Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - March 7, 2025

A "Jane of all trades"

The house is on a cul-de-sac, making it a quiet neighborhood. The 1913 home has spacious rooms with warm wood floors and an abundance of windows. It feels welcoming.

The sunlit studio on the second floor is cluttered with stacks of books, paint brushes, photos, magazines, partially-finished portraits, tools, furniture, and found objects - all things that serve as inspiration.

This is both the home and the workplace for artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, the woman I met on Kansas Day when the mural she painted was unveiled in the Kansas capitol.

She's probably six inches shorter than I am, but what she lacks in height, she makes up for in energy. She worked on the mural six hours a day for nine months. The starting point was a tissue-paper sketch done in pencil. But before she could start, she had to find someone to make a stretcher for what would eventually be the 8-foot by 19-foot painting. That alone took a month.

Because the ceiling in her studio wasn't high enough to accommodate the canvas upright, her dining room became a temporary workspace. Michelangelo stood on a scaffold and craned his neck to paint the Sistine Chapel, but Phyllis used a reverse approach. The priming and part of the painting were completed with the large canvas horizontal, facing upward. A stepladder was placed on one side with another on the opposite edge. Long wood planks were then threaded between either the third or fourth steps on both, depending on how much room she wanted between her and the canvas. Then she would crawl out on the planks and paint, sometimes kneeling, sometimes lying on her stomach.

I had to smile a bit. Is this what she meant when she said she's willing to go anywhere and work on any type of art project?

"I started calling myself an art mercenary several years ago ... because I work with so many different mediums. ... it was just a kind of funny way to describe the versatility in my art ... a Jane of all trades," she said.

Phyllis has done commission work, including family portraits, for private individuals. She also has other examples of her work out in the community. These include the metal "boot and wheel" at So Long Saloon, the painting at restaurant Taco Lucha, landscapes for a local bank, a painting at the Kansas State University multicultural student center, and the mural at Sunset Zoo.

Manhattan isn't her hometown, but she is a native Kansan. She's the youngest of 10 who were born and raised in Kingman County. Her father Bill's family came from Illinois in 1886 and her mother Helen immigrated from Michoacán, Mexico in 1929.

They were devoted farmers and parents. They sacrificed a lot to be together. They faced racism and ultimately my mother felt pressure to assimilate. We did not grow up bilingual or in a multicultural family. She regretted it later and so did my dad. She was proud of her heritage and even more proud of the family that she was able to raise in a free country. They both always encouraged us to register and vote and to get higher education if we could. Both parents were true Kansans ... they loved to farm, help others, and enjoyed their ever growing family.

As a youngster, she gathered eggs, worked in the garden, and helped her dad. She remembers crawling into the combine while he was welding. She was especially fascinated with the mason jars of nuts and bolts in his shop. She enjoyed one-on-one time with both parents. Her mom and sisters were creative with sewing and with food - canning and making jams.

While Phyllis was a 4-H member - which gave her opportunities to dabble in artistic pursuits such as sewing, decoupage, and knitting - it seemed unlikely she would become an artist. Her high school in Norwich was so small, she had an art teacher for only one year. But a counselor there told her there was this thing called graphic design she might be interested in trying.

She enrolled in art at Kansas State University in 1982. She said it was a bit intimidating because students from larger districts had studied art for four years in high school. But she persisted. After pausing to work in Wichita for three semesters, she graduated in 1987.

After, she worked about four years at Willoughby Design, an all-woman firm in Kansas City. Their clients included restaurants, Lee Jeans, Hallmark Cards, and Sprint.

Then it was off to Shreveport, Louisiana where her husband went to medical school. While there, she did freelancing, worked in a frame company, and in another that added embellishments to clothing.

They returned to Manhattan in 1997 to be closer to family and because they liked the college atmosphere.

In 2018, Phyllis and daughter Hannah, then 27, started Little Batch Company LLC, to sell baked goods at the local farmers market. Hannah took courses in hotel and restaurant management at K-State and then graduated from the French Pastry School in Chicago.

In 2020, the mother-daughter team took over the Conoco station across from City Park and the building just east of it. The bakery moved from Phyllis' kitchen to the latter and they made the former into a restaurant - Parkside Station. Son Max, 31, is also involved, being in charge of payroll and IT for the businesses.

When I first spoke with Phyllis two months ago, I was immediately struck by how easy it is to talk with her. She's down-to-earth, open, and generous with her time and talents. And with her fingers in art, baking, and helping manage a business, "Jane of all trades" does seem to fit her quite well.