Vancil’s new art salutes history, dedicated to aviation workers

Concrete artist Troy Vancil poses with his latest work “Endure” at M.J. Kennedy Air Terminal (Photo courtesy of Tim Unruh)

Tim Unruh

August 10, 2022

A bold image of the new-age GlobalFlyer aircraft gracefully gliding over a wheat field ahead of a Kansas storm, calls up special memories for Troy Vancil.

The former nine-year member of the Salina Airport Authority board, beamed in early August while marveling at his concrete art — dubbed “Endure” — after its public display.

Hanging near the baggage claim in M.J. Kennedy Air Terminal, the vibrant production serves as a sort of shrine of both aviation accomplishments and challenges conquered in Salina and north-central Kansas.

The one-of-a-kind artwork in 27 layered colors, is on a base of plywood and two coats of one-eighth-inch thick concrete. The vision harkens back to the a feat of adventurer Steve Fossett swooping toward a landing at Salina Regional Airport, on March 3, 2005.

On that unseasonably warm day, in front of some 16,000 onlookers, the daring pilot set a world record in the first solo circumnavigation of the globe, without refueling. The flight lasted 67 hours, two minutes and 38 seconds traveling 23,000 miles, taking off and landing at Salina.

“It captures a moment that’s really important to Salina’s history,” said Vancil, 57, a concrete worker by trade who is transitioning the material into art with a few of his close friends around the nation.

With help from experts in stenciling using concrete dyes, Endure was made over the past year in Vancil’s North Salina shop. He donated it to the airport authority. The production is a compilation of photographs provided by Salina photographer Jeff Haines.

A computer program from FLOORmaps INC. of Rogers Arkansas — owned by sisters Kathren and Rachel Knigge — was used to accomplish the task.

“They combined the photos and posterized them to create the image you see,” Vancil said while describing Endure’s creation.

A nearby plaque dedicates the art “to the Salina Regional Airport professionals who endured the 2020 pandemic to provide much-needed service during dark times,” he wrote. “Like Steve Fossett, they had to endure the unknown.”

Layering creates similar depth and detail to Swedish painter Birger Sandzén, whose memorial gallery is located in nearby Lindsborg.

“I’m building colors through these layers,” Vancil said. “This is the direction I’m headed in my career.”

Creating such a piece, like that of one named “Rise” he completed in 2021 for Hutton Construction in its downtown Salina office conference room, is fairly new to the art world. It’s a depiction of the new spire completed by Hutton, topping the Stiefel Theatre tower for the Performing Arts, 151 S. Santa Fe Avenue.

“I don’t think you could’ve done this in 2005,” Vancil said. “Some secrets you don’t want to share.”

The airport authority is planning a formal dedication of the special place in the terminal. Vancil added that Endure is “one of one,” meaning it won’t be copied.

“This just a great piece. It’s a perfect fit,” Rogers said, pointing to the lightning strike on the horizon as a favored element. “This is not Paint by Numbers,” he quipped.

The process is actually similar, Vancil said, just highly advanced and technical (See the sidebar).

He is brainstorming a number of concrete art projects, including others for the Airport and Airport Industrial Center.

Vancil’s art simple, but difficult to define

Tim Unruh

August 10, 2022

Explaining the multi-layered from of concrete art is not easy, said Rachel Knigge, but it works.

Troy Vancil’s two Salina projects — named “Rise” and “Endure” — started with photos.

“He wanted to create as realistic of a reproduction of an image he had,” said Knigge, the co-owner of FLOORmaps INC. of Rogers, Arkansas, with her sister, Kathren Knigge.

They used a method called “posterization.”

“We upload an image with a specified amount of color, then add special effects, limiting the image to a more desirable amount of colors for production. Sometimes there are just too many colors. It can be pretty cool to watch our program reduce these colors from the original images. It can create something really abstract, which definitely adds to the artistic feel of the end piece,” Rachel said. “Then our computer program (Adobe Illustrator) prepares the elements, turning them into vectors, where we manipulate them into workable layers later.”

For Endure, there were 27 shades of color used.

“We isolated seven shades of yellow in one layer, blue in another layer, and so one, isolating them into their own individual layers.” she said. “We create a vinyl layer for each color.”

The colors are stacked from dark to light.

“We utilize our registration system to align all of those individual elements together, and the concrete will absorb the layers into its texture,” Rachel said. “With this process it’s kind of like painting by number. All of those individual bits of color add up to an image.”

FLOORmaps INC. is known for its layering system that puts images into primarily concrete floors, she said, such as maps, names and logos.

The goal is to create a tool that allow anyone to be an artist.

“Not all concrete contractors are artistically inclined. Troy is one who can do it,” Rachel said. “Anyone can if you can follow the schematic.”