New Johnson County Sculpture Memorializes ‘Trail of Death’

It’s common for Aaron Squadroni to interact with people interested in his art.

But usually it’s completed work in a gallery, not an unfinished piece near a lake.

Squadroni, along with Leah Yellowbird, created Fire Keepers Circle, a new public artwork commemorating the Potawatomi Trail of Death. The piece is in Heritage Park in Olathe.

Johnson County Park and Recreation District is hosting a ribbon-cutting and cultural celebration Saturday for this latest piece of park artwork. However, Squadroni has already met many of the artwork’s patrons — the public — while finishing Fire Keepers Circle onsite this month.

“It has been nice to interact with people asking questions about it and expressing interest in what it is about,” he said. “When you are in a gallery setting and people are looking at your artwork, there is always a little bit of awkwardness. I am not pushy about buying my art with people, but there is always that question ‘Are they going to buy something?’

“In this case, you can have a normal conversation because the art has already been commissioned. It exists. And the person can freely ask questions about it.”

Fire Keepers Circle is one of two new art pieces going into Johnson County parks. Workers installed the other one, Between Earth and Sky, a human-sized ceramic piece created by Elaina Wendt Michalski, on Wednesday in Antioch Park in Merriam.

Squadroni and Yellowbird, of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, received their commission after a selection committee chose them following a national search. Michalski, of Liberty, Missouri, completed her work through a Johnson County parks residency program for local artists.

The Johnson County pieces are part of a robust era for public art in the Kansas City area.

Johnson County Park and Recreation District has 34 projects, both permanent and temporary, in its public art portfolio. The program launched in 2019.

“I love the energy across the Kansas City region in public art right now,” said Susan Mong, the park and recreation district’s superintendent of culture.

Mong said the unprecedented effort at Kansas City International Airport is at the forefront of this public art renaissance. Considered the largest public art project in Kansas City history, KCI has placed artwork throughout its terminal, concourses, and parking garage.

“It elevated the importance and the role art plays in celebrating place and a sense of pride … and it elevated artists from this region,” Mong said.

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“For that to be the first impression somebody gets when they walk off an airplane — to see these beautiful pieces throughout the airport — I think it shows how we value art and creativity.”

Angela Montgomery, a member of the Heritage Park selection committee, appreciates public art because it is inspiring and accessible.

“I love that it can invoke thought or questioning, or that it can have meaning or be something pretty to look at,” she said. “I enjoy that it is kind of put out there in your face, to those people who would not normally go to an art gallery.”

Public art can be an important voice for a community, Squadroni said, because it expresses sentiments you don’t see in the commercial signage common along city streets.

“For me,” he said, “it’s an opportunity to express values that are based on history — spiritual things — that you think the community holds dear but are not typically visually expressed.”

In the case of Fire Keepers Circle, it’s an expression and commemoration not seen anywhere else in the country.

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Mong said the park department has a civic duty to honor the past as the largest landowner in Johnson County. 

“We know that each of those park spaces has a history before it was a park,” she said. “We feel a great responsibility to tell the history of that land and help people connect to that history — both to the good, and hard, and the challenging.”

Fire Keepers Circle marks the location of an encampment along the Trail of Death of 1838 when the U.S. government forcibly marched 859 Potawatomi Native Americans from Indiana to an area near present-day Osawatomie, Kansas. During that 660-mile journey, more than 40 people died.

Montgomery, the member of the artwork’s selection committee, is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The Shawnee resident has ancestors who were involved in the 1838 march. In 2023, Montgomery made the same journey.

“Most of the markers along the way were a rock alongside a gravel road,” Montgomery said. “I saw the opportunity to have something along the trail that was much nicer. It’s a chance to educate people about the trail.

“I like the continued opportunity for people to learn about it, not just because I want them to learn about the Potawatomi, but I think these are things in our culture that we continue to do to other people like us. I want people to stop doing that.”

She likes the symbolism in the design.

“I like that it is inviting. It kind of encourages you to stop and come inside and sit. I love that it has a view of the lake. I think that is an important piece of it, too. Maybe it is a place for personal reflection or just a nice quiet spot.”

Another member of the Heritage Park project selection committee was Jon Boursaw, District 4 Representative for Citizen Potawatomi Nation.  

“To have Johnson County step up and come up with this idea of an exhibit near the trail where it passed through the county is amazing,” said Boursaw, who has traveled the trail twice. “There is nothing else on the trail anywhere that compares to this.”

Michalski’s Between Earth and Sky is part of the park department’s Art and Natural Resources Residency.

This is the fourth year for the residency, which includes structured fieldwork. 

Residents also meet with park staff and community partners, such as Heartland Tree Alliance/Bridging The Gap, Kansas Forest Service, Overland Park Forestry Department, and Johnson County Stormwater Management. 

Michalski aimed to inspire visitors to learn about the importance of a healthy tree canopy. It is a temporary installation that will return to Michalski at the end of the year. 

“I think it’s an amazing program because it’s integrating art and the natural world,” Michalski said.

“I have learned so much about the science just on how trees function,” she added. “I always knew they were integral to our world, but I didn’t understand how important, how valuable they are until I was really immersed in this program.”

For example, upon learning that tree roots filter groundwater, she incorporated that into the design.

Michalski also used tiles surrounding the figure to represent raindrops.

“If you can imagine what it feels like to be within a forest, to be surrounded by trees, that was my main intention,” Michalski said. “It also shares the amazing way of how interconnected the natural elements are with us.”

Bridging the Gap’s Sarah Crowder, director of forestry and natural systems, is looking forward to the pleasant surprise Michalski’s piece will provide to regulars as they take their usual walk around the park.

“Also, I am curious about the folks who hear about Elaina’s work and come to the park who have never visited the park before,” Crowder said. “I think that is interesting, bringing those different audiences together.”

Crowder enjoys the public art you see along roadways, but she said it is even better in natural spaces.

“I’m an outdoor person,” she said. “I much prefer a sculptural garden than an indoor white-walled space.”

Mong said outside art of any kind is a draw to parks and a respite from a hectic world.

“There are a lot of heavy things we are all hearing about, reading about, on a daily basis, and art, quite literally, helps us settle minds and helps us process things that are really big and weigh on people’s mental health.

“When you have art in public spaces, there is a community building, a sort of social capital that comes along with that. It draws people together in ways they would not have been connected before.”

After all, it is public art.

“Every single person is part of the audience,” Michalski said. “It is totally accessible. It’s in our space with us. It lives with us.

“It’s for everyone — literally everyone.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the last name of the park and recreation district’s superintendent of culture and to correct the time of the ribbon cutting on Saturday.

Debra Skodack is a Kansas City area freelance writer.