Trails Museum alters course on African-American art

A Saturday morning workshop at the National Frontier Trails Museum aimed to teach children the importance of Black History Month while making art.

Instead, six women from across the Kansas City area attended the class, laughing and visiting with one another as different colors of paint streaked across their hands.

And halfway through the two-hour session, as their instructor pulled out a tiny rag doll and informed her students that they, too, would get to make one, brief applause broke out.

Sarah Poff, an elementary art teacher in the Blue Springs School District, taught the first-ever class of its kind at the museum, where Poff also serves on the Friends of the National Frontier Trails Museum board. A native of southeastern Missouri, Poff dressed in African heritage clothing Saturday to coincide with the creation of African-American artwork.

The National Frontier Trails Museum has sponsored Black History Month programming throughout its 22-year history, but Richard Edwards, the museum’s education coordinator, approached Poff several months ago to lead a cultural art workshop each quarter, starting with African-American art.

“We’re ever mindful of the role that people played in opening this – I emphasis the word ‘people,’ because I’m not just talking about the white, middle-class Americans who participated in the immigration story to California and Oregon,” Edwards said. “It’s very, very important to give a voice to the minority experience, whether it’s African-American or Mexican perspectives, as related to the Mexicans by the Santa Fe Trail, and obviously, American Indians.”

While no children signed up for a class that originally aimed to gather families together, Edwards said it’s common for adults to register for the museum’s workshops that are geared toward a younger audience.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a children’s workshop or not,” Edwards said. “I think that we, as adults, forget the fact that we were kids. Also, because we don’t have enough time, we tend to not express ourselves artistically – we feel that’s more of a function of childhood.”

The need for a creative outlet is exactly why Kansas City resident Linda Maxey visited the museum on Saturday.

“I came to break up the humdrum of life,” Maxey said. “Otherwise, it’s just work every day.”

Independence Power & Light Department employee Diane Faulkner said she learned of the workshop from a co-worker and attended because of her love for artwork and a desire to one day open her own art gallery.

Faulkner said she also is very aware of her own family history as a black woman. A native of Kansas City, Kan., Faulkner has familial roots in Nicodemus, Kan., which holds the distinction as the only remaining western town established by African-Americans during the Reconstruction Era, according to the city’s website.

Faulkner said she still attends the Homecoming Emancipation Celebration in Nicodemus each summer to honor her history, which she said includes her great-grandfather serving as the first black lawyer in Nicodemus.

For the three remaining Thursdays in February, a gallery walk on African-Americans in the West will take place at 2 p.m. at the museum, 318 W. Pacific Ave. The gallery walk emphasizes well-known African-Americans like Jim Beckwourth and York, the slave best known for his participation in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, as he was William Clark’s slave, as well as local 19th century personalities, including Hiram Young and Emily Fisher.

The museum remains dedicated to telling the story of westward expansion but also giving a voice to those groups “who are oftentimes neglected in the story of westward expansion,” Edwards said.

“I think that’s important for the community to know, that we are here for the entire community, not just for a certain segment who might just be interested in the stories of pioneers going on wagon trains,” Edwards said. “By doing these workshops, I’d really like to get the community to see us as a resource in a way that they might not currently see us.”