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On the road to visit the International Quilt Study Center Museum in Lincoln, NE, Lilo spotted the longest three-dimensional sculpted brick mural in the U.S. created by Catharine Magel and Mara Smith. What was originally a very nondescript wall of the Cloud County Museum and Concordia Travel Information Center ,is now an amazing sculptural history of Cloud County, Kansas.

Artist Catharine Magel's,140' long and 15' high design, offers the viewer a diverse history of Cloud County, KS using the art of hand sculpted images (by lead sculpture Mara Smith) depicting planting and harvesting, mining, aviation and other early mechanized industry.

A woman on to the left of the doorway sows seeds, while the man to the right of the doorway harvests a crop. Three young boys represent the orphan train riders that arrived in great numbers during WWII, as does the US soldier shaking the hand of a German POW soldier. Many POWs worked as laborers on farms and in factories that manufactured many items, including brick.

(Section of brick workers during the green clay process. Image courtesy of Catharine Magel)

Mary says the actual work is a multi-step process that involves the selection of wet clay bricks (before firing), "sculpting the design by carving away clay until the desired detail is reached. This arduous process, using common potter hand tools, may take from a few weks to several months depending on th esize of the project. During this period the brick must be kept damp and covered with plastic every night, to keep the clay workable. When the sculpting is finished, it is dissassembled, numbered, and stacked dry. Then the bricks are top set on kiln cars, and fired in a 400' tunnel kiln to 2000 degrees. Drying and firing take nearly a month to complete."
After firing, the bricks are cooled, checked for errors, cracks or other imperfections that might mean re-carving and firing. The bricks are then packed and shipped to the site for installation.

Cloud Ceramics donated 6,400 bricks for the Cloud County Museum Whole Wall Mural. The three-dimensional brick mural covers the exterior wall of the Museum annex located at 6th & U.S. 81 in downtown Concordia. The 140' brick mural features the history of Cloud County including the Cloud Ceramics beehive kilns.

Learn more about the artist and sculptor.