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Deb Hanes-Nelson, watercolorist

Posted on by Pat Melgares

Some people minister from the pulpit. Some can minister with a paintbrush. Deborah Hanes-Nelson is a person who can do both.

Mug shot, Deb Hanes-Nelson
Deb Hanes-Nelson

Today we’ll meet this talented woman who has been both a preacher and a painter in rural Kansas.

Deb Hanes-Nelson is a watercolorist. She was born in Florence but her family moved around Kansas because her father was a relief foreman for the Santa Fe Railroad. “When you’re out somewhere and you don’t know anybody, you can pick up a pad of paper and draw,” Hanes-Nelson said. “I’ve always enjoyed drawing and painting.”

Her high school didn’t offer art classes, but Hanes-Nelson took lessons from a local woman. After high school, she moved to Topeka, where she felt called to the ministry. She attended Washburn University and then St. Paul Theology School in Kansas City, launching a 35-year career serving as a pastor in the United Methodist Church.

She also met and married her husband, Doug, who is a finish carpenter and custom woodworker. They had one son.

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Blackbear Bosin, artist

Posted on by Pat Melgares

At the confluence of the Big and Little Arkansas Rivers in downtown Wichita stands a magnificent sculpture honoring the native American history of Kansas. This iconic sculpture is known as the Keeper of the Plains. It was created by a Wichita artist of Comanche and Kiowa descent, who had a remarkable career in the arts.

Statue, Keeper of the Plains, downtown Wichita
Keeper of the Plains

Blackbear Bosin is the artist who created this remarkable work. Much of the following information comes from the book Blackbear Bosin: Keeper of the Indian Spirit, by Bosin’s stepson, David Simmonds.

Blackbear Bosin was born in Oklahoma in 1921 to a Kiowa father and Comanche mother. His native name, which belonged to his paternal grandfather (a Kiowa chief), means Blackbear in English.

Young Blackbear Bosin attended a mission school in Oklahoma where he studied the collection of Kiowa and European art objects and dabbled in painting. He went on to the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School where he trained to work with sheet metal and then moved to Wichita with his wife. During World War II, he enlisted in the Marines.

In 1943, he fell ill and was hospitalized at the naval hospital in Hawaii. There, he took up painting again. His art was so well regarded that the hospital hosted a one-man exhibition of his works before his discharge in 1945.

Having regained his health, he returned to Wichita where he became an industrial designer and product illustrator for Boeing. He later worked in the training aids and arts department at McConnell Air Force Base. Meanwhile, he was building his career as an artist.

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Inga Ojala, artist

Posted on by Jason Hackett

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University

It was the opening scene of the TV show “Gunsmoke.” Marshal Dillon stepped into Hollywood’s version of Dodge City’s Front Street for a quick-draw showdown with an unnamed gunman. That unnamed gunman was in fact a technical advisor for many major western stars. His daughter, an accomplished artist, would eventually find her way to the real Dodge City in Kansas.

Inga Ojala
Inga Ojala

Inga Ojala is an accomplished artist and art teacher. She is the daughter of Arvo Ojala, the gunman from the opening scene of “Gunsmoke.” Arvo Ojala’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Finland and settled on a ranch in Washington state. It was rugged country.  Arvo said he learned to shoot by shooting the heads off rattlesnakes. That would certainly provide an incentive to shoot quickly and accurately!

By the early 1950s, Arvo was working as a Hollywood stuntman. He observed the cowboy movie stars and designed a special type of holster which enabled them to draw their guns more quickly. Arvo practiced his skills to the point that he could draw in one-sixth of a second. Continue reading “Inga Ojala, artist” →