Full Circle. An Ode to the Hautman Bros.

I love puns, kitsch, and Minnesota. Combine them and you have none other than my crop art entry this year “The Minnesota Duck Stamp.”

How I came to this idea has a bit of a back story, with a back story.  And another back story…maybe. So stick with me as I give you the somewhat condensed version.

In 2017, I entered the Crop Art and Scarecrow Competition at the Minnesota State Fair (The Great Minnesota Get Together) where I was awarded the Blue Ribbon for my entry. While, as people remind me it is a blue ribbon (and don’t get me wrong, a huge badge of honor) it may not have been as big of an accolade as I made it out to be. When competing against the crop artists who were kicking butt in the land of seeds, flowers parts, and all things grown in the world of Minnesota agriculture some things tend to “grow,” shall we say.

The crop art competition was established in 1965 as an educational awareness of what our farmers grow in Minnesota. And let me tell you this corn, is not a seed that is used often, but you can see a lot of corn cobs in the Ag-Hort building at the Minnesota State Fair, where the Crop Art Competition exhibits are displayed. By they way, the favorite seeds are millet and yellow mustard. I have yet to figure out what millet is or is used for outside of the competition. I’m guessing it’s edible, but a bowl of millet has never crossed my lips! And another often used seed is amaranth, now affectionately known as the “devil seed from hell,” if you’re foolish enough to use it (see image).

This year, my second work is a full circle piece. Here’s where the story starts.

When I was still teaching high school art, I created a class that was designed for students who were not confident in their skills related to drawing or painting. This class explored other art forms (e.g. pine needle baskets, calligraphy, stained glass), folk art, and kitsch using a timeline to connect the art forms to their place in history. “Seed art,’ also known as Crop Art for those of us here in Minnesota, was included. It was also during this time my good friend Linda Henry, author of the children’s book, The Cookie Garden, connected me with Linda Paulson and Kim Cope, two well known crop artists in the world I was about to enter.  Unfortunately, neither one of them were able to visit the classroom and share their insights to the art form, so it was on a wing and a prayer, or should I say a bottle of glue and some seed, that we dove in head first. Near the completion of the unit, I encouraged my students to enter the State Fair competition, but none were interested enough and so, instead, I found myself reading the rules, and talking big on social media that I would usurp the Crop Art Queens to take the blue ribbon.

I compared my quest to that of Norm Gunderson, the sheriff’s husband in the movie Fargo. Gunderson was a wildlife artist and always trying to win the Duck Stamp Competition against the Hautman Bros. (note this for later). A further back story is that my best friend from some 30 years earlier, dated Jim Hautman. So the Hautman brothers were in my peripheral circle of friends and who not only are pretty fabulous artists but were pretty talented musicians who serenaded us on their mandolins. Yes, there is a further back story there, but we will leave that one alone. Some things are fun to keep as secrets.

And so I entered my seed art, made of millet, lentils, and wild rice using a familiar theme of mine, “The Spirit Tree,” into the competition. And reader, don’t forget, I have posted on social media my work in progress; gluing, sorting seeds, and handing my work over to the Crop Art rep, etc., with the boastful words, “I’m going to beat those crop art queens!” I left my masterpiece and returned home.

Because classes started the day after Labor Day and I live some 200 miles away, my sister Carol ( a scarecrow blue ribbon winner herself!) agreed to pick up the work when the fair was over. During a phone conversation we had about that, I said something about not knowing how I did. She said, “Oh, you haven’t looked at the results?” and sent me a link to open.  Sure enough, there was my name…right at the top of the list! By golly, I took the blue ribbon. Yep! My name was top of the list under the category I entered – Novice; the category designed to encourage those of us who are silly enough to think we would ever beat any one of the master seed artists! Being a novice means you can only enter that category once, so the masters were over in the Advanced (three 1st place ribbons in their crop art career) and Amateur categories. And yes, I have no shame. I was making it out to be I was competing against the glue masters who I have now learned to humbly bow down to in this mad, mad, MAD world of seeds, toothpicks, and glue!

Being that I earned a blue ribbon, that certainly qualified as an accolade that checked off that item on the bucket list. But, winning a ribbon gets in your blood and little thoughts of seeds and glue start festering. Somehow, one of those damn seeds turned into another idea a couple of years later. That stayed dormant for quite some time and then last year, while on the Google, typed in “large rubber ducks.” Amazon, $19.95, was all it took.

So here it is, full circle, my Ode to the Hautman Brothers (remember, I told you to note this before), in living color…and all kinds of seed things, I give you, “The Minnesota Duck Stamp Duck”! Donned in a Minnesota buffalo plaid shirt and fur lined trapper hat, Chuck uses his Minnesota shaped feet to make puddles with the new flag design, into a Crop Art Forever stamp. I’ll never enter the actual Duck Stamp competition (I know my lane here folks), but I have entered another State Fair competition several times only to join the ranks of other friends who have received the “annual rejection letter.” And so I pay homage to those who persist and persevere in competitive work.  I do have doubts at my chances at a ribbon after seeing some previews of this years work (Holy shit…there’s some fabulous creations!) but seriously, though, this is just a quirky idea come to fruition, albeit an insane idea to follow through with!

I do love Minnesota much like most of us who have grown up and resided here all our lives. There is something special about the Land of 10,000 lakes and the State Fair is part of that. For those that live further away from the fairgrounds, it’s an exciting adventure to take in the fair.

I must add though, the last few days have pushed the boundaries of working with seeds and glue to meet my goal. I’ve been at this since January 2024 and it was completed today, August 1st. While I haven’t worked on this every day, I have worked on it continuously. After finding a large rubber duck for the body, I had to make legs, and feet, and figure out how to balance it. This lead me to making a “stamp shaped” base  out of an epoxy clay, something my friend and mosaic artist Buffy Rockstad uses. I used this same material to form the trapper hat, the shirt, the feet, as well as the puddle splashes. Using a Minnesota shaped cookie cutter my sister Carol gave me, turned out to be the perfect item to create those feet and the Minnesota puddles that form when Chuck “stamps” the impression into the croplands of MN. It was a perfect solution for that.

The duck and the “stamp” base were kept separate for most of the gluing of the flipping “devil seeds,” aka amaranth. While not as small as poppy seeds, it takes about 300 to cover a square inch. At this point, I’m not calculating how many amaranth seeds are on Chuck, but let’s just go with a million, give or take a few. I did discover a few new tricks, and one I developed was the “twist and tamp” method where you take a toothpick full of Tacky Glue, twist it on the spot you want to add seeds to, use the same toothpick to pick up the painted seeds, and twist them onto the dab of glue and then tamp them down with the end of a cork. Preferably, one from a bottle of Martha Stewart chardonnay. I sort of feel like this is much like those Olympic moves that are named after the athlete. Simone Biles has several. Dan Lindquist, surely an Advanced crop artist, is known for his seed painting technique.

A few acknowledgments here; thanks go to my sister, Carol, Buffy, and Dan L, crop art master, for their contributions to this adventure! To see more scroll down to the bottom.

And if you want to find out more about the Hautman Bros., check out this online video that even references the movie. Full circle boys!