A few stories we're still thinking about:
With new book bus, the library extends its reach
The Wichita Public Library debuted its book bus last November, piloted by librarian Racine Zackula. Entertaining stories in two local news outlets detail her adventures around the city:
- Wichita State alum infuses love of reading in new ‘Book Bus’ work (the Sunflower)
- Wichita library’s new Book Bus delivers the joy of reading (KMUW)
Find out if the book bus is headed your way.
Local author alert: Grant Snider's 'Poetry Comics'
Over the past eight years, Wichita orthodontist and acclaimed cartoonist Grant Snider has produced or collaborated on more than 10 titles, from children’s books to collections of work previously published in outlets such as the New Yorker and the New York Times Review of Books.
Publisher’s Weekly calls his latest “a poetry-filled graphic novel that is powerful in its simplicity.”
- Find “Poetry Comics” at Watermark Books & Cafe (or anywhere books are sold).
- Emily wrote about Snider’s last collection “The Art of Living” for the Wichita Eagle.
A proposed arts-and-culture plan for Wichita
At the end of February, the City of Wichita Arts & Cultural Services released a draft of a new strategic plan, which will guide the division through 2028. Its areas of focus include ensuring that residents have equal opportunities to engage in the arts, addressing the needs of city-owned arts facilities, engaging with underserved populations, and stimulating the creation of new opportunities and artwork in the community.
The Wichita City Council will vote on adoption of the plan later this year. Meanwhile, you can:
Mike Hartung rages against our current political climate with a paintbrush as his tool
Few artists are as colorful or pointed as Lindsborg’s Mike Hartung. His most recent exhibition, “Villainy, Beyond the Pale: The Political Landscape of 2023,” skewered figures such as Josh Hawley and Charles Koch.
If you missed the January show at the Smoky Valley Art & Folk Life Center in Lindsborg, Ksenya Gurshtein thoughtfully documented it for the Kansas Reflector. (Kudos to the Reflector, which has followed Hartung’s painterly antics for the past few years.)
Remembering Curt Gridley
Wichita lost a giant last month when entrepreneur and philanthropist Curt Gridley died after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. His legacy includes Groover Labs, the tech-focused nonprofit coworking and makerspace Gridley cofounded in 2019 with his wife Tracy Hoover.
“He didn’t ever feel like he needed to be bound by somebody else’s rules,” Hoover recalled for an obituary in the Wichita Eagle.
New ‘wind phone’ sculpture on the Prairie Art Path offers comfort to the grief-stricken
“Thanks to a partnership between local artist Bill McBride and former Cottonwood Falls resident Ray McGeorge, visitors to the Prairie Art Path, an outdoor sculpture garden located on the north edge of Matfield Green, Kansas … can speak again to their lost loved ones, with their messages carried by the wind.” (The Emporia Gazette)
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