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Prairie In The Parks

Sticker Vending Machine

“Prairie In The Parks: Sticker Vending Machine” is a project created by Allison Bowman, funded by ArtsKC’s Inspiration Grant. It's a sticker vending machine filled with four different stickers designed by local visual artists. Each sticker features four Johnson County parks maintained by JCPRD Natural Resources and Kansas City Wildlands with natural areas of preserved prairie. This sticker vending machine helps tell the story of how the tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America, but within a generation most of it had been transformed into farms, cities, and towns. Today less than 4% remains intact, mostly in the Kansas Flint Hills. 

Meet The Artists

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Emily Alvarez

Emily Alvarez is an artist of Dominican and Cuban descent from the South-Western suburbs of Miami. Now creating in the Kansas City area, Emily draws a connection between her various areas of interest including design, illustration, storytelling, and themes such as personal and external explorations of social shifts, upheaval, celebration, fantasy and myth making. She primarily enjoys indulging in lively compositions, vivacious color and exaggerated motion in order to instill her work with vigorous energy. This tendency is driven by a desire to depict the capacity of humans themselves for stretching the limits of their imagination.

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Allison Bowman

Allison Bowman is a visual artist and arts advocate who creates to connect humans to nature. Through all aspects of her work she aims to emphasize the importance of using art as a tool for mental health and community wellbeing. Bowman has painted public and private murals in Olathe, Overland Park, Roeland Park, and Ogden, KS as well as Waldo, MO. She has also been a listed artist on the Kansas Arts and Commission's Mural & Public Art Roster since 2023. Bowman has participated in community projects such as Art In the Loop in 2021 and Parade of Hearts KC in 2022 and again in 2024. She has displayed her artwork in exhibitions locally and nationally.

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Meredith Lucius

Born in Haiti and raised in sunny Florida, Meredith Lucius has always been passionate about drawing. Her experiences as an immigrant have deeply influenced her work, fueling her desire for greater representation in creative media. After studying illustration at the Kansas City Art Institute, Meredith lived in Japan for two years teaching English in a rural seaside town. Being surrounded by nature, a close-knit community, and very cute students encouraged her to pursue a career in picture books so her books could also line the school library shelves her students frequented.

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Lindsey Robson

I'm a multimedia artist inspired by nature, observation, and silly musings. My art merges the physical world with my thoughts and humor, creating whimsical stories and capturing magical moments. I hope my work encourages others to explore the beauty and wonders of nature in our backyards and learn more about plants and animals that are endemic to our region.

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Where is the machine?

Stay tuned for the location reveal!

 

Each sticker costs $0.50 which means you can collect all four of the designs for $2.00! All money collected in the machine will be split and half will be donated to the JCPRD Foundation to go toward their Natural Resource division and the other half donated to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve to support local and regional prairie preservation efforts.

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