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Artwork of sunflowers flood local Lander bakery to support Ukraine

Melissa Strickler explains part of the "Sunflowers in Solidarity" gallery at the Lander Bake Shop. (Spring 2022)
Taylar Dawn Stagner

In Lander, a local bake shop is brightening up their store with artwork of sunflowers in support of friends in Ukraine.

Melissa Strickler helped put on “Sunflowers in Solidarity'' at the Lander Bake Shop.

“There is a piece named “Vika” by Alice Brew and it's a photograph that she took when she was in the Peace Corps in Ukraine. And it's of a friend of hers in a field of sunflowers,” said Strickler.

Strickler said many in Lander have friends in Ukraine and wanted to do what they could to help.

“I feel like it's bringing awareness. Here we are in our beautiful area in Wyoming. It can be easy to forget what’s happening,” she said. “And this exhibition gave people a way of being able to say, ‘I care. I’m worried about Ukraine. I’m worried about what's going on. And I don’t know what to do’.”

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine. The gallery will be up until the end of April and proceeds will be sent to humanitarian efforts on the ground in Ukraine.

Taylar Dawn Stagner is a central Wyoming rural and tribal reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She has degrees in American Studies, a discipline that interrogates the history and culture of America. She was a Native American Journalist Association Fellow in 2019, and won an Edward R. Murrow Award for her Modern West podcast episode about drag queens in rural spaces in 2021. Stagner is Arapaho and Shoshone.
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