“Relics” Oil on canvas, 32” x 32” Rob Compton ’99/00
Rob Compton, who teaches English and coordinates the gifted and talented program at North High School in Wichita, is primarily a self-taught painter.
Among his most recent works are paintings that, he explains, “began as an exploration in the memories of traveling through the Kansas landscape as a child, but evolved into a meditation on the dualities of land and sky and the light that reveals their conditions. Currently I am re-evaluating subject matter to determine the best approaches for allowing light, color and form to be revealed in surprising and aesthetically appealing ways.”
“You Look Good In Pathetic But I Prefer Red” Oil on canvas 36” x 36” Mary Werner ’92/94
Mary Werner, a WSU lecturer in painting, drawing and design, works representationally with flat and patterned images in a magical time and space. Reared with a deep appreciation of storytelling and the domestic arts, especially of quiltmaking, she uses the dress image as a window into the joy of everyday life as a woman.
She often works with assemblage and collage, and her artworks are known for their narrative quality. Her recent works were on exhibit at LineSight Gallery, Wichita, through the month of July.
Her work in painting and mixed media has been exhibited in juried and gallery exhibitions in Wichita and the region. Among her recent exhibitions were ”Multiple Aspects of a Single Vision” at Wichita’s CityArts and the collaborative print portfolio for Flying Roller and Vicious Dog Press with WSU and Metro State College Press of Denver.
The End of TV
Everyone owns one but me and even I
had one before what you might call
my Dark Ages. It was enormous,
too big for me to take to my room;
so I would come to visit it where it sat
oblately on its own rag rug, rabbit-ears
extended in a V, pointed up and out, Old
Chief Gray Face, humming a crazy test tune.
What happened next was nothing but a big bad
leap of faith like a hook in a cloud or a claw
raking the hell out of heaven’s weather eye.
If there was a warning nobody saw it,
but come it did, the wall rolling in
its robes of purple majesty, all
lightning, hail, banging doors,
and a roar like a black train,
then the staticky rain refueling
the plains, the ministry of storms
reported next morning in the Eagle,
God’s hands on Mother exhorting her
to give up the worldliness of Hollywood
and be saved. No dancing. No TV. No sex.
I could not have been any more astonished
if Lucy had burst in like a burning bush
and tumbled along with the Lone Ranger
through the footage of my Flint Hills
where the earliest yellow rose let go
her petals on the little brick road
past my home, mown like grass,
the short-cut spring once
took through Kansas.
— Pamela Yenser ’66
A gallery of both literary and visual art, Shock Art showcases works by Wichita State alumni, faculty and students. For submission information, contact: The Shocker Editor, 1845 Fairmount,
Wichita KS 67260-0054.
