The 2024 Sand Creek Summer Daze Mural Artist is 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.  Weigel has been involved with the Carriage Factory art gallery in Newton for awhile, even before moving to the region in 2017.  She is also active locally in Newton Murals and Arts, Hutchinson Art Center, and Wichita Women Artists.  She is currently embarking a new public art campaign called Sunflowers Across Kansas and is excited to share some of that starting energy with you here as a part of Summer Daze 2024.

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.

After receiving his Bachelors of Fine Arts and Bachelors of Science in Education from Fort Hays State University, Nathan taught high school and middle school art for 16 years.  Here, he has learned just as much from his students as they have learned from him. He is intrigued by the untapped talents and minds of the students when creating, believing that there is art for everyone, whether two-dimensional or three-dimensional, abstract or representational.  Nathan continues to progress in his professional artist status.  As he explores the many paths of fulfillment of a painter.  He 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.

His website can be found at https://www.nathannovackart.com/

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.

“I made my first flag out of pallet wood around two years ago and then made several more as people began to notice and appreciate them. My friend, Jennifer Wright, is a bit of a junker and she began to give me old doors and windows to paint the flag on.” Freedom said. “After that, I just started looking for things people were trashing to turn into Wichita-based art. We are a throw-away society and I want to bring attention to that through my creations. I enjoy taking trash and repurposing it. I love the challenge of transforming things from their original purpose or design into something completely different.”

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.”

Johnny will be incorporating elements of Newton’s history, our Sesquicentennial, and the Sand Creek Sumer Daze Festival into this years mural. He says it will take on a 3D form and help celebrate the best of Newton in 2022!

2021’s 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 implementing 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 influential artists and developed her own painting style. Her style further evolved to her signature heavy textured paintings after having the opportunity of working with visually impaired children.

Anastacia’s mural is a representation of casual farm life in her cow series. It represents the peaceful, easy going summer days on the farm with its local resident bovines.

2021’s 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 implementing 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 influential artists and developed her own painting style. Her style further evolved to her signature heavy textured paintings after having the opportunity of working with visually impaired children.

Anastacia’s mural is a representation of casual farm life in her cow series. It represents the peaceful, easy going summer days on the farm with its local resident bovines.

2021’s 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 implementing 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 influential artists and developed her own painting style. Her style further evolved to her signature heavy textured paintings after having the opportunity of working with visually impaired children.

Anastacia’s mural is a representation of casual farm life in her cow series. It represents the peaceful, easy going summer days on the farm with its local resident bovines.

2021’s 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 implementing 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 influential artists and developed her own painting style. Her style further evolved to her signature heavy textured paintings after having the opportunity of working with visually impaired children.

Anastacia’s mural is a representation of casual farm life in her cow series. It represents the peaceful, easy going summer days on the farm with its local resident bovines.