Oct. 19, 2019

By Fred Liggett
FredL@lstribune.net

On Sunday, Oct. 13 the Kansas City Chiefs played host to the Houston Texans for the team’s third home game of the 2019 season. 73,273 fans attended the game and everyone there had the chance to see art work recently completed by an art teacher from St. Michael the Archangel High School.

The Chiefs football franchise is celebrating all season long the team’s 60th year in existence and part of that celebration is an Arrowhead poster series. At every Chiefs home game is a different poster showing a different theme or time in KC Chiefs history. There are eight home games and only 1,000 posters are made with each theme.

When told that the Chiefs promoted the sale of the Game 3 poster at Sunday’s game by showing the artwork on the stadium video boards the artist, Richard Raney felt, “That’s pretty neat.” Raney attended the game as the Chiefs gave him two tickets and an opportunity to go on the field prior to kickoff but he was unable to do that.

While Raney goes about his day teaching high school art classes in Lee’s Summit, not many know only eight different artists were chosen to complete the eight different art scenes used in the Chiefs poster series.

Raney’s involvement with this art project and the Chiefs began with a phone call Raney was surprised to get. Before getting the phone call Raney received an email from a Brookside art gallery owner that they needed an art piece done. The owner of the Leopold Gallery located in Brookside area of Kansas City had referred Raney to the Chiefs.

Raney explains he has been working with this gallery for years. Area theatres like New Theatre in Overland Park would request him to paint something for use in their sets. Additional theater set work can be found at St. Michael’s and Bishop Miege High Schools.

Raney says the whole process with the Chiefs “was completely different.” “Normally an artist has to send in a bio to be approved to do the work but not this time.” The process started off with a sharing of ideas with Chiefs staff. Leading up the poster series art project for the team was Jordan Giesler of the Chiefs Creative Services staff. The Chiefs showed him an example of what they were looking for. Then they told Raney what they liked the most. Later Raney admits he used hand lettering instead of text to complete the project. For Raney this was like an artist going old school. Once the NFL approved the sketch the team and Raney could complete the poster meant for use at home game three of the season.

Raney learned there were lots of guidelines for use or not to use. Raney admits, “I’m not a big football person, I didn’t know of so many NFL restrictions. The team and Raney spent time figuring out where to put the text, shared images of different versions of where the text would go. Once agreed upon the item was given to the Chiefs, then was cleaned up. Finally it was time for Raney to sign it. 1,000 posters are run each week. Chiefs fans can find these posters for sale at the KC Chiefs pro shop on game days and at Arrowhead Stadium throughout the week. The cost is $20 each, the money raised benefits KC Art projects.

Raney posted an image of his Chiefs art work on Facebook then “got a lot of comments from friends on that.” Raney said, “It was fun to work with Jordan.” Raney admits he is “not much into local art scene.” The KC Chiefs art deal ”just seemed like another project.” For Raney he is “ready to work on the next project, adding “Once done with it I am done with it but people keep mentioning it.” The Chiefs next home game is set for Sunday, Oct 27th when the fourth piece of the art project is revealed to Chiefs fans. Till then Raney and many of his friends and co-workers will continue to mention it.