LocationTony Aguirre Community Center 2050 W Pennway Terr KCMO |
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Artist: Concetta Morales
Installed: 2001
Medium: Mosaic
KCMO’s One Percent for the Arts Program
“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude,” a famous philosopher once said. Gratitude was clearly the inspiration for Concetta Morales in creating the artwork for the Tony Aguirre Community Center. “The Westside community spent literally decades lobbying to have this facility built in their neighborhood,” Morales said. “When it finally happened, they knew that it had to be named after Mr. Aguirre, because of the vital role he played in the community over the years.” It was his character that inspired the pieces she designed, and it was the involvement of his friends, family and neighbors that provided the details she incorporated into her work. Titled, A Man with the Certainty of a Tree and Flair of a FISH: Tony Aguirre, the artwork consists of several mosaic panels inset into the concrete exterior of the community center. Each one contains images from Mr. Aguirre’s time as volunteer coach and as Athletic Director at the Guadalupe Center, as well as from his various other roles in the Kansas City neighborhood where he’s spent nearly his entire life. One panel consists of a large fish; representing Mr. Aguirre’s nickname and the character traits he instills in the children he mentored (FISH stands for Friendship, Intelligence, Scholarship, and Honor).
Nearly 200 hundred years after the area’s first fur trading post was settled on the bluffs of the Missouri River, Kansas City is preparing to honor the French pioneer Francois Chouteau who established it, and the Native Americans with whom he traded. Francois Chouteau...
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