Lucas, Kansas: Grassroots Art Center

The "visionary" artists of the U.S. have their own space in Lucas, with sculptures made from aluminum can pull-tabs and portraits made from wads of chewing gum.

Inez Marshall was a truck driver, mechanic, and preacher, and when she wasn't busy she carved nearly 500 sculptures out of solid limestone.

Fifteen miles off of I-70, but worth the detour. I was expecting a lot, but this still greatly exceeded my expectations. I was expecting to see Tiny Town (but apparently that's gone). Instead, there's an artistic public toilet (very cool) and an amazing museum (which includes a tour of the Deeble House). All sorts of different (and impressive) folk art, enjoyable whether you're into art or not. Admission gets you a $1 discount at the Garden of Eden, but we just looked at the outside of that, having been satisfied by the Grassroots Museum.

The Grassroots Art Center is a one-of a kind experience, only exhibiting work of self-taught individuals, who usually are retirement age. These people generally work for many years, using recycled material found locally to create an environment which is meant to be viewed as a whole.

"Outsider, Visionary, Trash, Naive, Intuitive" are all labels given to this type of art. The center has on permanent exhibit examples of 18 environments from across the state of Kansas. Exhibits include the pull-tab sculptures (a full size car, motorcycle, clothing, shoes, chair and table) of Herman Divers; over 100 painted limestone sculptures of Inez Marshall; to the cameo portraits created by Betty Milliken out of chewing gum and many others.