Ruby’s Cultural Corner to bring together Black culture and the broader community

If you’ve ever driven past the colorful shipping containers near 13th and Grove and wondered what they were, Janice Thacker would like to tell you.

Thacker, a retired teacher and counselor who continues to work with children to create art, wants to establish Ruby’s Cultural Corner to help Black children in particular learn about their culture and how they can be a part of it and the community.

“When they have a connection to the community, they start to care about it, and that’s what we want them to do,” Thacker said.

Initially she planned to call the collection Ruby’s Art District — named for her mother — but Thacker said it will be about more than art.

“It’s a daily reminder your culture is here.”

Thacker has had Halloween giveaways to get children used to going there, but otherwise the containers aren’t in use yet.

In addition to wanting more containers for the site, Thacker said she’s also fundraising and likely won’t be able to get all the containers ready until that happens — likely a year from now.

“Unless somebody gives us a whole bunch of money.”

Thacker founded Art That Touches Your Heart, a nonprofit that works with Wichita State University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion each year to bring students to a show there to see artwork by people of color.

“We wanted the students to feel like the university was accessible,” Thacker said.

She said, though, that she wants more opportunities than simply a once-a-year event. That’s why she and the Art That Touches Your Heart board are working to create Ruby’s Cultural Corner.

Thacker points to experiences in her own life when art has made a difference.

One was when she was still working and saw some art demonstrations by teachers from Emporia State.

“I was so inspired,” Thacker said. “I said, ‘I just don’t know enough.’ ”

She continued to learn from a mentor in Dallas with whom she traveled nationally to see art shows.

“There’s a whole ’nother world of artists. They are so dynamic, you can’t sleep.”

And when she was teaching in New York, she said she saw students who could work with professional artists because they had access to them.

“So they became much more proficient at their craft,” she said. “And they weren’t doing that in Wichita.”

All of these inspirations are going into Ruby’s Cultural Corner.

“It’s to kind of give a new life on who African American artists are.”

Myers & Briggs ship out

Even though Ruby’s Cultural Corner has only six containers so far at 13th and Green, they’re getting their own symbolism already.

Thacker is using Myers & Briggs personality colors on the containers.

She talks with children about their personalities and their art and helps them learn “not just that you are creating something, but that it has a purpose.”

“All of them want to know about themselves.”

Gold represents organized individuals.

“They’re like the backbone of this county,” Thacker said.

“The blues are very romantic. They like everybody to get along,” she said. “The greens are the idea people. They live in the future.”

Those might be engineers or people who are seen as loners.

Then there are the risk-taking oranges.

“They’re a lot of fun.”

Thacker said she’s always told students, “Don’t get all orange friends or you’re never gonna get through.”

There will be solar panels for heat, air and light at the containers. Thacker is working with WSU engineering students on the site and the containers. The students are revising plans now to include parking.

In addition to featuring local art, Thacker plans to showcase African art and artifacts “so the students start to see . . . they have a homeland.”

Thacker is working with former Shocker star Kelly Pete, who changed his name to Mohamed Sharif and has an African artifacts museum in Santa Fe called AlShariff African Art.

“He’ll be bringing African artifacts.”

Thacker said she hopes he’ll have a permanent display.

“There’s so many facets to our culture.”

‘Where’d I get this talent from?’

Ruby Burdine, Thacker’s mother, didn’t call herself an artist, but that’s what she was.

“I asked her one time, ‘Where’d I get this talent from?’ and she said, ‘Well, they always asked me to do signs for the schools.’ ”

Burdine created signs and posters for events, and she was always there to guide Thacker in her artistic pursuits. Today, Thacker is a multiple-medium artist, but she remembers projects all through her childhood that her mother helped make happen.

“How do you make doll hair?” she once asked her mom. “And she said, ‘You take yarn, and you wrap it around a pencil tight. . . . When you take it out of the pencil, it curls, and you have doll hair.’ ”

Thacker said her father, Lloyd Burdine, was a master craftsman.

Today, she signs all her work “Janice Burdine.”

“My talent comes from my parents, so I’m giving my parents credit for my talent.”

Now Thacker wants to create an inspiration for others, especially Black children who may see successful Black people only in music, dancing and sports.

She said she wants Ruby’s Cultural Corner to show what else is possible.

“The students are talented,” she said. But, “Students sometimes don’t realize they have multiple interests or multiple talents.”

Thacker said Ruby’s Cultural Corner is an avenue to teach culture through art and send a message about the broader community at the same time.

“That’s what we’re trying to get students to connect to — opportunities in the community,” she said.

“It’s a daily connection. You’re a part of this community.”