salina sculpture tour

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Good Day Kansas Explores: Salina's Sculpture Tour

Downtown Sculpture Tour

(Title image and collage courtesy of Boone Cumberland)

You can pick up the Sculpture Tour Salina Walking Tour Maps in silver boxes on the sculpture pedestals located near most mid-block crosswalks, as well as many area businesses. This is also where you can return your ballot for the People’s Choice Award.  The sculpture with the most votes by December 31 st will be purchased by the City of Salina to become part of Salina’s permanent art collection. You will see many of the previous year’s winners downtown and throughout the city.

Salina is a vibe. Their impressive art scene is vibrantly celebrated and cherished by the community and visitors alike. Their newest mural, Mural at the Mill , is my absolute favorite in the state. The newly restored Stiefel Theatre is handsomely grand any time of day but seeing it all lit up at night brings a Broadway ambiance to Santa Fe Avenue. Friday Night Live brings entertainment downtown every Friday night and coincides with First Friday Art Walk. The Salina Art Center features contemporary art exhibits and operates the Art Center Cinema featuring independent films in an intimate setting.

Smoky Hill River Festival: June 9 - 12

The Garage - Salina's Newest Attraction!

Ready to turn this into a vacation? Check out my blog about Salina’s newest attraction, The Garage ,  showcasing other things to do in the area. Check out Visit Salina’s website for travel inspiration such as places to eat, the best local shops, and where to rest your head after a day of travel and adventure!

Colby Sharples-Terry

Colby is a mother to 3 feral children who share their mother’s love of exploring Kansas. Colby enjoys gardening, outdoor activities, and a good ole Kansas cheeseburger joint. Raised in Northeast Kansas, Colby loves the rural & urban experiences Kansas has to offer.  Before joining the state Tourism Division 7 years ago, she was a regional manager in the beauty industry where her love to travel across Kansas began.

SculptureTour Salina

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SculptureTour Salina - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

• Sculpture Tour

Sculpture Tour Salina Unveils 2023 Winners

This year’s SculptureTour Salina (STS) People’s Choice Award winners were announced via Facebook Live on Thursday, January 25. The Facebook Live event was co-hosted by Mike Hoppock, Chair of the SculptureTour Salina committee, and Brad Anderson, Executive Director of Salina Arts and Humanities. The City of Salina sponsors the People’s Choice Award and will purchase the winning sculpture so that it will remain on public display in Salina.

The 2023 SculptureTour Salina People’s Choice winner is… “Phoenix”, created by Jodie Bliss, creative force and owner of Bliss Studio Custom Metalwork in Monument, CO.

The People’s Merit Award winner of a $1,000 cash award to the artist is… “Mr. Hatter’s Pursuits in Becoming Human: 004 Golden Sphere” by Brady Hatter of Wichita, KS

The Kids’ Choice Award winner of a $500 cash award to the artist is… “Fantastical” by Nancy Bole of Park City, KS

People’s Choice Award winners to date include:

• 2011 – “Watch Dog” by Louise Peterson; On display in Oakdale Park Sculpture Garden – 730 Oakdale Drive
• 2012 – “Sweet Kisses” by Marianne Caroselli; On display in Oakdale Park Sculpture Garden - 730 Oakdale Drive
• 2013 – “Farmer” by Lawrence Starck; soon to be on display at Salina Senior Center – 245 N. Ninth
• 2014 – “Next Up” by James Haire; On display at KWU Tennis Courts – 100 E. Claflin
• 2015 – “Daughters of Peace” by Benjamin Victor; On display at the City/County Building, 2 nd Floor – 300 W. Ash
• 2016 – “Slim” by Dale Lewis, On display at Tony’s Pizza Event Center – 800 The Midway
• 2017 – “Picasso’s Violin” by Jodie Bliss; On display at The Temple – 336 S. Santa Fe
• 2018 – “Patches” by Dale Lewis; On display at The Smoky Hill Museum – 211 W. Iron
• 2019 – “Wheat Harvest” by James Mages; On display at City/County Building – 300 W. Ash
• 2020 – “For the Love of Steel” by Sunny Corbett; On display on N. Santa Fe in front of The Voo – 249 N. Santa Fe
• 2021 – “Butterfly Tree” by Reven Swenson, On display south of the Salina Public Library – 301 W. Elm
• 2022 – “Clarence the Catfish” by Joe and Terry Malesky – Santa Fe & Ash – Downtown
• 2023 – “Phoenix” by Jodie Bliss – site to be determined

About the 2024 Exhibit: “SculptureTour Salina is entering its 14th year and we are pleased with the artwork that has been submitted to be here on loan for the 2024 exhibit,” stated Mike Hoppock, Committee Chair and City Commissioner. “Jurors have met to finalize the exhibit choices. Artists will be notified next week.”

Everyone is invited to come out and help celebrate at the UNwrap Party on Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 11am. ALL sites are unwrapped at 11 am sharp, with the help of the Salina Fire Department sounding the siren to begin. Jurors’ prizes will be awarded at 1:00pm – from the new stage at Santa Fe & Ash. It will be a great day to be in Downtown Salina! Watch www.salinadowntown.com for details.

About SculptureTour Salina: Sculpture Tour Salina (STS) is an annual juried competition and exhibition in Salina, Kansas, an extraordinary community boasting cultural organizations and venues of national acclaim. The exhibition is open to all artists creating works suitable for outdoor display. Approximately 20 sculptures are selected and carefully sited in historic downtown Salina. Sculptures remain installed for one year and the program is marketed to provide both viewing enjoyment to community and visitors as well as a sales opportunity for participating artists. $6,250 in Juror’s Merit Awards are presented annually and to date, 43 sculptures have been purchased or donated including the works purchased by the City of Salina through the People’s Choice Award initiative. Each year, the City of Salina designates up to $20,000 for the purchase of the People’s Choice winner. The sculpture is then installed in a public environment within the community, for everyone to enjoy!

Join the Excitement: 2024 Sculpture Tour Salina UNwrap Party Set for May 4th

Sculpture tour exhibits for 2023 (photo gallery), sculpturetour salina unwrap this saturday.

SculptureTour Ready For 13th Year

Twenty two new pieces of art will be unveiled in downtown as the 2023 SculptureTour Salina takes the wraps off this Saturday.

The sculptures will be simultaneously unwrapped at  11:00am. Everyone is encouraged to come downtown for the reveal and bring family and friends.

• One of the silver boxes at the mid-block pedestrian crossings on Santa Fe
• One of many of the downtown merchants, or
• At the Visit Salina Info trailer which will be located in City Lights Stage plaza – at Santa Fe and Ash

Walk the SculptureTour and you can vote for your favorite piece and return your ballot to one of the silver boxes or the Visit Salina trailer.

Can’t decide just yet? You have some time to mull it over. Each year, the People’s Choice Award is determined by viewers who complete and submit a ballot through December 31. Voting is fun for all ages, with special promotions and contests for voters throughout the year.

Other than purchasing the People’s Choice winner, Sculpture Tour Salina is entirely privately funded. Multiple sculptures are temporarily displayed in the downtown area for a year.

Each sculpture is for sale, with the City of Salina purchasing the People’s Choice winner for permanent display.

Private businesses have a history of purchasing some of the sculptures and placing them where the public can continue to enjoy the works.

On Saturday, stop at the City Lights Stage plaza 1:00pm where the Juror’s Merit Awards, including Best of Show, will be announced from the stage. Salina Downtown, Inc. has some great entertainment scheduled as part of their Santa Fe Weekender event too, including live music Saturday starting at 2:00pm.

If you are a fan and enjoy having these changing exhibits of sculpture on loan from May-April each year, become a Friend of SculptureTour Salina. Donations made by Friends, plus the generous support of Charter Sponsors, Site Sponsors, and Partners make this project possible.

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SculptureTour Salina P.O. Box: 586 Salina, KS 67402-0586 (785) 827-9301

Where to Pick Up A Walking Tour Map

Ad Astra Books and Coffee House, 141 N. Santa Fe

Avon, 134 S. Santa Fe

Blue Skye Brewery & Eats, 116 N. Santa Fe

Clubine and Rettele Charted, 218 S. Santa Fe

Express Print and Signs, 248 S. Santa Fe

Fee Insurance Group, 119 W. Iron, First Floor

First Bank Kansas, 235 S. Santa Fe

Land Title Services, 136 N. 7th

Laura’s Antiques , 109 S. Santa Fe

Martinelli’s Little Italy, 158 S. Santa Fe

On the Pot, 111 N. Santa Fe

Quilting Bee , 120 S. Santa Fe

Rebecca Janes, 115 N. Santa Fe

Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, 120 W. Ash

Salina Regional Health Center, 500 S. Santa Fe

Simply Baby and More , 128 S. Santa Fe

Sunflower Bank, 176 N Santa Fe

Taco John’s, 303 S. Santa Fe

The Toy Parade , 119 S. Santa Fe

The Market Shop, 101 S. Santa Fe

Vernon Jewelers , 123 N. Santa Fe

Volunteer Connection , 239 N. Santa Fe

UMB Bank , 100 S. Santa Fe

© 2010 SculptureTour Salina Site designed by MarketAide Services, Inc. Hosted by WCCIT

Artwork Alley Mural Expo 2022 participating artists included Kamela Eaton, Wichita, Darren Morawitz, Salina, Hanna Lee Scott, Wichita, Ray (SAEB) Albarez, Dallas, Anthony (AMP) Parker, Kansas City, Mo., Jeremy (SADAT) Fields, Fort Collins, Colo., and Brady Scott, Hutchinson.

Art Resources

Salina Kanvas Project

Murals are popping up all around Salina!

National Public Art

Check out what’s happening in the art scene across the country.

Sculpture Tour

See this year’s Sculpture Tour and vote for your favorite!

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Poet Laureate Ada Limón's work connects readers to nature. She'll visit Salina this year

United States Poet Laureate Ada Limón is coming to Salina later this year for her first poetry reading in Kansas.

The Salina Art Center, with support from Humanities Kansas and Salina Arts and Humanities, will host a free reading by Limón on Oct. 17.

Julie Mulvihill, executive director of Humanities Kansas, said October is National Arts and Humanities Month and the organization is excited to have Limón in the Sunflower State.

“We are looking forward to celebrating (the) month with this incredible poetry event in the heart of Kansas,” Mulvihill said. “We are honored that Ada said yes to our invitation and that Salina, with its strong and vibrant arts and humanities community and a culture of poetry lovers, offered to host the opportunity.”

As the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, her signature project is called “You Are Here” and focuses on how poetry can help connect us to the natural world. Limón shared that her new anthology, also called “You Are Here,” includes “poems written for vast and inspiring vistas to poems acknowledging the green spaces that flourish even in the most urban settings,” and she’s hopeful the book will “reimagine what ‘nature poetry’ is during this urgent moment on our planet.”

According to Humanities Kansas, Limón, who will serve as the U.S. Poet Laureate until the spring of 2025, is the author of six books of poetry, including “The Carrying,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her book “Bright Dead Things” was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.

Her most recent book of poetry, “The Hurting Kind,” was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and in 2023 awarded a MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant."

Limón also wrote a poem titled “In Praise of Mystery” that is engraved on NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft that launches to the second moon of Jupiter, also in October 2024. According to NASA, the poem connects two water worlds – Earth and Europa, and is part of the "Message in a Bottle" campaign, and will be accompanied by the names of more than 2 million people from around the world stenciled onto a microchip.

"The poem and the names will be like a message in a bottle, traveling billions of miles as the mission investigates whether the ocean thought to lie beneath Europa’s icy crust could support life," NASA said in a release about the project.

More: Salina Chorale to send off director Bill Tuzicka with his favorite songs in last concert

Opportunities like this an example of Salina's success

Bringing Limón to Salina is just the latest example of the good things happening in the Salina community, particularly in regards to art.

"We were so excited when Humanities Kansas reached out and wanted to bring this opportunity to Salina," said Misty Serene, executive director of the Salina Art Center.

The art center is currently undergoing renovations to its main building, expected to be finished in May, and Serene said the timing of this opportunity is great.

"Knowing that we would just be through the construction and we would have the opportunity to host a group this size, it just all came together at the perfect time," Serene said.

Serene said people should be excited about the things happening in this community, and the fact that Humanities Kansas chose here is evidence of this recent success.

"Salina just has so much going for it right now," Serene said. "The things that we do with music, poetry, writing and art, we're just functioning at a very high level, so I think this was a great fit for us at the Art Center."

Tickets for the event will be available in August at www.salinaartcenter.org . For more information, visit www.humanitieskansas.org .

2023 Sculptures