Parade of Hearts…It’s all about building a home and caring community through art.

For more than 100 years, Kansas City has laid claim to America’s Heartland. The Heart of America has been displayed in the form of railroad pins, at civic events, on t-shirts, to the uniforms of the legendary Monarchs Negro League Baseball Team who sported the KC heart on their uniforms. And currently, the KC heart is used as our region’s icon.

From April to August of 2024, communities from across the Kansas City region will show the world why we are known as America’s Heartland and why we have the biggest hearts. We’ve fabricated 5′ heart sculptures and asked local artists to design them to create an unprecedented art experience rooted in hope and unity.

Confluence: Where Many Paths Found Home

  • The Front : Symbols and Meaning

    The front represents the merging of land, people, waters and trails that formed and continue to form Kansas City. The diversity of the people in our city of all cultures are represented merging into the rolling hills and lush greenways and fields that are a part of our abundant land, where once the Shawnee, Wyandotte, Osage, Kickapoo, Potawatomi and numerous other tribes were caretakers and the sacredness of earth, water, fire and air where part of their medicine and spiritual practice, just as they are today. The confluence of the Kaw and the Missouri as well as of two cities in two different states that share an invisible dividing line are seen throughout. The power of the river that is essential to our life, crops, and future is predominant. The exterior foliage consists of a combination of wild sage and native plants to the area. The heart in the center, proclaims that these paths of the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails, as well as others lesser known, are visible across the rollings hills and rivers, has brought us all here at some point, to home.

  • The Back: Symbols and Meaning

    Turtle Island…

    Turtle Island is the Indigenous name for the land we live on here in North America. The spirals represen the spirit, life, evolution. The red dots represent the spirits of our ancestos and the “red road” of living a good and honorable life. The baby turtle in the middle represents us, infants on this planet and all the colors in the babies spiral represent the many trials, travels and paths we walk in this life. Each green piece of the shell represents the 13 months of the original calendar, 13 moons. The border colors represent the great medicine wheel, that represents all the wisdom of the universe.

  • The Base

    The base honors the land and water that provides us sustance and life as well as fun. The giant feathers in the middle are to honor the origin peoples of this land: The Osage, Hopewell, Shawnee,Wyandotte, Patowatomie, Pawnee. The dots and dashes represent trails of stitches that unite us to the land and the many paths that our ancestors traveled to find this place we call home.

Read, The Stories of My Heart: The Process Blog

Listen to the Sounds

It all began with listening to the stories of my ancestors. Searching after, to put puzzle pieces together, exploring the routes they took, listening to the wind on the land they lived on, creating a soundtrack for their lives. This work focuses on the indigenous acestors of my Grandmother (Grand River Band Ottawa/Ojibwe, Osage, and Eastern Cherokee, Quaker, French, English).