Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the Community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, more information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

[Music] [Music] I'm Producer/Director Kelsey Jacobson.

Linda Paulson from Hackensack, Minnesota has been entering in the Minnesota State Fair since the very beginning and has been gluing seeds on a board for 53 years.

In this episode Linda Paulson talks to me about why crop art has been her hobby for over 53 years.

[Music] One of my entries at the fair, it's a cutout and I like to do animals, that one I actually made a duplicate of for the family of that girl.

I think this is dark all the way down here, start gluing the seeds after the paint is dry.

I've entered for 53 years now at the fair and here's some of my seeds that I've collected.

My name is Linda Paulson and I live outside of Hackensack.

I have a hobby of crop art and crop art is anything made with seeds.

The term came from the Minnesota State Fair who named it crop art because it's made with farm crop seeds of Minnesota.

That's the grasses and grains, vegetable and flower seeds.

We can also use parts of those plants for our competition.

We can also use parts of trees or the seeds from trees or shrubs in a couple divisions.

I really enjoy it so much.

It's an accomplishment after you get it done and to see what you've done with different seeds and the state fair started in 1965 mainly so people of Minnesota would get to know the farm crops and I saw it on television at that time, I lived in Wisconsin and saw this new competition at the state fair.

So, I told my mother about it, Lillian Colton and she went and viewed it and decided to do the crop art the next year which she did.

She entered and then she persuaded me to enter and at first I wasn't too thrilled about it.

I thought well I don't know if I have time to glue seeds on a board but I made a picture and I entered it and I did get a prize and from then on I've been really interested in it and I've entered almost every year since.

There's a couple years I wasn't able to.

So, I've done it a number of years.

Crop art is very relaxing when you start in you get just involved in it so much you forget about everything else that's going on.

So, it's a good hobby and I do like entering at the fair.

When crop art first started there was very few entering and it was in a back room that you had to seek out in the Agriculture Horiculture building to find it and it grew and grew where they have it right out in one of the big halls now and that's even getting so full.

There's so many people coming through.

Now there's lines that are waiting at the door to get in.

Well, everybody's in very good spirits when you're at the state fair.

I'm Linda Paulson and I demonstrate crop here art here at the state fair.

Right now I'm working on a piece I've been working on the last couple afternoons.

I use Elmer's Glue, The Glue All because it dries clear and I apply the glue into the little crevices with either a toothpick or a small paintbrush.

This is just an inexpensive watercolor brush.

I did enjoy when I was demonstrating, talking to the people and people are so appreciative of the artwork and someone being there to demonstrate and I answer questions for them so they can start and it's fun to see.

I remember the names.

I write them down and see if they enter the next year and they have quite often and that really rewarding.

One year we had four generations displaying at the fair.

My mother started entering and then she gave up entering to strictly demonstrate and while she was demonstrating, I entered and then my children and grandchilden had pictures there at the same time.

So, we had four generations involved in that.

Well, I start out just gathering pictures and photos of ideas and I keep a file with like animals and scenery and people and I think over the year what I could do and sometimes I started just because I want to use a different type of seed.

Sometimes it's a subject matter that I decide to use.

I collect a bunch, I have a file cabinet with wild cats or domestic cats or whatever and then I select my picture which I decided on this one then I enlarged it in black and white after I've blown it up to the size I want.

I sketch in the background to fill in my frame.

Now I'm getting my tracing paper ready after I draw out my design.

So, I'll cut it to size pretty close to size and I'll secure that down and I get a pencil and I'll start tracing.

This is my hobby room.

I also sew in here and I do a little other artwork if I have time.

It gets to be kind of messy with the seeds flying around after a while.

It helps to trace it out.

It's easier to follow the lines of course and to cut out the backing and I learn the different parts of the animals or the faces whatever I'm working on.

Now that is right there so that's darker.

So, this gives me a rough idea what my subject will be, what the lines will be and it's hard on the neck.

There's other artists that enter at the fair I heard him talk about crop art neck.

That's when your neck gives out from sitting and working, looking down at your project so long and while I'm sketching this, tracing I think of what seeds I will be using for my picture.

I wanted to do another animal one and I like the the cub along with the mother and I've collected quite a few grasses from field crops that I have collected and haven't used.

Our state fair is known for their crop art now.

The manager of the state fair gave a talk I was at and he said that when when he goes to international groups of people that have put on festivals and fairs, they know Minnesota from our crop art.

Now this particular one is a little more intrical that I'm tracing.

Sometimes I just have the basic lines.

If I see something else I would like to take note of.

This is my map being I'm in the advanced division.

Sometimes you sort just the colors out of certain seeds.

So the next step is I will put some dark in here.

I mark dark where the seeds might show through and of course the eyes would be one of them.

And now that I'll use paint because that's a big area.

I inherited some from my mother and she and I used to go to farm crop stores that sold to farmers.

So, I've got some acrylic paint I use and I'm just going to put in paint where it'll show through the most where I want it to be more distinctive.

Now you don't have to be real precise because you're going to put seeds on top of it.

I've won lots of ribbons and I've won Best in Show eleven times.

Okay, now I'm going to cut out my cardboard and I use a utility knife, sometimes an exacto knife or scissors.

So, I just start in.

I'm getting ready to put my seeds on so I usually put down a folded piece of wax paper or newspaper and that catches some of the seeds and I can fold it up and put it in the garbage or save them and I have my palette here.

So, here are my seeds that I'm going to be using.

This is Indian Grass.

This is the outside layer of Salsify seed which is a root vegetable.

It's like a white carrot, not many people know about Salsify seed and this is a form a corn tussle, some Timothy, this is Timothy also and this is Poppy seed, a dark Poppy and this is a light Poppy which I can get at my food co-op.

I have Rutabaga seeds, Amalena seeds.

That's a new seed being grown in Minnesota.

This is Cream of Wheat.

You can use 20% of your seed area of altered seed so Cream of Wheat is an altered seed.

So, any crushed seed or seed without its shell or cut seeds are considered an altered seed.

Here we have truff oil and my high-tech toothpick I take and I usually start up in the right hand or left hand corner because I'm right-handed and with this one I can turn it and work here this way but I'm going to start doing it by putting in this mark and I can either do it by putting glue on with a toothpick for the real fine areas so I can get a really fine line here, more accurate line and I do that a lot with the Millet seeds and with the Canola seed.

So, now I'll go back to another area and put a line of this in.

The tree foil again.

So, this is pretty relaxing when you're working like this.

Sometimes I have classical music on or oldies but goodies.

Now I'll let that dry and I'll go work on another area and I lead in with my spoon and can push it into that area, line it up following the lines.

Now after that dries, I'll put in the next color that I'll be using.

It will set up in 20 and I usually like to leave them dry overnight before I go to putting this entire piece on my backing.

There, so I have my little expensive brush, sprinkle on and so I'll line them up, any one can go in there.

I have a little bit of glue on my toothpick and then I can go back up here while that's drying.

I've got the white over here.

I'll work over here where there's some whitish hair.

It seems like it's really time consuming but it's so relaxing.

I'll catch more of these seeds here.

This is the inner eye and it's skin around the eye.

So, now I've got that drying and I can go back up to something else and let's see there's a dark spot there I think would look good where the hair is probably separating a little bit.

That was my Tree Foil seed, I'm going to put in there.

We do have a large garden and I still collect my like apple seeds from apples when I can, pumpkin seeds.

One thing you don't find anymore is watermelon seeds but nobody in our house or my mother's house ever threw a watermelon seed away because we used them.

I work kind of maybe 15 minutes one afternoon, maybe hour and a half some afternoons.

Shake it off, I could shake it in a paper bag or a container if I wanted to save them but I have a lot of Timothy.

I have to take more breaks than I used to and I should be setting a timer and I do exercises for my neck and back every day so I think that is helping.

Well, I choose the seeds by color and also by texture and size.

I'm particular about getting this really precise because if I entered at the fair it would have to go in the advanced division.

After you've won four first places in four years then you have to go into the advanced and on this side it's a little darker too.

This I'm going to use Tree Foil in there, see there's some light ones in there.

I'm going to just scatter more dark ones in here because it is a little lighter.

This is the nose, where it comes down to the almost the tip of the nose, here's the tip of the nose.

So, I have these seeds that are lighter.

Okay, I better have some extra light so I'm going to put the my lamp on here and that gives me some good light so I can see to work now that it's gotten darker outside and I have this line here for the teeth.

[Music] I have several jars of the same kind of seeds and some are different colors but I have 123 different seeds.

I don't use all those.

They're there if I need them.

I do save some seeds from the garden.

I've been collecting them ever since I started.

This is a ledger card that we have to submit with our entry to the fair and at all of the seeds we've used on our picture and that's so we get points on using the farm crop seeds.

I choose my portraits by sometimes just liking the likeness of the person, seeing if I can capture that likeness.

Of course, George Clooney was captured my interest so I did him and then I've always wanted to do Queen Elizabeth since I watched her being coronated years ago of course and then after her passing, I decided I would and I had saved pictures of her over the years.

The same with Betty White and sometimes I think I I need something that would appeal to younger people as well as older people so Lucille Ball was one that I chose because of that.

I keep my artwork.

Occasionally in the past, I have sold one and made a duplicate of it.

It hasn't been my goal to sell.

It's been more to have this hobby.

If anybody wanted to start doing crop art I'd start smaller and there is a website cropart.com that gives you some tips on starting.

It also shows a gallery of people's work at the fair and it also tells you where to get seeds.

I'm mixing white and cerulean blue with a tad of okra.

Well, it will set up in 20 minutes but it's better to have it dry a little longer.

Start working again after this is dried a little bit and I think I'll work on this ear and right in here it's a little bit, there a little bit of white right in here.

That's a problem with doing a large area the glue will separate.

This is the chest of the little cub.

This will be Timothy again, more Timothy.

The main body of the animals are Timothy.

Well, I still have wet glue here so I can change this a little bit.

I want to have a little better marking here so I'll put a little more glue in there.

Okay, now usually I leave this dry for about 24 hours and then glue it on to a backing.

So, I'll show you what it'll look like.

This is the frame I'm just going to use.

So, that's it.

I'm pleased with how it turned out.

[Music] And now the cleanup.

So, I can leave seeds open until the next project and I might have to change my arrangement of course.

[Music] [Music] Okay.

[Music] Thanks for watching Common Ground.

If you have an idea for a Lakeland PBS production in north central Minnesota email us at legacy@lptv.org or call 1-800-292-0922.

To watch Lakeland PBS Productions online visit lptv.org or download the free PBS app.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Bember FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.