The Colors Of The Prairie

                                                          An original mixed-media on toned, Strathmore paper
                                                          18x24" unframed, ( mat size, 24x30")
                                                           $1,800.00,  ( plus $24.00, pack and ship )

     Visitors to the Kansas City area are sometimes surprised to learn that the growing
of tobacco was a long standing part of the local, agricultural economy.  We tend to
think of the heart of America as being the bread-basket of the nation, growing our
important food-grains such as corn and wheat, while crops such as tobacco and
cotton are thought of as the more traditional harvests of the deep south.  But some of
the earliest settlers in this area came from the plantation culture of the old south,
well before the civil-war, and they brought their tobacco seeds with them.  The annual
tobacco auctions became a staple of life in this part of the mid-west, for many decades,
with the booming voices of the auctioneers calling for bids on the bundled, dried leaves.

     Now, here and there, dotted among the fields north of the city, any remaining of the
huge, old tobacco-barns, may still echo with the auctioneer's calls.

                                                         ( Click on image to enlarge.)

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     The composition of this piece is loosely based on a spiral design, focusing in on the
center-of-attention in the upper right quadrant.