6/4/2008

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

The Lucas Triangle. It sounds rather forbidding, like the Bermuda Triangle, but this is a region of a different sort. The Lucas Triangle consists of three remarkable attractions within a single community in rural north central Kansas. This threesome features an
incredible array of what is called grassroots art. Special thanks to Kansas! Magazine and writer Sally Snell whose article told this remarkable story.
    
Rosslyn Schultz is the director of the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, Kansas. The Arts Center is sponsored by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association, which was organized more than 30 years ago to encourage appreciation of self-taught artists. The Arts Center is one
of the three components of what has been termed the Lucas Triangle.
    
But the element of the Lucas Triangle which was created first goes back more than a century ago. It is something which could win an Olympic medal for eccentricity, called the Garden of Eden.
    
People have been looking for the Garden of Eden for a long time. Appropriately enough, this Garden of Eden is located east of Paradise - that´s Paradise, Kansas, on Highway K-18. Nineteen miles east of Paradise, we find the community of Lucas where S.P. Dinsmoor´s Gardenof Eden is located.
    
Dinsmoor was a Civil War veteran, farmer, and Populist politician. He was also what was called at the time a "Freethinker," which was a type of philosophy that encouraged rational over emotional thought. All that supposed freethinking caused Dinsmoor to build his Lucas home from limestone logs and to surround the house with concrete
structures, providing commentary on the religious and political controversies of the time.
    
The structures are labeled with a sign calling it the Garden of Eden. Here the viewer can find concrete figures of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the devil and an angel. There's also a depiction of the populist view of the crucifixion of labor and much more.
    
These unusual sculptures entirely surround the house. In fact, it took Mr. Dinsmoor 22 years to build these sculptures. He used 113 tons of cement. He also built a 40-foot tall limestone log mausoleum where he is laid to rest and still visible in his handmade, glass-
topped concrete coffin. So much for rational thought...
    
About a half block northwest of Dinsmoor´s home is the second component of the Lucas Triangle, the Deeble House and Rock Garden. Here we find the home of Florence Deeble. For more than 50 years, she created "postcard"-type scenes of famous U.S. landmarks in her yard, using concrete and stones. Those works of art are available for
viewing today. For example, the visitor can see a mini interpretation of Mount Rushmore.
    
Dinsmoor´s and Deeble´s work are just two examples of grassroots art, which is the focus of the Grassroots Art Center. The art center itself is the third and final leg of this tripartite collection of eclectic artwork. It is located on the main street of Lucas with an open-air gallery in its backyard.
    
Rosslyn Schultz explains that grass-roots art is often made using recycled materials. She says, "The artists are always self-taught, and they´re having a heck of a lot of fun." The Art Center includes local and state artists´ work, such as concrete creatures by Ed Root
and a pull-tab motorcycle by Herman Divers.
    
All these attractions and more have caused more than 10,000 visitors a year to come to the rural community of Lucas, population 427 people. Now, that´s rural.
    
More stories and pictures of Lucas can be found on the pages of Kansas! Magazine, the beautiful quarterly which showcases our state. For more information or to subscribe, go to www.kansasmag.com. For information on travel and tourism in our state, go to www.travelks.com.
    
The Lucas Triangle. No, it´s not something scary like the Bermuda Triangle. It´s a remarkable set of three attractions which celebrate grassroots art in our state. We commend Rosslyn Schultz and all those involved with the Grassroots Arts Center and these other attractions in Lucas for making a difference by building and celebrating works of unusual art from the grassroots.