Local artists’ work will be on display at the Shafer Gallery as part of the Barton County Arts Council Friends and Acquaintances Art Festival from Sept. 29 through Nov. 4. There will be an opening night reception at 6 p.m. Friday at the gallery, located in the Fine Arts Building at Barton Community College.
“The heart of a community is revealed in the artistic expression of its citizens,” Shafer Gallery Director Dave Barnes said. “The Barton County Arts Council Friends and Acquaintances Art Festival gives our community the opportunity to see the wide gamut of artistic enterprise in our county. All styles, experience levels and viewpoints share the spotlight to make this a genuinely inclusive event.”

Stone from Hoisington High School transformed by local sculptor

Great Bend sculptor Chet Cale, president of the Barton County Arts Council, described his enthusiasm for the upcoming exhibit.
“The Shafer Gallery is very good at supporting local artists and this is one of those ways,” he said. “We have a huge amount of fine, fine artists in our community county-wide.”
Cale’s piece “Christ on the Cross,” included in the display, holds significant value to the artist not just from the imagery but the source of the limestone used to create the sculpture.
“The stone was a salvaged piece of Hoisington High School after the 2001 tornado. I think there is a real parallel,” he said. “We have this imagery of just before the resurrection and we have this stone that would have just ended up in somebody’s creek or buried in the ground someplace was able to be brought back and used for one of the most historically dramatic images.”
The Shafer Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Admission is always free.
The show is underwritten by the Bill J. McKown Memorial Endowment distributed by the Golden Belt Foundation.