Kansas
Bob Mix is a self-taught metal sculptor. His work experience in commercial metal fabricating informs his whimsical and experimental approach to art-making. Several of his sculptures can be seen in front yards around Great Bend, and he was commissioned by the local zoo to bring the sculptural skeletons of prehistoric creatures to the zoo’s collection. […]
In 1998 Phil Brinkley began to weld dinosaurs, dragons, knights, and other fanciful creations out of automobile and farm implement parts. He also works with commercial sheet metal as well as construction tube and bar stock. He is retired after 40 years with the Cessna Aircraft Company, and helps his son with his auto body […]
In 2013 after I made an off-hand comment on how amusing it would be to have one of MT’s new cannon sculptures in front of my house, he immediately said, “we could dicker on a price, but you’ve done a lot for me, and I’ll give you one.” He added that it would be worth […]
Jerry Hubbell had worked in banking before starting his own farming business in 1980. To mend implements, he took welding lessons, and after the needed repairs were finished, he began to “experiment.” He reshaped discarded metal scraps into a cowboy-driven stagecoach, a purple people eating dragon, Batman on a motorcycle, and many more. The stagecoach […]
During my 2010 visit, MT Liggett made a ‘Sir Frederick’ totem. He must of realized by then that was never getting rid of me, so he planted my likeness near the corner of the gravel road to his studio and said he would think about me “for a millisecond” every time he drove by! He […]
As part of the Kohler Foundation’s 2021 restoration of MT Liggett’s art environment, his studio, which housed his mug collection, was demolished and replaced by a new visitors center.
MT Liggett returned to his hometown of Mullinville, Kansas and built numerous provocative sculptures and signs satirizing local and national politicians, the government, the mainstream media, hypocrites, and former wives
Art environments are typically made by by artists working outside the mainstream of contemporary art. Exposed to the weather and free for public viewing, the environments have little or no connection to the monetized art-object-based realm of galleries and museums. Often the ‘artists’ don’t think of themselves as, or like to be called ‘artists’, their […]
Often self-taught ‘artists’ don’t think of themselves as, or like to be called ‘artists’. They may not produce any ‘for sale’ art objects, their work may be too personal, or it may be intended to carry religious messages from God (for which they accept no personal credit). Many think of themselves as being too unskilled […]
Art environments are typically made by by artists working outside the mainstream of contemporary art. Exposed to the weather and free for public viewing, the environments have little or no connection to the monetized art-object-based realm of galleries and museums. Often the ‘artists’ don’t think of themselves as, or like to be called ‘artists’, their […]
A gallery of hand-painted vernacular signage and murals mostly produced for commercial establishments. Typically, but not always, the work of professional sign painters and often humorous, these are one-of-a-kind works of street art.
American roadside displays, off-beat curiosities, and yard shows.