Mike Hartung // Photo courtesy of Maddie McBratney
Painting the Picture
It’s about 3℉ on an early Saturday morning as I ride shotgun in a stranger’s car. They’re taking me 160 miles away from home, to an unfamiliar town to introduce me to another stranger. What could possibly go wrong?
These strangers are Richard and Laura Klocke, two artists that currently reside in Lawrence. We’re heading to meet their longtime friend, and fellow artist, Mike Hartung. Hartung is a current and former resident of Lindsborg, Kansas and currently has a show up at the Smoky Valley Arts & Folklife Center.
The breaks in conversation are short-lived, and are frequently filled with what I can only perceive as discomfort-induced fillers such as, “Well, look at that, Laura. The car says we’re up to 5℉.”
I can imagine that inviting me, a stranger, into their home was likely just as unnerving for them as it was for me. I can tell that they are not quite certain what to say at times, but the silence can feel dangerous between strangers. Despite all the uncertainty, I feel completely safe with them on this journey.
Richard and Laura met Hartung in the mid-70s, through their sculpture teacher at Bethany College in Lindsborg. The drive to Lindsborg is about two and a half hours from Lawrence, and allows them plenty of time to share their stories with me.
History on Hartung:
Mike Hartung grew up in Fredonia, Kansas, a small town with a current population of less than 2,500 people. His mother was a waitress, and would read him bedtime stories when she returned home from work. These stories were simply the beginning of a life of curiosity and imagination for Hartung. His mother always encouraged him to pursue what he felt was meaningful. For him, that meant pursuing a life as an artist.
Later in his life, Hartung went on to attend Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia, Kansas, where he received a bachelor’s degree in art education. At the time, Hartung had a deep desire to be a political cartoonist, and was able to do so for the Emporia paper while he was in college.
It was during college that he discovered painting as a fine art, and decided to pursue it further. However, many of his friends were shocked to hear him answer me in this way when I asked why he chose painting as his medium. According to them, the most common answer from Hartung is that painting is “the only true medium.”
Shortly after college, he was drafted into the Vietnam War and served for two years. Serving within a non-militia position as a clerk, Hartung often jokes that despite having kept a gun in his desk, he had no idea how to use it. The war pushed his political influences even further, and his work continues to be heavily influenced by current politics.
When he returned to the United States, he married and moved to Lindsborg with his then-wife. Hartung never desired a lavish lifestyle. In fact, he preferred a life of simplicity that allowed him as much time to devote to painting as possible. He worked at a printing company in Salina, Kansas until he retired and was able to paint full time.
Main Street Lindsborg // Photo courtesy of Google Street View
Arrival in Little Sweden:
We arrive in Lindsborg just before noon and the small-town friendliness is immediately apparent to me.
“What are you doing shoveling all that snow? You should be making Hartung do that for you.” Richard jokes with the woman that I will later discover to be Hartung’s landlord.
“Yeah… right.” She teases back and goes on to explain that his pipes are frozen, and Hartung currently has no water.
We access Hartung’s space through a large wooden door, just off of the sidewalk, and ascend a steep flight of stairs. There is a single lightbulb in the hallway, but it doesn’t seem to be working too well. Despite the cold, Laura holds the door open to allow more light for us as Richard and I climb the stairs.
There’s a small landing with a window at the top of the stairs, and two doors on either side. I can hear rock n’ roll blaring through the door. I later learn that Hartung is a massive fan of The Rolling Stones. Richard explains that Hartung always has his stereo blaring, and pounds on his friend’s door.
After a while, Hartung answers the door and the smell of cigarettes pours out into the stairwell. He is incredibly welcoming, and invites us out of the cold and into his studio space.
He currently has no water at all, which only seems to trouble him because he needs water to paint. Fortunately, he is able to get water from the Smoky Valley Arts and Folklife Center, which is only a couple of doors down from his studio. However, Hartung has never had hot water in his studio.
Hartung’s studio space // Photo courtesy of Maddie McBratney
This space that he has been renting since 1977 is not exactly set up for human life, though it doesn’t seem to trouble Hartung in the slightest. Hartung doesn’t have a kitchen, or a shower, and a twin sized mattress on the floor of his studio is all that he has that one could deem a bedroom.
The immediate question this all raised in my mind, was how on earth he ate food. A coffee shop a few doors down from Hartung called “The White Peacock” supplies him with all of his meals. Hartung is incredibly well regarded in this coffee shop by the owner and employees.
Richard tells me that the background on their order screen was once a picture of Hartung and the baristas surrounding him in adoration. In fact, while the cafe is currently closed for renovations, the owner is hand delivering meals to Hartung in his studio.
SVAFC Space // Photo courtesy of Maddie McBratney
Exhibition Space:
We make our way back out into the cold to tour “Villainy, Beyond the Pale,” his current exhibition at the Smoky Valley Arts & Folklife Center. It outlines the political landscape of 2023, as seen through the eyes of Hartung. A majority of his work is incredibly politically motivated with satirical biblical undertones.
He takes me around the room, piece by piece, and explains the origin and meaning behind each. The paintings are massive, and depict the political horrors of the year, often in relevance to his own state of Kansas. He has an artist talk scheduled later in the evening in which he will again touch on each piece to the public. It will be archived by the gallery and can be viewed on their Facebook page.
“This is Kris Kobach’s Kansas, or KKK for short,” Hartung describes of the piece featured on the exhibition poster. It touches on transgender rights within Kansas, voting registration, and features John Eastman, Trump’s former attorney who was involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Hartung tells me that featuring this piece on the poster got him and the gallery in a bit of hot water. The gallery space, having previously received funding from The Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, puts their logo on the bottom of every exhibition poster. However, Hartung tells me that they gave the gallery a call not too long ago, and were quite unhappy about being associated with the exhibition.
Hartung says that they were none too troubled by the call, and told them with a chuckle that he was “simply saying thank you.”
He goes on to describe a piece that he is currently working on in his studio and how he plans to include it in the show the following week. When asked where he plans to fit it? “Well that’s a good goddamn question.”
Former Recluse in Recovery:
The war in the early 2000s caused Hartung a great deal of emotional turmoil, and led him to shut down and pull back from his friends. He struggled to continue to paint.
During a visit to Hartung around this time, Richard, Laura, and mutual friend Randy found him living in extremely poor conditions. Not only did they help him improve his health and immediate surroundings, but they reinvigorated his joy for painting.
The trio of former college friends saw many of his pieces for the first time, and knew that they needed to be documented. Despite the freezing temperatures of Hartung’s studio in the winter, they took the time to photograph every single piece. It is this that Hartung says gave him the motivation to start working again.
Hartung never had much interest in showing his work and had never planned to. In fact, it was not until Hartung reached his 70s that he began sharing his work with the world. In 2017 Hartung had three exhibitions up at once. Richard greatly encouraged Hartung to participate in these showings, and helped him set up his first exhibitions.
He has never sold a piece, and has no intentions to in the future. The claim by Hartung is that this keeps him honest in his work. He is much less limited in this sense as to what his subject matter can contain.
Though some of his former works currently live in a storage facility in Salina, he has no plans of letting any of them go when he passes. His current plans are to gift the Smoky Valley Arts & Folklife Center with his space when he passes away, with the stipulation that his works are not to leave the property.
However, he plans for them to still be able to be viewed by the public for years to come.
