Native artist returns home

With each stroke of the brush on an empty canvas, Allen artist Ken Byler begins to conjure up memories of his family and friends from days on the Black Prairie. The stories focus on the rich and colorful lives of residents during the close of the frontier and agriculture eras in Allen.

Sponsored by the Allen Pulbic Library and Allen Heritage Guild, Byler's original works in oil of local buildings, barns, bridges, houses and street scenes will be displayed in the library gallery through January.

"His style typifies vermicular American folk art and is reminiscent of Grandma Moses" said Allen Public Library Development Coordinator Tom Keener.

Displayed will be Byler's paintings of Allen's old red brick schoolhouse, churches, downtown and even a bright depiction of "cottin' pickin'" on the family farm. "Very few of his subjects memorialized on canvas survive today," Keener said. "We are thankful for his perseverance because his portfolio contains images of long-gone relics from Allen's past," he said.

The display is the collaborative efforts of Keener and Byler "to put together the history of Allen," Ken Byler said. Byler's tattered book of sketches, wrapped with a single lace tie, held many of his memories of farming on the black prairie as well as the names and history of early Allen. "Most of the people in my sketchbook are dead now and most everything I grew up knowing is gone from downtown. But I can still tell you where they lived and what they did," he said.

Byler draws on his sketches for inspiration. "When I paint, it triggers all kinds of memories and I feel like I did in my younger days," he said. "That is as long as I stay away from the mirror."

Over the course of decades Byler developed his own style and medium, producing scenes of the southwest as well as his captured memories of Allen. Byler never considered himself an artist until complete strangers began wanting to buy his work. "My work has won awards and now sells well at various art shows in the southwest," he said. But adding, "maybe it's because I'm cheap and will take a personal check from a out of town stranger." Whatever the reason, you can buy prints of his works through local magazines as well as the Reclamation Shop and Gallery in the historic Boulder Dam Hotel in Boulder City, Nevada.

From the Black Prairie Byler will always take with him part of Allen.

"Though I've traveled far from Allen and live more than a thousand miles away, the past, the present and the future is a circle that continues to begin and end on Cottonwood Creek. Only the names and faces change," he said.

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