balls, 140 pins), shelters his mini-museum of donated bags, trophies, and other bowling paraphernalia. Goofy bowling towels line the inner walls as insulation. He had "special" balls, which he didn't want to leave out in the weather, were displayed inside; elaborately decorated with themes ranging from SpongeBob Squarepants to "Freedom Isn't Free." Barbee also has a nearly complete collection of bowling balls from every state. He confided that his second wife had been gone for 20 years in 2017, "She would not have allowed me to do the bowling ball yard art if she was alive." This environment closed in September 2019 and was dismantled as Barbee wanted to move to live closer to his children.