This Kansas City artist will paddle — and paint — down 2,000 miles of the Missouri River

Steve Snell will spend this summer paddling from the Missouri River's headwaters in Three Forks, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri. Along the way, he’ll create paintings and videos that tell the story of his adventures on the Mighty Mo.
Steve Snell calls himself an adventure artist. His summer-long trip on the Missouri River, he says, will be his biggest adventure yet.

“There's a certain kind of romantic ideal in my head of ‘This is going to be beautiful. It's amazing. It's this dream of a lifetime,’” Snell says.

“But I also know there's going to be moments— and probably plenty of them — where I'm very uncomfortable and tired and lonely and would love to just be back at home with my family,” says Snell, who teaches in the foundation department at the Kansas City Art Institute but is on sabbatical until January.