By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays Arts Council will focus its coming exhibition around the Ellis County and City of Hays sesquicentennial.
The exhibition will kickoff during the Summer Art Walk from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday.
The Hays Arts Council is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
The exhibition at the Hays Arts Center will be in two pieces and will run through Aug. 5.
The first will be in the Exhibition Hall Gallery and will be called “
A Place in Time.”
It is featuring work by Tim Chapman, Dennis Schiel, Bruce Burkholder, all local artists and Charlie Norton of Leoti.
Norton creates bronzes that deal with historical subject matter.
Dennis Schiel produced a large mural of the state of Kansas that now hangs in the state Capitol outside of the office of the Kansas Attorney General. A full-size reproduction of that mural will be in the Hays exhibit.
“It literally does show our place in the timeline of the state. Since that mural depicts such a broad scope of our state in such detail, it is a wonderful pictorial history of our state. But of course, Hays is lovingly addressed by Dennis with historical accuracy and detail,” said Brenda Meder, executive director of the Hays Arts Council.
Schiel also did the large piece that is on the side of Hays’ historical Fox theater, and a reproduction of that mural will be a part for this exhibit.
A reproduction of Burkholder’s mural titled “History Holds the Future,” which is in the Fort Hays State University Memorial Union, will also be a part of the exhibit.
Tim Chapman is the former director of the endowment at FHSU and did the “three amigo” bronze busts of Cody, Custer and Hickok at the Beach Schmidt Performing Arts Center at FHSU. Historical bronzes by Chapman also will be a part of the “A Place in Time” exhibit.
In the founder’s gallery, the HAC will have a tribute to Pete Felten titled “Carved in Stone: The Legacy of Pete Felten.”
That will consist of small plaster models of some of the statues that are around town, but also non-commissioned, non-historical limestone sculptures from private collections. This includes female and animal figures.
“It is an exhibit that not only is meant to capture the historical element of our community through Pete Felten’s maquettes, but the historical icon that Pete Felten is for our community,” Meder said.
Historical Fort Hays will be open from 5 to 7:30 p.m. and will have an exhibit by Jerry Thomas, including the unveiling of his new historical painting “One Perfect Day” that depicts George and Elizabeth Custer.
Maria Matkin and Steve Alexander, who posed for the portrait, will be guests at the fort this weekend and will dress as the historical couple during the fort’s sesquicentennial celebration.
The Hays Public Library will have four exhibits. “Hays in Photographs” from the HPL Kansas Room Collections and Ellis County Historical Society Archives and “Memory Jars” will both be in the first floor gallery.
The Teen Art Exhibit will be in the Davies Room on the second floor, and the Children’s Art Exhibit will in the Children’s Department on the second floor.
The Community Assistance Center will have a fundraising art sale from donations the center has received. Both original and reproductions will be offered.
Gella’s Diner will have live music by Blake Ruder from 9 to 11 p.m. There also will be live music by Randy Mader at the Ellis County Historical Museum, and the Community Acoustic Jam Session will be at Union Pacific Park at 10th and Main streets.
