Patrick Walker Sumner (1966- ) and Mott-Ly (1962-2007)
Punk Rock and Underground Zine Collection (KC0466)
Mott-Ly, the notorious punk rocker, cranky eccentric and conceptual artist/sculptor, was in several bands and was a primary motivator of the Kansas City scene. Born Lee Tisdale on December 19, 1962 in Lincoln, NE, Mott-Ly was a 1986 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute. Kansas City art critic, Gina Kaufmann, observed that his art “paid homage to the small, the discarded, the broken and the backward. Mott-Ly drew and etched, sculpted and collaged. Every detail was painstakingly rendered. He knew how to fill a matchbook with a universe.” He exhibited work primarily in Lincoln and Kansas City, including, in 2005, a “Retrospective” of nearly 100 pieces at the Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University and “Aftermath, New Outside the Box Works” at the Pi Gallery, both in Kansas City. In 2002 Mott-Ly opened MoMO gallery in the East Crossroads where he displayed the work of new, struggling and underexposed artists and musicians, whose works were often on the gritty edge. In the late 1980’s, he started, with Archer Prewitt, the band Mudhead, for which he was the lead vocalist, and in the 1990’s he hosted the show “Susan” at KKFI radio in Kansas City. Mott-Ly fought constantly for social justice and harbored all, animals as well as humans, who sought refuge in his space. Mott-Ly died May 30, 2007.
From a punk rock street kid in midtown Kansas City to a freestyle swinging rock-a-billy family man in Lawrence, Patrick Sumner engaged in and created a variety of cultural products. As a gospel musician in Colorado in Oregon he developed a strong aptitude for what is known as the “high lonesome sound.” In community building he acted as an advocate and leader in a wide variety of successful reform causes, often aiding poor communities and families in a quest to turn his passion and education into lasting change in the lives of the disenfranchised. Scholarship has been the in the forefront of Sumner’s life and career for twenty years. From Penn Valley Community College to the University of Kansas he did community outreach, applied theory and research that has produced a substantial body of work. In studying vernacular architecture (old houses) and the history of Kansas (Territorial/Civil War/Underground Railroad) he has developed a unique grasp of Kansas City regional cultural heritage. This broad base of cultural understanding both from an academic and street level has been cultivated into a mastery of cross-cultural communication. Currently Sumner is working on a Social Justice ministry in Kansas City, Kansas.
This collection of single issue zines, concerning the punk rock/underground scene in the Greater Kansas City area, contains primitive collage, local information regarding the 1980s youth scene and gives a glimpse of the anarchic and eclectic influences that were created out of next to nothing. This collection preserves documents that were meant to be consumed and disposed of in the way of all things punk. Many of the buildings that once housed the Punk scene, such as at 47th and Troost, are now torn down. The early to mid-1980s were a very vibrant time. Kansas City was still raw; there were porno houses and prostitutes on Main Street, cheap thrift stores all over, and there was spiked hair, torn nylons, roller skates and red lipstick. While it was the banal me generation, and an apathetic populace who accepted Reagan as a granddad, there was a few hundred or maybe a thousand of individuals who took the streets as their own, defied authority and convention, and had fun in the mix. 1981-1995.
23 folders.
© WHMC-KC, University of Missouri
updated:
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City
(816) 235-1543 WHMCKC@umkc.edu