PAST FESTIVAL ARTISTS & MURALS

The 2024 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist was Jennifer Weigel. Jennifer is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist.  She utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas, including assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video and writing.  Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity (especially gender identity), finding joy (often focused in the everyday or mundane), memory & forgetting, and institutional critique.  Recently, Weigel has been active in pursuing public art as a means of creating and celebrating community and in bringing people together.  Her goal is to get others engaged in their shared environment, noticing the world around them in new and different ways. Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally in all 50 states and has won numerous awards.  

The 2023 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist was Nathan Novack. Nathan is a native to the extreme corner of the Midwest within reach to what is known as the West and Southwest regions.  Here he grew up along side 13 siblings.  As part of a family business he spent many years prepping and painting in and out of residential houses to work through a big portion of education.  Here, on a large scale he developed an understanding of process, layers, color, lighting and texture, most importantly problem solving. He received his Associates Degree in Fine Arts at Garden City Community College then attended Kansas University where he studied graphic design and transitioned into art education. Nathan is drawn to many representational and contemporary western artists.  Studying and observing their styles and techniques help prove and support the effective uniqueness of perceptions with similar themes and subjects.

The 2022 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist was Johnny Freedom. Freedom is well-known in Wichita for the incorporation of the Wichita Flag into art work. A native Wichitan, Freedom attended Peterson Elementary, Wilbur Jr. High and Northwest High School. He’s always been Wichita’s biggest fan, but it wasn’t until 2015 that he began painting Wichita flags. Freedom has been drawing since he was a kid, but it wasn’t until he started painting the Wichita flag that he committed himself to making art. According to Freedom, his art has been totally born from his “love for Wichita and obsession for our beautiful flag. Honestly, it’s my desire to make the flag the centerpiece of our city that motivates me. In 10 years I don’t care if anyone knows who Johnny Freedom is, but I want them to recognize our flag and I want them to love the city it represents.

The 2021 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist was Anastacia Drake. Anastacia is a Kansas City based artist, who discovered art as a small child in a difficult environment. She used her art to process her situation, and then began implimenting her passion for nature into her paintings. In her twenties she won her first artist residency in Hungary and began traveling the world exhibiting and selling her work. She had the opportunity to work with many intluential artists and developed her pwn painting style. This style further evolved to her signature heavy textured paintings after having the opportunity of working with visually impaired children. 

The 2019 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist was Mark D. Pendergrass. Mark is a professional artist who has been painting for over thirty-seven years. He is co-creator of the popular “Music Machine” and “Bullfrogs and Butterflies” albums of the 1980’s. Mark has designed over twenty album covers since 1975, and has been awarded four Album Cover of the Year awards by the CBA. He has illustrated numerous books, designed logos, and produced works for just about every field of art. As an accomplished songwriter, Mark has written numerous songs for various recording artists, and has earned two Gold and Platinum albums, four Dove Awards and five Grammy Nominations.

The 2018 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist was Brady Scott. Brady has created several well-known public art murals in Hutchinson, including the Hutchinson Women’s Center Lobby and the Boys and Girls Club Shadduck Park Playground. He has painted murals for the Kansas City Masterpiece Mural Festival, Tulsa Habit Mural Festival, Wichita’s Avenue Art Days & The Plaza Walls Mural Expo in Oklahoma City.