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Blue Sky Sculpture

13 Comments on Blue Sky Sculpture

blue-sky-sculpture-newton

The main reason I wanted to visit Newton: the Blue Sky Sculpture.

The sculpture was a delight – the only blue sky I saw all day – but it would’ve been so much prettier on a blue sky day.

This is the work of Phil Epp, Terry Corbett and Conrad Snider. Epp and Corbett created the Blue Sky; Snider the stoneware figures in front.

It’s located in Centennial Park in Newton.

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Now that you’ve seen that it looks gorgeous on a gray day, look at photos of the sculpture on a blue sky day on Phil Epp’s site. Yeah, wow is the word.

Read Phil Epp’s Tips for observing the Blue Sky Sculpture.

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I couldn’t find a link for Terry Corbett, but here’s Phil Epp’s website. And Conrad Snider’s.

13 Comments

  1. I KNEW that looked familiar! The one here has never seemed that impressive to me, partly the setting and partly a rather … unappealing metal sculpture in front of it, all sorta crammed into a space between two buildings.

    The Newton installation, however… WOW!

  4. Oh, yes.. on Epp’s site check out photos , i think # 10 & 11 with the small columns. That’s in downtown Olathe just north of the court house. The columns are fine, although I think suffer a bit from the small size, but the setting, in my view, really doesn’t work too well.

  5. I see what you mean, tport. It does look a little cramped when you bring the Flint Hills and the big blue sky into the city. The Blue Sky Sculpture needs the open space.

  7. I need to remember to check this out when we go to Newton on Memorial Day. We go every year to decorate family graves and have a picnic in Athletic Park, but I haven’t seen much of Newton besides the cemetery, this one park, and the road in between.

  8. Newton is a happenin’ little town! I have never been there. From your pictures and descriptions, it almost seems like a Mini-Lawrence.

    I probably should put Newton on my “bucket list,” huh…

  9. While you are there visit “North Newton”——it is like another world right there– They have many festivals each year in North Newton!!

  12. Here I am, a native of Newton, Iowa, and I never knew there was a Newton, Kansas. I’m not sure if that’s being geographically or culturally challenged. In any event,the sculpture is wonderful – the next time I head to KC I’ll get out my map and make a detour!

  13. I knew Lloyd and Jacque Smith, and graduated Newton HS with his son Randy in 1974. They were the most unique couple I’ve known. He was an inventor, an engineer and a community philanthropist who not only funded this sculpture, but saved the heart of Newton by buying the old mill at the center of town, and rehab’d it for commercial use. It’s now the coolest place in central Kansas.
    Randy and I worked on that mill, pulling out the old asbestos and painting/cleaning to move Lloyd’s S&V tool company in there. I photographed it for the Newton HS paper at the time. This amazing work of art doesn’t surprise me at all, they were and are a wonderful family. (Randy’s in San Francisco, an engineer as well).

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