Giant Murals Add Beauty To Farmsteads

Giant Murals Add Beauty To Farmsteads BUILDINGS New Techniques 21-4-24 Hundreds of grain bins, barns, and machine sheds across southwestern Minnesota have been turned into giant works of art by mural artist Gary Butzer, who specializes in painting colorful landscape and animal scenes on the side of any farm building. People commission the huge paintings, which are usually visible from nearby roads and highways. "I like to paint big, so I'm making a living doing what I like to do," says Butzer, who has been painting murals for 10 years. "Each scene is usually a personal story of something - a special person, place or event in someone's life. They bring back family memories." Butzer's work was featured last fall on the CBS television program "Sunday Morning". Among the murals profiled were three on Paul Forsyth's farm near Franklin. One mural traces Forsyth's Scottish heritage by showing the birthplace of his grandfather in Scot-land. A second mural on a grain bin shows his favorite horse while a third features a steer. Butzer painted one mural on a 50 ft. long, 25 ft. high Quonset hut owned by Erv and Marsha Huwe of Winthrop. It has deer in the foreground with fields and the farmstead in the background. On the Allan and Betty Junkermeier farm near Lake Lillian, a huge painting of a Holstein's head overlooks the family's dairy herd. Marguerite Ahrens of Redwood Falls had Butzer paint a mural on her garage showing her uncle and four grandchildren picking and eating strawberries. Butzer's most unusual mural started as a portrait of three grandchildren near Fairfax on the side of a shed. Later, someone painted an anti-abortion logo on the mural. The owner decided to keep the mural with the extra message. The 51-year-old Butzer studied at universities and art schools in Minnesota, California, New York, and Colorado. An art instructor told Butzer he should consider murals because he was spending more time stretching huge frames of canvas rather than painting. He returned to his hometown of Morton, Minn., about 10 years ago and began painting murals. He uses a big soft brush or a spray can as he works. Many of his murals are in people's back-yards in small towns. "The murals often turn an eyesore-type building into something worth seeing - especially in the winter," he says. He sometimes paints murals with the help of art students, which saves time. He has painted with groups as large as 100 when working on community projects, which usually depict the history or culture of the area. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gary Butzer Art Studio, 171 North Quarry Drive, Morton, Minn. 56270 (ph 507 697-6272).

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