Although they liked the idea of bring a massive dragsstrip-related mural to downtown Great Bend, the City Council Monday night voted not to kick in $10,000 to help the grassroots public arts group Barton Art Movement fund a mural at 1111 Main, at least for the time  being. 

The $43,000 mural, to be done by Arcy (the same artist who did the B-29 Memorial painting at Forest and Williams) would feature the historic Sunflower Rod and Custom Association track. 

Council members felt rushed by the last-minute request and wanted to talk about it further before making a decision. The group wants to have the mural finished to coincide with a landmark National Rod and Custom Association race at the end of the month.

BAM Action Team member Lindsey Bogner made the proposal. She said they had an opportunity land in their laps to bring Arcy back to Great Bend for the work entitled “Starting Line.” 

The 3,000-square-foot painting would feature Calvin Rice the winner of the first ever National Rod and Custom Association race in Great Bend in 1955.

“The location is really significant for us because it is on the main thoroughfare through town,” she said. “The traffic through there reaches about 5,000 per day and peak travel times, so it is going to have a lot of eyes on it.”

They sought out Arcy because a piece of this size requires a lot of technical skill, Bogner said. The price is in-line with standard costs for such projects by nationally renowned artists.

“It’s a really great location for us to have a huge impact,” she said. “So we wanted to have something that was vibrant and eye catching, and really gave a lot of recognition to the blood sweat and tears that have gone into the track and to into our community. It was a really great subject for us to be able to really honor in this way.”

She said they raised $26,000 so far and the city’s support would come at a breaking point. They hated to have find another location or scale down the work.

Besides, “we have the opportunity with the NHRA,” she said. The organization is hosting their 1,000th race at the end of this month in Las Vegas and they want to do a full feature on Great Bend for that show. If the mural was in place, they would to feature it as well.

“It’s something that we’re really excited about to partner with them, but we really need your guys’ support to make that happen,” she said.

Ward 2 Councilman Kevyn Soupiset supported BAM’s intentions, but hesitated backing the contribution for fear of the precedent it might set. 

“I agree,” said Ward 1 Councilman Alan Moder. “I think we need to have a discussion. I think it’s kind of hard to make a decision right now” when they had only heard about the proposal Monday afternoon.

“I appreciate the aesthetics of the murals, but I am not sure that I can justify that a community arts group is paying somebody, a professional fee of that much money to paint,” said Ward 1 Councilwoman Lindsey Krom-Craven. “To me, community arts is involving your community in different art projects, not bringing in a professional.”

Bogner said this is one of three projects in the works now. There is another mural to be located in another county community that will be done by a regional artist and a digital art piece installed in multiple locations around the county featuring faces and places in Barton County.

“We don’t want to just do murals,” Bogner said. “This is one thing that we can do to make a big impact to gain that momentum to get the support for other projects as we’re going into the future.”

Other works won’t likely require such public investment either, she said.

“I’m not opposed to this,” Soupiset said. “I would just like to investigate it further.”

Bogner understood, but said delaying the project would likely cause them to miss the NHRA broadcast.

For future reference, Mayor Cody Schmidt said they would like to hear from the group before the deadline was so close. 

Fellow BAM member Rachel Mawhirter said they didn’t intend to come at the last minute. They had some funding fall through.

Also, to get the artist lined up with the NHRA event forced a compressed timeline, she said. “We just had a really unique window of opportunity to try and make this happen.”

Community Coordinator Christina Hayes said she used $3,000 in city marketing dollars each to help with the B-29 painting and the mural on the wall of the Dilly and Doc business on Main. But, her marketing funds are tapped out now.

“Not all future projects are going to cost 40-plus-thousand-dollars,” Mawhirter said. “We want to be able to do quantity. Our whole goal was for year number one, we want to kick this up big. We want to dream big.”

They also wanted to set level of professionalism expected when the seek local artists for future works.

She went on to say how much she appreciated the city’s efforts at developing the downtown. “It’s exciting to see. So we just want to contribute to that momentum.”

Mawhirter and Bogner said they are also looking other funding options, such as grants.

They also said they would be willing to meet with the council in a work session to discuss their vision for more public artworks.