The week before the Republican Convention in Saint Paul invites a different sort of freakish crowd via the annual Minnesota State Fair. The political storm of the upcoming election influencing everything from booth placement to crop art themes. A sampling is included in this diary. Part 2 will be published tomorrow.
One of the most unique things about the Minnesota State Fair is the crop art gallery. Kids, from young ages through teenage, use various seed types to create artistic images. Sounds a bit hokey until you see the brilliance of the works - it really does take talent!
This year, I noticed an increase in political activism of our young artists. The following is a great play on Senator Coleman's ads attacking Al Franken, that used bowlers at an alley claiming they have as much experience as Franken (Kim Cope, artist)
The second pulls in the State Fair theme and shows Barack Obama cleaning up after elephants (reference to the GOP mascot, if you must know). Caption "Too bad we're stuck cleaning up their messes". (also a Kim Cope product)
The next crop art selection builds on the cleaning up after the elephants, in a piece by Teresa Anderson, with a line of "W", "McCain" and "Coleman":
The final piece by Paul Weig shows a GOP elephant taking a dump on a pile of papers, including the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, the Bill of Rights, etc. Considering it won a Merit Award, you cannot accuse Minnesotans of being prudish!
A creative group of young democrats with a promising future.
Update 08/26/2008:
I received a kind e-mail from one of the crop artists who pointed out that these are not just youngsters creating these works of art, but many are older by a couple of decades than I referenced (specific age reference withheld on purpose). It sounds like crop art community appreciated my gaffe and being called a "a creative group of young democrats with a promising future". My humble apologies to the artists and my appreciation for your understanding.
By the way, if you want to see more great crop art, check out www.cropart.com!
