The River as Muse

River Excursion with Shawnee Mission East & North and St. Theresa's Academy art students

Kaw Point Park to Riverfront Park - Kansas City

April 23, 2011

text by Vicki Richmond, photos by Sarah Cook and Katie Crow

Boat trips are a terrific way to get folks immersed in the Big Muddy.  Hundreds of people experience the Missouri River this way each year, through River Relief’s field trips.

Way back in January’s chill, I received a note from Adam Finkelston, Shawnee Mission East Visual Arts Dept. instructor and self proclaimed photography geek.  He wanted to take students out on the river to inspire them to create art, and to view their community in a unique way.  We’d be hosting aspiring artists, students who would be nominated and chosen by their teachers, and we’d spend the day traveling by boat.  The outcome of the day would be an art show, held at a gallery this fall that would showcase the student’s work.

April 23 was a good day for a boat ride.  Rainy weather gave way to clouds as MRR crew met at Kaw Point to splash boats in preparation for taking a unique group out for a day on the river.  Students began arriving armed with cameras, sketch pads, notebooks and bags for collecting objects.  Parents stood by watching as their kids were fitted into life jackets, given a brief safety talk and boarded the boats.

photo by Sarah Cook, Shawnee Mission East

The boats left the ramp on the Kaw (or Kansas River) and slowly made their way to the confluence with the Missouri.  The bigger river was quite obviously running higher than the gentler Kaw; our boats were pushed to the south shore as the mighty Missouri currents push towards St. Louis. 

We traveled the stretch between Kaw Point and the Main Street Pedestrian Walkway, taking time to notice the effects of our urban amenities.  Bridges, a scrap metal yard, a wastewater treatment plant, armored stream banks and levee walls are juxtaposed with the original limestone ledge that allowed steamboats to unload cargo for transport to the Westport Trading Post.  Cameras clicked as we powered past the Kansas City skyline.

Berkley Park, once the Kansas City Municipal Landfill, illustrates what can be done with land that isn’t suitable for building.  Our boats pulled into shore so that students could walk the recently created USB Bridge underpass, investigate the Wharfmaster building and see the leftover round pads where grain bins once stood.  Old brick in the power plant and newly planted native prairie and wetlands work together to combine the old and new.

photo by Katie Crow, St. Theresa's Academy

Back to the boats, and a migration to Riverfront Park Boat ramp allowed students to get a duck’s eye view of progress. The Paseo Bridge is being taken down in pieces to make way for the newly opened Kit Bond Bridge that connects Kansas City with her northern neighbors.  Large cranes, working barges and a tug boat offered fodder for sketch books and cameras.


Pulling into Riverfront Park, we were greeted by the fisherfolk and morel hunters who have come to know our boats and crew.  We disembarked and headed just downstream of the ramp to a high sand bar and large pile of drift wood for lunch.  A small fire was lighted to warm marshmallows for tasty deserts.  Students ate lunch and headed off to hike in the woods and explore the flood plain.  Our crew relaxed while enjoying the student’s comments. 

A goose was gently persuaded to leave her nest so that students could see the eggs nestled in warm down.  The hubbub of lunch quickly became a deserted scene of jackets, backpacks and lunch bags as students explored the woods and hiked downriver.

photo by Katie Crow

While enjoying lunch, the tugboat Mary Lynn came through, offering everyone a chance to see commerce at work along the Big Muddy.  Quickly employed cameras captured the turbulent water as crew raced to the boats to secure them.  A small gathering of onlookers enjoyed looking over our vessels; it is a rare occasion when our boats don’t cause a stir.  Having 28 red life-jacketed people made the scene even more inviting, and new friends were made in the assembled group.


All too quickly we loaded the boats again for the return trip upriver.  Several stops were made for students to capture scenes and again we beached the boats, this time at the base of the scrap metal  yard.  Students made their way up the banks to investigate the area , and returned with pockets bulging with scraps of metal destined to become sculptural elements.  A sign, a saw blade and a bag of metal disks joined the drift wood, beaver chewed willow poles and refrigerator door already on board.

We returned to Kaw Point and to a group of waiting parents, cheering and clapping as the boats gently touched shore.  Students unloaded sketchbooks and backpacks with wide grins.  The river made new friends, and the artists left with new inspiration.  The fall will bring us full circle, when the art created from the day is shown. 

photo by Katie Crow

We could not do projects like these without support!  A  big, muddy thanks to:

• Adam Finkelston, Shawnee Mission East Visual Arts Department   www.smsd.org/schools/smeast

• Paul Dorrell, Leopold Gallery   www.leopoldgallery.com

• Students and Parents from Shawnee Mission East, Shawnee Mission North and St. Theresa’s High Schools

•  Missouri River Relief Crew Members:   Vicki and Michael Richmond, Larry O’Donnell, Bill Fessler and Layla the Dog

So...where does all that trash go after you pick it up from the river?

Washington River Festival & Missouri River Clean-up
Rennick Riverfront Park, Washington, MO,
April 17, 2010

text by Steve Schnarr, photos by Vicki Richmond & Tom Ball

"So...where does all that trash go after you pick it up from the river?"

I would say that's about the fourth most common question that gets asked from most folks curious about river clean-ups. Good reason, too! An amazing amount of junk gets recovered from the river during these clean-ups and most people would like to know it' getting put to good use. It's tough, but we try to recycle as much as we can...and hope to keep getting better.

My answer to the question usually starts with "Well, that depends on the community we're working in..." And each disposal solution usually has its own story. Here's some from the Washington Clean-up...

River Trash to Art
In three years, volunteers have removed over 40 tons of junk from a very old dump on the Osage River near the Mari-Osa ramp. We’ve bemoaned the fact that all this interesting stuff just got scrapped, except the treasures volunteers took home with them. This year, the Washington River Festival gave us a chance to do something with it.

A month ago, I delivered a couple big trash cans full of select Mari-Osa trash (culled by Ruthie Moccia) to Joey Los, a metal sculptor from Hermann that is co-owner of Kunstlerhaus gallery. Joey has been working with the Greenway Network’s Stream Trash to Art program, donating her time and work to creating beautiful and interesting sculptures from trash found on stream clean-ups. She, and several other artists offered to set up shop at the festival with welding equipment to make art from our Mari-Osa trash, and anything interesting that came off the river during our Washington clean-up.

Larry Pogue, whose impressive gallery is located on Front St just across the train-tracks from the Washington boat ramp, cranked out unbelievable standing sculptures of fish and flowers. Patrick McCarty worked with the Waggoner boys from Greenway Network to make creations using an old-style blacksmith oven.

Then, they donated all of these works to an auction raising money to help pay for the clean-up. Jean Ponzi from KDHX 88.1 was the auctioneer, and with the generous bids of festival goers, everyone raised over $1,200 for Missouri River Relief! Thanks to all of you for your creativity, generosity and hard work!

River Trash to Timber
The most common material we find on clean-ups is plastic. Plastic bottles, coolers, oil and antifreeze jugs, toys, plant pots, playground equipment, balls. Plastic generally floats pretty well, moves easily down streams during high water and gets deposited in drifts along the floodplain of the Missouri River.

River-ravaged plastic is often either full of mud and sand or coated in it. Most recyclers don’t want to deal with it. The sediment dulls their grinding blades, and contaminates the final product. It would be cool if we had our own grinder and some kind of washing system (using biodegradable cleaners and using little water), but we don’t. So if a recycler is willing to take the stuff, they usually have to re-sort the load to get only the plastic they want.

So far, we’ve worked with Civic Recycling in mid-Missouri and Coca-Cola Enterprises in Kansas City to recycle river plastic. Our friend Billy Froeschner, from Sustain Mizzou, told us about his friend, Gary Ryan, who owns Ryan Enterprises and turns a variety of plastics into fence posts and landscape timbers. Billy offered to bring his gooseneck horse trailer to Washington to haul away the plastic, and he even set up the recycling station.

The frantic sorting scene drew a lot of spectators from the River Festival – and some looks of amazement at what was actually in those blue bags coming off the river. Well, all that hard work recovered an estimated 750 pound of plastic - half of that horse trailer full!

Heavy Lifting
Just getting the trash off the boats and where it needs to be is a big task, best handled by a front-end loader or skid steer. Randy Thiemann from the Washington Parks and Rec. Dept. gave his Saturday up to hauling trash from the boats to the recycling station or the metal truck. He rolled up just as the first mud-filled refrigerator came up in a boat and we were scratching our heads on where to put it. Right up to the end, where he blew a hydraulic line on the second to last boat load of junk, he worked that ramp hard. The Parks Dept. also paid for the landfill dumpster supplied by Beck Disposal from St. Louis.

Tires are always the problem…
We had trouble finding someone to haul tires to a recycler for this event. Finally, the week before the event, our crewmember Bernie Arnold from Arnold, MO, offered to do the hauling for us with his big, walled trailer. He bought the trailer to help get rid of the massive numbers of tires that Stream Team 211 finds on the Meremec River, and here he was jumping out of his watershed to help us out in a pinch. The 85 tires recovered went to Tire Shredders Unlimited in High Ridge, MO, which creates a rubber “crumb” that is used in playgrounds, horse arenas and as an additive to coal to burn hotter and cleaner creating electricity.

Scrap Metal
This stuff is actually worth money! Sometimes, we make quite a lot of cash from the scrap metal. Other times, it’s much easier to let a local scrapper to pull up a trailer or dump truck and let them take it away. This time, Franklin Co. Recycling brought a dump truck, and we filled it to the brim - 3.9 tons! There’s a lot usable metal you can get from 15 miles of river!

an artist's view of river trash

post by Steve Schnarr, drawing by Cathy Johnson

Often, when visiting wild and beautiful places, I have a habit of framing photos to crop out the evidence of humankind. It’s some kind of attempt to peer back in time at a more “pristine” natural world that exists amongst our human strivings. Despite that, it’s not very honest!

But other times, it’s that contrast between the unfolding and timeless natural drama and the evidence we humans leave behind that is the most interesting.

I came across this wonderful drawing today by naturalist and artist Cathy Johnson, who lives near Excelsior Springs, MO. She was visiting Cooley Lake Conservation Area, which features a remnant oxbow lake in the Missouri River bottoms, as well as a popular boat ramp on the Big Muddy. It’s a perfect encapsulation of that frustration we all feel when we visit a favorite spot of beauty to find piles of junk left behind by careless people.


Here’s the direct link to the drawing on her flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathy-johnson/4354939050/

If you’d like to know more about the diverse, beautiful and personal art of Cathy, check out her website or blog.