A big day today at the Dole Institute in Lawrence. This year marks the Dole Institute’s 20th anniversary and what would have been Senator Bob Dole’s 100th birthday. To kick off the celebration, the Dole Institute has commissioned world-renowned, locally based Kansas native artist, Stan Herd, to create a tribute earthwork on the grounds of the Dole Institute. Dole Institute Director, Audrey Coleman, artist Stan Herd and former U. S. Senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle will break ground on a commemorative earthwork at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas at 4:00 this afternoon.
Herd is widely acclaimed as an American crop artist and painter who creates images, or earthworks, on large areas of land, especially in Kansas. His work is sometimes called living sculpture. He plots his designs and then executes them by planting, mowing, and sometimes burning, or plowing the land. He has been featured in the Smithsonian magazine and National Geographic.
