This is part of a series featuring young entrepreneurs in our community.
Following the first set of stories on young entrepreneurs in our community, an anonymous donor wrote fortscott.biz that he wanted to grant each one of the featured youth with $50.
If you know of a child, under 18 years of age, that is creating products or providing services to sell to the public, please send their name and phone number to [email protected]
Fortscott.biz wants to encourage the youth who are learning business by doing it.
Devlin Cole.
Devlin Cole, 15, started a leather works business about a year ago, called DRC Leatherworks.
He hand stamps and hand cuts leather to make bookmarks, rings, bracelets, key rings.
His grandmother, Vicki Waldron, owner of ViCon, a sewing business, and he both got interested at the same time, and he works out of her shop on Maple Road, rural Fort Scott. His sister, Mackenna, has encouraged him in his business, he said.
“I started sewing when young,” Cole said. “I like hands-on personalizing and being a craftsman on something that is personal.”
He is currently creating a stock pile of leather work articles for the Children’s Business Fair on September 30.
“I used (his leather) bookmarks at school, when reading and friends noticed and ordered a few,” he said.
At a recent band event, some of his friends helped Cole select a name for his business and he has been working on pricing, business logo and a business email.
Submitted graphic.
Belts are $10, keychains and pendants are $5, bookmarks are $7, rings are $3, and bracelets are $4.
“That is the prices I have thought of at the current moment not 100% sure on the belts due to leather costs but the rest is pretty set in stone,” he said.
At a recent Children’s Business Fair workshop, he developed a busniness plan and got all his ideas on paper, he said. Next was cash flow and payment options.
He will be selling, along with other young enrepreneurs, at the Fort Scott Farmers Market on September 30.
Amy Smith is a contemporary abstract artist who is inspired to create expressionist paintings that capture feeling and emotion. Amy works in mixed media and acrylics to create abstract fine art that is deeply layered and textured. Her contemporary art is a form of storytelling. She captures these stories with color and gesture and mark making. Abstract painting is a vehicle to outwardly express the deep inner work of the Spirit in me. When I begin to work on a piece I do not usually have a finished work in my mind. I may have a shred of an idea to start from, but I never have a plan. I am inspired by emotions,
relationships, current events, the natural environment, and most centrally, my faith
in relationship to all of these things. I work intuitively, moving among my paints, charcoal and collage papers as the piece develops and tells me where it wants to go. I am not sure that my pieces are ever really “finished,” but they come to a resting place that seems to make sense within the framework of the story being told. Like my own story, there is always another chapter to move on to, but each piece of art captures one moment in time. Amy lives in North Carolina with her husband, Matt, and her beloved cats. She has been a professional artist for over twenty years. In addition to painting, she also teaches painting and mixed media classes and mentors other growing artists and creatives.
Master Artist Classes!
We have two unique classes Amy will be teaching September 2nd!
Heart class-
Learn the secret formula to create Amy’s beautiful heart collage canvases. She will teach you the magic of layering pattern and color with paper and paint to create beautiful one of a kind heart canvases. Each student will create two 5×7″ layered mixed media artworks.
All supplies provided.
10am-12pm
Fat Baby Journals-
Create a special small journal with removable pages. Perfect for written or art journaling or as a scrapbook or travel journal. Each student will create one journal starting with precut cover pieces that will be assembled and covered with your choice of beautiful hand painted or commercial papers. We will cut down and assemble the interior pages and bind the book with colorful linen thread. students will have the choice to add a button or tied closure.
All supplies provided.
1pm-3pm
Both classes are ages fourteen and up! We cant wait to see you there!
Darrell Williams has been creating artwork since childhood. His first commissions were for custom painted Hot Wheels cars. He has been perusing his interest in art and automobiles ever since. His mediums include airbrush, graphite, oils, and colored pencil. He composes pieces that have a sense of nostalgia highlighting his interest in classic vehicles and Americana. Williams will gladly create a custom piece for you. He also offers custom work on vehicles.
Fort Scott, Kan. Aug.1, 2023 – Dr. Matthew Goltl, a Wichita chiropractor and longtime admirer of Gordon
Parks, has donated four of the celebrated photographer’s master prints to the Gordon Parks Museum
at Fort Scott Community College.
The 17-by-22 images are from “The Gordon Parks Signature Collection: Images from the Soul” by
Marcia McCoy, photographer and friend of Parks.
The photographs – titled “Moondown,” “Sky Song,” “Stream-side Blossoms” and “A Memory” – will
become part of the museum’s collections.
“We are so very thankful to Dr. Goltl for this wonderful contribution to our museum; this is a wonderful
addition to our collections,” said Kirk Sharp, executive director.
McCoy also teamed with Parks and Robert Erlichman of Art Guild Press to create an edition suite of
the many iconic photos taken by the Fort Scott native.
“Mr. Parks is a national treasure and has inspired creators globally to have the courage to create and
express their voices and visions,” she said. “We are delighted to share these powerful and inspiring
abstracts with you and the world.”
All of your Favorite master and guest artist are sharing a show this First Friday! Come in during August 4th to have a last chance to see all their work together!
The “Last Look” Opening is a summer review of all of our past Master and Guest artists in one big show opening! Appreciating the lovely art and Artist who have participated in the gallery before the fall season starts and we get new art in!
Come and join us for the last looks and all the stories August 4th!
List of Artists in the Last Look Opening!
Top left- Liberty Worth
Top middle- Gentry Warren
Top right- Phillip Ortiz
Bottom left – Lorrie and Isaac Fowler
Bottom middle- Jill Willams
Bottom right- Kadra Nevitt
Glaze Day!
August 26th we will be holding our third glaze day! On glaze day we offer handmade and pre-prepped pieces of all kinds to Glaze! A mug, bowl, etc. that you decorate how ever you choose! Glaze day is held from 12pm-5pm and you can come in anytime!
Classes Are Available On The Website!
All of the classes for the rest of the year are up on our website!
Go check them out and get in before everyone else!!
One can order tickets online for the Osage ballet being performing at the Ellis Arts Center, Fort Scott Community College this weekend or at the door. The first performance is tonight at 7:30 p.m.
This scene in the ballet depicts the encounters with Europeans by the Osage, a tribe of Native Americans.
Wahzhazhe is the Native American name for the tribal people we know as the Osage.
A dance academy in Pawhuska, OK has created a ballet telling the 400 year-old story of the Wahzhazhe.
The performers are mostly from the Dance Maker Academy in Pawhuska, in Osage County, which is home to the Osage tribe.
There are about 24,000 Osage people throughout the world, Randy Tinker-Smith, the ballet producer said.
Tinker-Smith said the 20 children dancers in this ballet are from different tribes, not all Osage.
The ballet is “an artistic expression of who we are,”Tinker- Smith, who is Osage, said. “We are not history, we are still here.”
They performed the Osage story at the Smithsonian Institution in 2012, she said.
The scene that resonated with viewers there, was the last one, where the performers demonstrate walking in two worlds, the Osage world and the other white people world, she said.
The ballet is the story of tradition, adaptation, tragedy, triumph, survival, and the enduring spirit of the Osage people, told by the Osage Nation, according to a press release from the FSNHS.
“This is not our story to tell, but it is our responsibility to provide a platform for these stories to be told,” said Carl Brenner, FSNHS Chief of Interpretation and Resource Management.
“This area was their native homeland,” Brenner said. “This (ballet) is part of a Native American series (at the Fort). We will continue to talk about this.”
“We jump started our relationship with the Osages,” Jill Jaworski, FSNHS Superintendent said. “There are a lot of doors being opened for having conversations with the Osage. We are looking to update our exhibits and are asking ‘What would you like shared?'”
Ballet: an Osage Tradition
The first five prima ballerinas in the United State were Native Americans, two of them Osage, Tinker-Smith said.
Lavender Sarroll, a mom accompanying the ballet troupe, said her daughter, Lilliana Guillen, 17, has been dancing since she was six years old at the Dance Maker Academy.
The ballet still is emotional for her, Sarroll said.
“To this day, when they get to the place in the ballet, where they rise from defeat, I cry every time,” she said.
Sarroll said the Wahzhazhe have their own government and language.
Doors are opened to a college education for some through the ballet.
Several of the ballet performers are offered dance scholarships to colleges, including her daughter, Sarroll said.
Logistics
Fort Scott National Historic Site and the Friends of Fort Scott National Historic Site, Inc. offered special access for the media to the Wahshazhe ballet producer, Randy Tinker-Smith, and for viewing rehearsals on Wednesday, July 19.
The rehearsal was a prelude to the three performances, today, Friday, through Saturday at the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the Fort Scott Community College campus, 2108 Horton St.
There are 50 people involved in the production of the ballet, but some parents accompany the group, with a total of 70 people. Most arrived on Wednesday and are staying in the FSCC Residential Halls.
Thursday was the dress rehearsal, then the performances are today, Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 3 p.m.
Youth tickets are just $15, adults are $35. Go to Friends of the Fort Facebook page or at OsageBallet.com.
Or one can take a chance, wait, and hope it’s not sold-out and purchase tickets at the door.
There is a question and answer session following the ballet.
Learning More
The performance is for those who are interested in Kansas and American history, Native American culture, the arts and dance, and those wanting to experience something spectacular and different from anything they have seen before, according to the press release.
Killers of the Flower Moon-The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, a story on a tragic part of the Osage tribe is a book that has been made into a movie and will be open in theaters this years, Tinker-Smith said.
“Mollie Burkhart is in the book,” she said. “Her grand-daughter is in the ballet. This movie, we can let people know, we are still here.”
PAWHUSKA, Okla.—When researching Osage history for Wahzhazhe: An Osage Ballet, co-creator Randy Tinker-Smith, founder of Osage Ballet, spoke with around 50 elders. Tinker-Smith is Osage, and she knows that some things are not meant to be shared onstage.
“While doing research for the ballet, I spoke with around 50 Osage elders,” she said. “I did not want to do one thing without permission. I met with some of them numerous times, and by the end of that year we had lost three of them. Now looking back, I am just so thankful that I had that time with them.”
With Martin Scorsese’s film Killers of the Flower Moon being recently filmed in the present-day Osage Nation, Osage history is on the minds of many people. Visitors to Fort Scott, KS have three opportunities to experience 400 years of the rich history of the Osage through artistic dance when Wahzhazhe: An Osage Ballet is presented at Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the campus of Fort Scott Community College, July 21 and 22.
Ellis Fine Arts Center on the campus of Fort Scott Community College, 2401 S. Horton.
The production is the work of Osage Ballet, a nonprofit organization which seeks to preserve and share the history of the Osage people through dance.
The first half of the ballet depicts life in the Osages’ ancestral homelands, which encompassed much of the middle of the United States, including the entirety of what is now Missouri. One of the earliest diaries chronicling the Osage people describe them as the “happiest people in the world.” Family and ceremony were at the center of culture and moving with the seasons was a way of life. With the arrival of Europeans, many of the ceremonies and the complex Osage clan system were almost decimated by war and disease. Like many Indigenous people, the mighty Osage were forced west onto smaller and smaller pieces of land. Eventually, the Osage bought their own reservation in Indian Territory and settled there in what is now Osage County, Oklahoma.
Tinker-Smith said her own family’s history was on her mind as she researched.
“When our tribe left Kansas in 1871, there had been so much death because of smallpox and starvation and other diseases,” she said. “The buffalo had been slaughtered. Fences had been put up. Everything had changed drastically. Because of that, the elders put away our ceremonies because they did not have the animals, plants, and implements they needed to do them properly. We are a highly organized people: You have a purpose, you learn how to do it, and you pass it on, but that could not be done anymore. My great-grandfather was born at St. Paul Mission in Kansas. I read a diary that said 600 Osage people died in one week while he was living there. This history touches our family so deeply.”
The first act of the ballet chronicles what was lost, while the second act portrays how the Osage survived and continue to thrive despite so much trauma.
“When I started meeting with these elders, I wanted to have permission about what I could tell in the story,” she said. “As long as I am alive, for example, you will never see our sacred ceremonial ways on our stage, but what you will see are the things we still have: Fire, feathers, water. Songs. There is a lot that we can share, and it is exceptionally beautiful.”
The Osage Ballet, Wahzhazhe was created by a predominately Indigenous team with choreography by Jenna LaViolette (Osage) and original music by Osage composer Lou Brock. Dr. Joseph Rivers, chair of the film department at the University of Tulsa, composed original music and arranged the score. Osage artists Wendy Ponca, Alexander Ponca Stock, and the late Terry Wann, designed the costumes and backdrops. Shawnee Peoria artist Roman Jasinski, Jr. served as artistic adviser. (Jasinski is the son of Moscelyne Larkin, one of five Indigenous ballerinas from Oklahoma to gain international fame in the 20th century.) Professional dancers for the production are from ballet companies around the US. Joining the professional dancers are students of Dance Maker Academy in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, representing 19 Native nations.
For tickets and information on the July 21 and 22 performances in Fort Scott, KS visit their website, www.osageballet.com/events and watch for posts
You’re invited to work with textile artist Liberty Worth to give new life and artistic outcomes to old fabric scraps. We will be “painting” (no paint involved) with fabric to create new objects d’art. Class will be held July 8th 10am-12pm & 1-3pm!
Fabric Collage from Photos
This morning class you will be working from a reference photo of something special to you or something you like to fuse a collage of! Giving new life to old fabric and memories!
Abstract Fabric Collage
this Afternoon class will be a time to really let loose and create something abstract! taking inspiration nature and art! get in touch with the fabric of life!
Liberty Worth is an artist, poet, teacher and traveler. Gathering inspiration from the natural world and stories of healing, she uses life and memories to guide her artmaking and writing. An avid journal keeper and sketchbook filler, Liberty lives in Los Angeles, CA where she practices as a commissioned visual artist, public speaker and part time high school art teacher.
Cbabi Bayoc, St. Louis, MO, was selected to paint the latest downtown Fort Scott mural.
He was selected through a process, established by the Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce Downtown Division, to seek the best artist for the mural to highlight the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry historic significance in the Civil War.
The mural will be facing the Fort Scott National Historic Site, which is where this infantry unit was organized for the Civil War.
This mural will be replaced with a new one depicting African-American troops who served in the American Civil War. The mural wall faces Fort Scott National Historic Site.
Bayoc, 50, has been creating murals since 2017.
“I have about 25-30 murals in schools and businesses around the St. Louis region and several in outside locations, like the United Church of Christ corporate office in Ohio, the 1619 Freedom School in Iowa and the Family Reunification center in North Carolina,” he said in an interview with fortscott.biz.
“I have never done a military-inspired mural but have always been interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction,” he said.” I am also an Air Force brat, so this is special to me.”
“The only must-haves for (this) mural were three soldiers and their batallion flag,” Bayoc said. “So I designed a mural with a soldier in arms with the American flag, a soldier aiming his rifle across the design and the batallion flag as a backdrop.”
Bayoc will be in Fort Scott the second week of August for approximately a week for working on the mural, he said. At the beginning of the project he will have one or two people helping him.
About the 1st Colored Infantry
“Kansas was the first Northern state to recruit, train, and send Black soldiers into combat during the Civil War,” according to https://www.nps.gov/fosc/learn/historyculture/firsttoserve.htm. “Fort Scott served as the home base for both the 1st and 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry, with both regiments being mustered into federal service on Fort Scott’s former parade ground. The Emancipation Proclamation officially authorized the recruitment of African American soldiers for federal service (although the 1st Kansas Colored had earlier been recruited as a state unit in August 1862). This meant it was now legal for free Blacks and former slaves to fight back against the institution of slavery and seek to abolish it through armed resistance. As virtually every Southern slave code prohibited Blacks from carrying guns, the proclamation had a profound psychological impact across the region.”
Captain William Mathews –a free Black, a businessman and station master on the Underground Railroad –recruited former slaves into the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Fort Scott. He lost his rank when the unit was federalized but later served as an artillery officer. Taken from the Fort Scott National Historic Site, courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society
The mural will be dedicated during the Gordon Parks Celebration on the first Friday in October, said Rachel French, a member of the Chamber Downtown Committee and project coordinator for the mural.
The $5,250 Kansas Office of Rural Prosperity grant awarded for the mural is a matching grant.
“We are fundraising for the match,” French said. “We need to do signage and there will be recognition of donors.”
The selected artist for the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry mural has just been announced. Congratulations to Cbabi Bayoc! We can’t wait to see this new mural in our historic downtown of Fort Scott, KS.
The Fort Scott Downtown Chamber Division will facilitate the creation of a mural in honor and remembrance of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment that was established here and trained in Fort Scott, KS. This was the first African-American regiment to fight against the Confederacy in the Civil War.
To learn more about the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry and their amazing story, go to the mural project facebook page at Murals of Fort Scott
Gordon Parks Museum receives the African American Methodist Episcopal (AME)
Church Property
(left to right) Josh Jones, Kirk Sharp, Gordon Parks Museum and Sarah Smith, Fort Scott Community College Foundation
The ground on which the historic African-American Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church once stood is now the property of the Gordon Parks Museum, thanks to Fort Scott resident Josh Jones and the Fort Scott Community College Foundation.
Jones donated the site on the southeast corner of Third and Lowman streets where the church, attended regularly by Gordon Parks and his family, was located. The church was also used in a scene from Parks’ acclaimed film, “The Learning Tree.”
“We are very excited about this donation and can’t thank Josh and the Foundation enough,” said museum executive director Kirk Sharp. “This donation creates this wonderful opportunity to keep this incredible history alive in Fort Scott. This is also the same location that is located on our Learning Tree Film Sign Trail.”
The tentative plans, Sharp said, are to develop the property as a commemorative low-maintenance park with signs, photos, benches and short walls as a tribute to the AME church.
“The museum will look for possible grants and donations to help fund this project,” he noted. “There is currently on timeline as of now for the completion of the tribute project.”
In its heyday, the church, established in 1866, was the hub of Fort Scott’s black community. The church moved from its original location in 1885, occupying a new brick building on the corner of Third and Lowman, where it stood at 301 S. Lowman with a viable congregation for more than 115 years.
A reduction in members and unsafe conditions eventually led to its condemnation and razing in the early 2000s, Sharp said. One of the stained-glass windows and two of the pews are on exhibit at the Gordon Parks Museum.
“The largest congregation was believed to have been in 1888,” he said. “The city directory for that year indicates the membership was 260 and the Sunday school membership was 100.”
The AME church was Fort Scott’s first and oldest black church with Shiloh Baptist being the second.
(left to right) Josh Jones, Kirk Sharp, Gordon Parks Museum and Sarah Smith, Fort Scott Community College Foundation.
AME Church
Gordon Parks, 1950.
Photo Courtesy of and Copyright by The Gordon Parks Foundation
WE ARE LOOKNG FORWARD TO SEEING EVERYONE AT THIS YEARS’ CELEBRATION, AS WE CELEBRATE OUR 20TH YEAR!
“Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award” 2023 Recipients
Tommy Dodson, Mario E. Sprouse and Deborah Willis will be the recipients of the “Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award” at the annual celebration
October 5th -7th, 2023 in Fort Scott, Kansas. The celebration is in honor of Fort Scott native Gordon Parks, noted photographer, writer, musician, and filmmaker. The Choice of Weapons Award was established in Parks’ honor to be given annually at the celebration.
Tommy Dodson
Fort Scott native musician, photographer and author. See his full bio in the link below.
This poetry contest is inspired by Gordon Parks and his love for his family and upbringing.
This is open to any emerging poets of all ages and skill levels who have not yet been published in a book are invited to write a poem for this contest.
