Crop Art 2016

I just realized I never posted my favorite crop art from the Minnesota State Fair back in September. But it's never too late.

As you might imagine, some of the best stuff was (as always) political in nature, mostly about Trump:


The Sky Is Falling by Dawn Busch.


Scary monsters Evil Trumpachu and Penceypuff are part of the game of Donemon, as Mark Dahlager riffs on this summers Pokemon Go craze.

There were two by Laura Melnick:


Donny the Dirty Dog, which was visually interesting but not my favorite.


I much preferred her take on Trump as Richie Rich, in which she used onion skins for his hair and decoupaged dollar bills on the frame. All around the edge (in seeds) it says I'M YUGE, and the rest of the words are Trump quotes. (Sorry for the blurry photo.)


Finally, there was Yes We Khan! by Katharine Gotham. She must have turned that around pretty quickly, since the Fair's crop art deadline wasn't long after the end of the DNC.

There were three politically oriented non-Trump pieces that I liked:


First, this three-dimensional piece by Elizabeth Butler took me a second to get.


A beautifully rendered map of the U.S. (lower 48) with a message.


And a rainbow map of Minnesota, by Amanda Ward.

The rest of my favorites were nonpolitical. First, three related to plants and gardening:


The stained-glass-like petals of this coneflower by Elizabeth Butler are red onion skins.


Succulents are in, even in crop art! This amusing three-dimensional work by Sarah Anderson uses fava beans to create the kalanchoe-like plant in the foreground.


I have a love-hate relationship myself with rabbits, so I appreciated this one by Cassidy Sutton both for its design and content.

And finally, there were two about the the Fair or crop art itself:


Sweet Martha's sells buckets full of chocolate chip cookies, fresh from oven. It's the most popular food vendor at a fair known for its food. And now it's been immortalized in crop art (including its crazy-bad logo) by Robin Davis.

Finally, long-time crop artist David Steinlicht created a group portrait of 15 of the crop art regulars:


As always, his meticulous seed placement and limited color palette hold first place for visual sophistication.