As the Aug. 7 deadline looms for crop art submissions at the Minnesota State Fair, some artists are scrambling to react to the announcement of Gov. Tim Walz as the vice presidential pick for Kamala Harris.
Mary Beth Leone-Getten of St. Paul is one of those artists. “Then this morning I woke up and saw the news and I was like, I’ve got to do a Walz-themed piece.”
Leone-Getten had been working on a rainbow trout.
Leone-Getten has until 4:30 p.m. Wednesday to complete her new piece, as does anybody inspired enough by the news to glue seeds to poster board.
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She says she’s been a “crop art super fan” for 25 years, but this is the first time she will enter a piece into the fair. She had taken a class earlier this year taught by crop artists Jill Moe and Marta Shore at Wet Paint in St. Paul.
Shore is now the assistant superintendent for Crop Art and Scarecrow at the Minnesota State Fair, “so she’s got a job now,” Moe says.
“We’ve been teaching just beginning classes, just helping people learn the basics of crop art,” Moe explains. “The goal of the class is to know enough so that you can enter the fair.”
The class does not simply teach the essentials of crop art — gluing seeds and other local plant life into a picture — but also the Fair’s requirements. “There are a lot of rules,” Moe says, “But the basic rules are: Whatever you’re gluing down, make sure that you can it can be grown in Minnesota.”
Anise may not be used. Common and noxious weed seeds or plant parts are not permitted.
“Crop art is such a beautiful Minnesotan thing,” Leone-Getten says. “It oftentimes really captures important things that are going on in the world, sometimes in a serious way, but a lot of times kind of hilariously. There’s a lot of social and political commentary.”
Her new design will show Tim Walz gesticulating above the words “They’re Just Weird.”
“It’s so specific to Minnesota, right?” Moe says. “It’s just sort of this wall where people can share their feelings, you know, or their their beliefs. And Marta always makes the joke that, like people complain that the the crop art is always left leaning. Oh, what does she say? She says only liberals would spend this many hours doing something that won’t pay you anything.”
“It just sort of fits in beautifully with how a lot of Minnesotans operate,” Leone-Getten explains. “Like we might not be very forthcoming with some of our more pointed political views, but were willing to spend 100 hours placing seeds in order to display it at the State Fair.”
