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Kathy Ruth Neal - Kansas City, Missouri

Wood Carvings

Kathy Ruth Neal was born in Oakland, California. She spent much of her life working as a TWA flight attendant. After being diagnosed with cancer, following successful treatment, she began to whittle and never stopped carving. She said, "I think my lifelong interest in colors, painting, and drama is a gift from my Grandfather, Walter Whipple, who was a silent screen actor and make-up artist. Many of my wood carvings depict what I consider to be vignettes of American life: events of the day, at the movies, the circus, or politics. How I came to carve wood, however, is a mystery."

Anchor N

Mark Negus - Blue Springs, Missouri

Miniatures

A gentle man with a quiet demeanor would best describe Mark Negus of Blue Springs, Missouri. His interest lies in miniature sculptures and miniature paintings. They usually are created out of bits of paper or metal with lots of thought given to the intracacies of each section of the sculpture. They are so small that they fit within the palm of your hand.

Melissa Nelson & Ruby Meyer - Norton/Paola, Kansas

Paper Mache

Ruby Meyer (1916-2005) discovered paper mache through her children's 4-H and classroom projects. She began to experiment with the medium, and lamented that the work attracted bugs as it aged due to the flour in the paste medium.  Her daughter, Melissa, came up with a recipe that eliminated the flour from the paste thus making the work truly timeless.  Melissa Nelson continued the process after her mother's death, but moved away from the chicken-wire mold, and began each piece with simple, skeleton wood frames wrapped with thousands of strips of paper while wet.  One sculpture depicts her mother, Ruby, peeling apples. A spectacular "Bungling Brothers" circus includes performing elephants, a lion tamer with performing lions, and a monkey "Top Banana Band." Melissa continues the tradition of creating paper mache figures and has refined the mother-daughter techniques over the years.

Richard Nelson - Salina, Kansas 

Railroad City

Richard Nelson built his "Garden Railway" after retiring from Western Star Mill in Salina.  A G-scale railroad is a large-scale model railway (1:29 scale) with permanently installed tracks set up in a garden. It was 32- by 48- feet, took 79 tons of dirt, 475 stones, 190 tires and 12 tons of rock.