Carriage Factory Art Gallery will host “Women Wonderworkers: The Self-Made Worlds of Visionary Female Artists,” a presentation and discussion by Erika Nelson at 6 p.m. Oct. 17 at 128 E. Sixth St. in Newton.

Members of the community are invited to attend the free program to learn about visionary art environments created by female sculptors.

Inez Marshal, a truck driver and preacher, sculpted large blocks of limestone and established the International Sculpture Hall in rural Portis, Kansas. Other stories include Grandma Prisbery’s bottle village, located in an earthquake-prone area of California. This presentation examines the artists’ motivations, the work itself, and the afterlife of overlooked sites after their makers have passed.

Erika Nelson is an independent artist, educator and director of the World’s Largest Things, Inc. Her research interests include roadside attractions and outsider art environments. She explores the back roads of the United States in search of the odd and unique in her mobile museum, the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things.

“The artist’s job is not just to document an era, but to interpret, to convey ideas, elicit emotions,” Nelson said. “When artists have deeply emotional responses to the world around them, some feel compelled to use their art to not just express their own experience, their own view, but to spur viewers to action.”

“Women Wonderworkers: The Self-Made Worlds of Visionary Female Artists” is part of Humanities Kansas’s Movement of Ideas Speakers Bureau, featuring presentations and workshops designed to share stories that inspire, spark conversations that inform and generate insights that strengthen civic engagement.

Contact Carriage Factory Art Gallery at 316-284-2749 or visit www.carriagefactoryartgallery.com for more information about this program and other upcoming events.