The Flint Hills Maps Project, High School, Middle School and Elementary

Living on the edge of the prairie offers an escape to a place of wonder. Wendell Berry, author and bioregionalist, says, “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.”

The largest remaining stand of tallgrass prairie is found in the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma. The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation has created the Maps in the Schools project. The maps will hang in the schools of the Flint Hills showing their particular location and, depending on the grade level, speak to some special aspect of the place, the life, the history and/or the science.

The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation has honored Emily Connell, Project Director, and Annie Wilson, Project Coordinator and High School Program Educator, by naming them 2020 Friends of the Flint Hills. Since in-person gatherings are limited due to the pandemic, a film was produced by Dave Kendall and Laura Mead. Others (and definitely not all) folks working on the project Pam Collinge – Middle School Educator; Molly Wold – Elementary Educator; John Dunham – Mapmaker; Laura Zimney – Graphic Designer. If you are interested in knowing more about the project, contact the Flint Hills Discovery Center Map and Education Program.

The Flint Hills Maps in the Schools, High School Illustration

• Original Artwork – Oil on Ampersand
• 31” x 17.25” illustration
• Copyright by The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation
  and Nancy Lehenbauer Marshall

The Flint Hills Maps in the Schools, High School Map

• Print on Paper
• 31” x 17.25” illustration size on a 48” x 48” map
• Copyright by The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation

The Flint Hills Maps in the Schools Project Middle School Illustration

• •  Original Artwork – Oil on Ampersand
  • 31” x 17.25” illustration
  • Copyright by The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation
    and Nancy Lehenbauer Marshall

There are over 50 things to identify in this Middle School illustration. An ID chart will be available in the educational materials that accompany the maps.

The Flint Hills Maps in the Schools, Middle School

• Print on Paper
• 31” x 17.25” illustration size on a 48” x 48” map
• Copyright by The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation

The Flint Hills Maps in the Schools Project, Elementary Illustration

•  Original Artwork – Oil on Ampersand
• 31” x 17.25” illustration
• Copyright by The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation
  and Nancy Lehenbauer Marshall

The Flint Hills Maps in the Schools, Elementary

• Print on Paper
• 31” x 17.25” illustration size on a 48” x 48” map
• Copyright by The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation

If you would like to support this project, please contact The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation.

Illustrations for a story

Last year presented numerous opportunities for illustration. These are some of the drawings done for a writer of a children’s story about flowers and butterflies. Part of the story’s message is that all of us should take the time to appreciate the abundance and variety of exquisite life that surrounds us.

Girlfriends dancing to the airport

Watching a miracle

The Costume Tea Party with Butterflies

NEWS ARTICLE by Sara Shepherd, A river runs through the work of Nancy Marshall

Lawrence Journal World writer Sara Shepherd wrote an article about my work in 2012. Link to the article here.

Celebration on the Upper Missouri

A Family Adventure Story, Part I

Bikes to Canoes, Page

Clink on this link Family Marshall Trip Part 1 to follow the Marshall family through the woods and down the rivers, around the Gulf and the Florida panhandle on a travel adventure. The final panel shows a NASA shuttle blasting off. Guess who is on that ship? Follow their adventures in Part II

• Watercolor and Ink on Moleskin Watercolor Paper
• 3.5″ x 10″
• In a private collection

The Land Institute’s 50 Yr. Farm Bill Proposal

Cornfield in Winter

Moonrise Hill in the Flint Hills

In a recent mailing from the Land Institute, there is introductory material for a 50 Year Farm Bill that has been submitted to our Sec. of Agriculture in Washington, DC. After reading the proposal, I recalled “Cornfield in Winter”, which was painted decades ago. The heavy harvesting equipment had cut deep ruts in the foreground. No ground cover has been planted to protect the soil from erosion. I consider this a tragic scene. Various folks made some money and little thought was given to preserving the soil, fossil fuel use and the cost associated, toxins in soil and water, etc. in this technology led model of farming. In my “Corn Rhythms” post I tell of working on a corn detasseling crew along I-70 in the early 1970. I have, to date, never seen any other crop but corn grown on that land. That’s 37  years! When a friend was writing a play on water and the settlement and history of Kansas (which inspired my painting “Ogallala Siren”), he asked an area seed corn farmer if he could shoot some irrigation footage to use in his set design. The farmer refused, showing, perhaps, that he gives some thought to his farming practices. He’s just “getting his”, before preservation practices change. Current practices should support crop diversity, healthy soils, appropriate crops for the area and strict water conservation.

Contrast “Cornfield in Winter” with a Flint Hills prairie painting. This land was saved from the plow due to its shallow soil and for that reason remains one of the last remnants of tallgrass prairie in the world. The prairie is providing the laboratory for the Land Institute’s research. Their purpose ” is to develop an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops.”

The 50 Year Farm Bill is a proposal for a gradual, systematic change in the way we grow our food using 5 year farm bills as mileposts.  Check out the Land Institute’s proposal, contact the powers that be and help turn agribusiness back into agriculture.  The Land Institute’s director, Wes Jackson, states, “The social stability and ecological sustainability resulting from secure food supplies will buy time as we are forced to confront the intersecting issues of climate, population, water and biodiversity.”