Marijana's deeply felt experiences on the Hill are beautifully reflected in the body of her work. ![]() Strawberry Hill was never quite the same. The interstate's effects on the neighborhood were compounded by the natural progression of younger generations moving away and older generations passing away. Living so near to the Hill, and maintaining close contact with relatives and friends there, Marijana keenly felt this traumatic event. About 125 homes in the area were condemned for the construction of Interstate 70, which skirts the Hill just above the river bottoms. Marijana's taking up the brush as an adult coincides with a pivotal time in Strawberry Hill's history. She began documenting her memories in oil. Later, confined by health issues during her third pregnancy, Marijana again took up painting at the urging of her mother. ![]() She married in 1956 and settled a few miles from the Hill. I have memories of so many people on the Hill-different times, different holidays."Īlthough Marijana enjoyed painting in childhood, she never received formal artistic training. Marijana recalled of this time, "I was lucky, because my mom shared me with everyone on the Hill. Neighbors kept a watchful eye on Marijana and her siblings, and they were full participants in the area's active social and cultural life. Despite the sorrow and financial difficulties resulting from her parent's death, Marijana recalls this time fondly because the Hill was a wonderful place to grow up. ![]() Her father died when she was only 13 years old. Marijana was born on the Hill to Croatian American parents (her grandparents had emigrated from Croatia to Kansas City). As with all such communities, traditions continued to evolve with the passage of time and exposure to the broader American culture. Residents spoke the same language, sang the same songs, attended each other's weddings and funerals. It became an ethnic enclave, a traditional village within a modern city, filled with Croatian businesses patronized by Croatian workers. As arrivals became more established and prosperous, they began to move up from the bottoms onto the Hill. They soon built a church for Croatian immigrants on the mound, named by tradition "Strawberry Hill" for the wild berries that once grew there. The new immigrants first settled in the Kansas River bottoms, where they found work in packing houses, stockyards, and railroads. Most of its Slavic population arrived around the turn of the 20th century, attracted to the United States by economic opportunities. Strawberry Hill is one of Kansas City's best-known ethnic communities. That lives on in the works of local artist Marijana Grisnik, who paints under the name Marijana (pronounced Mah-ree-YAW-nah). The spire marks the location of an historic Croatian neighborhood known as Strawberry Hill or, simply, "the Hill." While the interstate divides the Hill, it has not destroyed its history. Travelers speeding through Kansas City on I-70 get a fleeting glimpse of a church spire atop a hill just west of the Kansas River. Learn more about the Mac Gems Superguide.Memories of a Kansas City neighborhood are captured in these fanciful paintings by artist Marijana Grisnik. It’s available as a PDF download, PDF on CD-ROM, or as a printed book. Mac Gems Superguide is a veritable greatest hits of Mac Gems. Mac Gems newsletter for a weekly e-mail summary of Gems reviews sent directly to your inbox. Want to stay up-to-date with the latest Gems? Sign up for the There’s also an undo history that lets you go back to a previous version of the document. You can easily align objects on the page and there’s a magnifying glass (rare for a vector drawing app) that lets you zoom in tight on just one portion of your new drawing to make fine adjustments. For example, there is no menu that shows you a font preview.ĭraweBerry lets you export a finished drawing as a PDF, EPS, or photo format such as JPEG. You can add text to a document, but the tools for adjusting font and size are fairly rudimentary. In fact, DrawBerry does a great job or putting most tools on palettes for easy access, instead of burying them in the menus. Palettes for adjusting the size of the drawing grid, canvas size, and rules are also just a click away.
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