As Grass Grows: A Decade of Artist Residencies At Prairieside Outpost in the Flint Hills
09.22.2025
On view September 9鈥揘ovember 21, 2025, at the
The exhibition brings together work from 28 visual artists and writers, many with ties to 91导航, each shaped by the solitude and wide-open horizons of the Kansas Flint Hills.
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Chase County, Kansas, is an authentic landscape.
There are no trees, no telephone poles lining the rural roads. Instead, there is air. There is sun. There is land. The wild prairie feels like an ocean of grass at the bottom of the sky. Deer and coyotes live freely in the vast, crushing openness. After 300 million years, the Flint Hills remain largely unmediated by humans.
The environment is both backdrop and foreground to .
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Every year for the past decade the family-run residency program has welcomed artists to retreat into its isolated setting. In 2023, one such visitor was (鈥07 Printmaking), who observed the movement of animals through the fading grass during the long January nights.
鈥淭here were deer and hawks moving through the area, interacting with the work I made there. My project involved wind socks that I dyed from natural plants. I sewed them together and installed them in the prairie space outside the house,鈥 Hair Eagle says.
Looking closely, the wind socks resemble topographical maps. When laid flat, they reveal a kind of overhead view, with markings that trace land tracts and rivers. The work represents invisible communication with shifting cloth cones signaling the direction of the unseen wind.
The skill of perceiving the imperceptible is one she learned from her father.
鈥淢y dad was a hang glider pilot and it had such a heavy influence on my childhood. I spent so many weekends, really any time he could get off work, camping and looking at wind socks in launch and landing zones,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about seeing invisible things, like what the air is doing farther away from you.鈥
From the residency鈥檚 protected porch view she observed more interaction with her work. Hawks perched. A coyote moved nearby along its familiar trail. She witnessed what would overwise be obscured, normally seeing only the evidence of intersection after the fact.
Prairie Retrospective
Moments like these are explored in , a group exhibition commemorating the first decade of the Artist-in-Residence program at Prairieside Outpost. On view from September 9 to November 21, 2025, at the , the exhibition features the work of 28 visual artists and writers from across North America, each developing work in the remote, head-clearing expanse of the Kansas Flint Hills.
Among the featured artists are familiar names from the 91导航, including Associate Professor of Painting Corey Antis, Associate Professor of Fiber Kim Eichler-Messmer, Senior Professor of Ceramics Cary Esser, Professor and William T. Kemper Chair of Painting Jim Woodfill, and retired Painting Chair Warren Rosser. Alumni, such as Robert Howsare (鈥08 Printmaking), Colleen Maynard (鈥07 Creative Writing & Painting), and Katherine Hair Eagle (鈥07 Printmaking), are also represented.
The exhibition is curated by Prairieside Outpost Program Directors Chris Akers and Laura Crehuet Berman, Professor of Printmaking and owner of the property with her family.
Intimate Vastness
Laura Crehuet Berman describes the area surrounding Prairieside Cottage & Outpost in a word: Private.
鈥淵ou can walk less than a mile to Open Range Road and suddenly you鈥檙e out with the cows in the Flint Hills. It鈥檚 really, really rural and isolated. Nothing interferes with the natural environment, even though Prairieside Outpost is technically in town,鈥 she says.
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Matfield Green, Kansas has a population of about 50 people. It鈥檚 a small community with a significant proportion of transplants. Berman describes the residents as creatives, people with experience across the country writing, acting, designing, and making. Even in this tiny town, support for the arts is strong.
鈥淚'm from the East Coast and my husband's from Oklahoma,鈥 Berman says. 鈥淲e discovered this landscape through the beginnings of our relationship and that process became a coming of age story.鈥
鈥淲e were married in Chase County, Kansas, and this is the county where the house is as well,鈥 she says, referring to Prairieside.
The space wasn鈥檛 an immediate host to artists-in-residence. When Berman warmed up to the idea, she prepared by taking a Kauffman FastTrac program and created a business model with a budget. She also did lateral research on programs that were rural and family-friendly.
鈥淚ncluding artists along with their families was a mission of our program,鈥 she says. 鈥淭he studio is separate from the house, which allows family members or collaborators to join the artists. It鈥檚 not just a one-person retreat, and that鈥檚 actually quite unique in the world of artist residencies. When we founded Prairieside Outpost in 2014, there were only about six family-inclusive artist residency programs like it in North America.鈥
After a decade in operation, 32 artists have participated in residencies at Prairieside Cottage & Outpost, each spending seven to ten days in the space. There are no requirements in terms of output and artists are expected to do whatever they need to have a creative retreat, including research, studio immersion, and experiencing the unique natural environment. Both the studio and dining room face the property鈥檚 open acreage, with windows offering northeast views of the sunrise over the wild prairie.
鈥淲hen considering applicants, I'm looking for the right fit of person. An ideal Prairieside Outpost artist or writer is someone who understands that it's an isolated setting and who is ready to take a deep dive into their creative work within the quiet and slow-paced setting that this opportunity offers,鈥 she says.
Image: Photo of Separate Studio Space
Berman notes that while many larger organizations have deeper funding and broader resources, this small, family-run program demonstrates that even solo artists living outside the epicenter of the art world can make meaningful contributions to their artist communities.
The mission comes from a place of personal experience, she says.
鈥淭his is where I grew as a person, myself, and that, in turn, inspired my creativity in deeper ways. It's a gift for me to have experienced this location, and it has been a gift for me to be in the Midwest for 20 years and to have had a long exposure to this unique landscape and part of our country,鈥 she says.
鈥淢y intention is to also provide an aspect of that experience to the artists that come to Prairieside Outpost. Whether or not it's a landscape they are, or are not, already familiar with, she says. 鈥淚t's just a timeless place.鈥
Invisible Currents
鈥淚 feel like grief is another one of these invisible things that we're all carrying,鈥 Katherine Hair Eagle says. 鈥淲e all have it, but it's not necessarily at the surface and it kind of comes and goes the same way that air currents do.鈥
Katherine鈥檚 residency at Prairieside Cottage & Outpost came after the sudden passing of her father in 2016. It took time before she was able to return to making work. In 2022, she completed an M.F.A. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research鈥攂oth then and now鈥攆ocuses on human entanglements with the natural world and on climate grief. The subjects are deeply intertwined with her own personal loss and has played a big role in processing her father鈥檚 death.
鈥淚t Comes In Waves鈥 (the windsock piece) is directly about Katherine鈥檚 father and his passing, reflecting the profound influence he had on her life. Many childhood weekends were spent at cliffsides, watching him launch himself into the air. It鈥檚 a memory of experiences that, to her, never felt out of the ordinary.
In the rolling terrain, she watched her fabric move in the winter breeze off the Flint Hills. The days are short. The nights are long. The sky is large.
鈥淢y dad saw invisible things. He read secrets in the topography marked on the map, knowing what hills would create their own weather and when,鈥 she says, reflecting on the residency.
鈥淚 remember agreeing 鈥極h, yeah, I see it,鈥 even when I couldn鈥檛 because I didn鈥檛 want to disappoint him. But I was learning, I have his eyes. Back then I wasn鈥檛 practiced at looking yet. Now I am always looking and seeing invisible things.鈥
As Grass Grows | Artists in Conversation Event
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Leedy-Voulkos Art Center
11:00 a.m. 鈥 1:30 p.m.
Free and open to the public
Event Schedule
11:00 鈥 12:00
Open house with light refreshments
11:45
Introduction to the exhibition by Curator and Director of Prairieside Outpost, Laura Crehuet Berman
12:00
Reading with catalog essay writer S. Portico Bowman
12:15-1:30
Gallery talk with As Grass Grows exhibiting artists: Katherine Hair Eagle, Hilary Lorenz, Lilly McElroy, Blake Sanders, Hannah Sanders, and James Woodfill
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