FARM AND FAMILY | Greene Co. art teacher commissions state fair mural

Staff Report

A local teacher’s love for public art was on display recently at the Iowa State Fair..

The Iowa Food & Family Project (Iowa FFP) honored Iowa’s rich history of arts and leadership in agriculture Aug. 11-21 at the Des Moines Fairgrounds. Iowa FFP’s larger-than-life display – Agriculture is Iowa’s Masterpiece – featured the talents of eight Iowa artists, each bringing their own unique and creative style to the delight of fairgoers.

One of those artists was Greene County high school art teacher, Sarah Stott. She earned recent notoriety for helping students commission a chicken mural along Highway 4 on the old grocery building as well as a number of other public works throughout the county. Her four foot-by-eight foot piece was inspired by a childhood revolving the family farm, while she incorporated a number of state fair themes.
Farming is a way of life to Stott — she currently resides and teaches in her hometown of Jefferson. In a write-up with the Iowa Food and Family Project, she mentioned how her most cherished childhood memories are when she spent time at her grandparent’s farm in Greene County, and she strove to capture that essence in her work.

“I loved helping my grandpa with the chores, spending countless hours exploring the outdoors and enjoying the nostalgic family holidays with my siblings and cousins,” Stott said in the interview with IFF. “I can still smell the front porch and remember walking into the kitchen that was filled with the aroma of baking bread and a roast in the oven.”

Visitors to the Southeast Atrium of the Varied Industries Building were able to watch each artist’s mural come to life at the exhibit during the fair.  

The Jefferson Herald recently conducted a brief Q&A with the state fair artist after she completed her mural. Here is that interview:

Jefferson Herald: How did you get involved with the Iowa Food and Family at this year’s state fair?

Sarah Stott: My name was brought up (I think stemming from the chicken mural in town) to the Food and Family Project staff and they contacted me to see if I would be interested in applying for the muralist slot at the fair. I sent in some of my work and was chosen to be one of the artists to be featured to paint live at the fair. 

JH: What was your inspiration behind your specific piece?

S: The mural was to be based around the Iowa Food and Family project’s goal oft celebrating farm families, uniting rural and urban communities and providing the information and experiences Iowans need to make informed food choices. Their initiative involves a collaborative network of nearly 35 food, farming and healthy living organizations who are proud of Iowa’s homegrown foods and hometown values. The theme of the exhibit (was)  “Agriculture is Iowa’s Masterpiece”. The Iowa FFP sent me a list of key words/ prompts to base my design for the four foot-by-eight foot panel. Each artist (had) their own board to paint.
 Examples of keywords for the design were:
o Farming, food, family, agriculture, pork, beef, eggs, turkey, soybeans, corn, dairy, Iowa,
community, collaboration, Iowa, etc.

In addition, artists were given five small objects to incorporate into their design as a
“seek and find” interactive activity for fairgoers : Corn dog, dog, car, horseshoe, apple.

My design for this project was inspired by the different ‘layers’ of agriculture/ farming and how it directly relates to the foods which are produced and consumed. I was inspired by my own childhood experiences and memories of my grandparents, Don and Mary Coon, their farm, and the many family get-togethers, holidays, birthdays, etc, which all took place in their dearly loved and missed kitchen.  My goal was to make an artwork that included a family that anyone could be a part of, by making it a silhouette. The layer in the background of the silhouette is that of a field and farm, while the layer that is cut-out of that field (inside the family silhouette) is to show what those people can make with those crops and animals grown on that farm.

JH: What tools/type of paint did you use for the mural?

S: I painted this with acrylic paint that I brought with me to the fair.  They provided us with the panels to paint on. 

JH: How long did it take you to paint the entire mural?

S: I painted this mural pretty fast, as I had to get back to work (last week). I started it on the first Thursday of the fair and had most of it finished by the next day. So, it took me a little (more than) two full days of painting. It was interesting to interact with the passersby, and answer all their questions and to hear their positive feedback, as well as to visit with the other artists who were a part of this project.   

It was a great experience to be a part of! Hiding the images at the end was also a fun thing to include. I was pretty wiped out after those two long days but I was happy with how it turned out. After many hours of designing and sketching and re-designing and re-sketching...in the end it looked just as I had sketched!