untitled, Kurt Funke

Exhibition Label:
"Conversation III: Connections in Place," Jun-2008
Landscapes in this video were shot in and around Lawrence, Kansas, during May, 2008. Sites include Vinland, Clinton Lake, Martin Park, Scenic River Road, and the University of Kansas campus.

Take Kansas Highway 4 out to the rim of the prairie or travel the high road along Skyline Drive to where the hills flow into each other and the wind constantly moves.

If the space feels different than it ever has before. If you see a hawk balanced on top of a high place. If you notice the grasses bending a certain direction. If you see a tree and wonder why it is there. If you stand alone in the prairie sea and hear the whisperings of tall grass. If you have a sense that none of it and all of it is yours. And if, in the early morning or late evening light, you are privileged to see purple in the hills-then you will have seen my prairie.

Rutledge, Carol Brunner, Dying and Living on the Kansas Prairie: A Diary, the University Press of Kansas, 1994, p. 213.
_______________________________________

How would you direct someone to a place that is important to you?

How would you describe it to them?
_______________________________________

“My favorite place in Lawrence is Martin Park. To get there you take Folks Road to what used to be a Christmas tree farm. Then you take a right. It’s not a very big park, but it’s completely wooded. Once you get in, you park your car. Cars can’t drive on the path. You can just walk through and you’re in the woods walking wherever you want. Since there’s hardly ever anyone else there, you really feel like you’re in a secret garden that’s untouched. People use the park sort of as a hideout space. I like that there’s a sense of solitude when you’re there, and that you can get there in three minutes: three minutes to solitude.”

Margaret Perkins-McGuinness / Lawrence, KS

Write your thoughts in our comment book or send us an email (spencerart@ku.edu), and we will compile responses on our 20/21 Conversation page: www.spencerart.ku.edu/20/21/conversation.shtml.

How would you represent your favorite place visually?

Contribute a photo or digital image of your favorite landscape/place and we’ll put selected images up in our gallery throughout the summer. We’ll also display all contributed images on our website’s 20/21 Conversation page: www.spencerart.ku.edu/20/21/conversation.shtml.