Nicole Hart has plenty of ideas for the 2024 Minnesota State Fair. Be sure to get in line at the fair to see what she enters this year! Photos: Chris Emeott
Creatives plant their entries at the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
Seeds give life—in a host of ways. If the exceedingly long lines to view the crop art entries at the Minnesota State Fair are any indication, seeds and plant parts (grown in the great state of Minnesota!), when creatively transformed, give life to artistry and a fair amount of appreciation and curiosity.
For the uninitiated, entries range from recognizable individuals to the abstract. Popular culture and topics of the day are well represented. Find your favorite at this year’s fair, running August 22–September 2 at the state fairgrounds.
If you go, be sure to seek out some entries at the hands of Nicole Hart, Laura Minnihan and Nick Rindo. The Minnetonka residents are poised to compete again in this year’s state fair crop art competition.
A lifelong fair goer, Hart always admired crop art. “As a nurse during [COVID-19], I was looking for some new hobbies to destress and came across [cropart.com] that gives a tutorial,” she says. “I was a week too late to sign up for the fair when I started, so I spent over a year working on my first piece for the 2022 fair.”
Her patience paid off. At the 2023 state fair, Hart was awarded a category’s third place for an Albert Einstein portrait made entirely out of poppy seeds. She received sixth place in another category for a llama image made from blue spruce needles.
Hart’s entries this year include a wide breadth of ideas, including an adaption of the Minnesota state logo (painted seeds), a cartoon in the style of The Far Side comic strip (titled The Fair Side), a version of the fair’s giant slide (with a fun surprise!), a replica of a popular children’s book cover (made out of corn) and an item featuring the new Minnesota state flag. “I have ideas for a few others as well, but I think I will be lucky if I can finish these for this year,” she says.
Nicole Hart works on her The Fair Side submission for this year’s competition.
“Work on my pieces have all taken at least a year to finish, but I work on multiple projects at a time to keep it interesting,” Hart says. “It’s nice to be able to switch to something else if I am getting frustrated with a piece, bored or not sure what I want to do with it.” For reference, the Einstein submission took about 300 hours to complete.
One rarely puts that amount of effort into anything unless there is some level of satisfaction or enjoyment. “I like the challenge,” Hart says. “For example, my first piece, I was frustrated by working with poppy seeds because they were so tiny.”
That challenge is driving Hart to attempt to enter crop art in each category. “The skill level of so many of the crop artists is incredible, and I always wondered how they did it. So now, I am trying to figure it out,” she says.
Einstein at the fair! Nicole Hart’s submission, Einstein, won third place at the 2023 Minnesota State Fair.
With a background in interior design, crop art is a creative outlet for Minnihan. “Submitting a crop art piece for the Minnesota State Fair has been on my bucket list for years,” she says. “This past spring, I saw a piece on the news about registration for state fair competitions, so I decided it was the year to make it happen.” She did so with cartoon viewers’ favorite under-the-sea pineapple dweller—SpongeBob SquarePants.
This likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants received a category merit award in 2023 at the state fair. Materials used are shown on the crop art key.
The creative likeness of Mr. SquarePants took Minnihan about 200 hours to finish. “Last year, I started finalizing an idea and gathering seeds in June, but I didn’t actually start working on my piece until the end of July,” she says. “I was teaching myself the art of crop art, and I was nervous to start.”
The inaugural submission netted a nod from fair judges—a category merit award. “I was beyond thrilled that my first entry placed,” Minnihan says. “My piece also made the Star Tribune’s Top 10 crop artworks, which was so exciting and unexpected.” This year, Minnihan began working in January and plans to submit two pieces to this year’s state fair competition.
Laura Minnihan started a bit earlier this year on her submissions.
As one with a creative background, it’s not surprising that Minnihan doesn’t find the artistic part of the process to be the most difficult. “Finding seeds that are the right color and size to work with the planned image and scale [is a challenge],” she says, noting she purchases seeds from co-ops and grocery stores.
Regardless, one suspects Minnihan will be a part of Minnesota’s Great Get-Together for years to come. “I really enjoy all of the stages of making a piece; the creativity of coming up with an idea, the challenge of finding the appropriate seeds and the calming/meditative nature of putting the piece together,” she says.
A steady hand is valuable as Laura Minnihan works on one of her pieces she hopes to showcase this year.
Inspired, Talented Artist
Nick Rindo submitted his first crop art in 2013. He had been doing freelance illustration on the side for fun, and a friend and crop artist showed him some of her submissions. “I was fascinated and immediately started planning my first piece,” he says.
That inaugural creation (a replica of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk) took many months of work due to time spent procuring seeds and figuring out the creative process. “My second piece, Robin Williams, took a week because he died right before the fair started,” Rindo says. “My illustration experience makes me pretty quick at the design and logistical aspects, which is most of the work.” His Prince submission took a bit of extra time due to sorting purple corn by hue and tone.
“I was working slowly on a Wednesday Addams last year, but just as I was finishing the design phase, Paul Reubens (aka: Pee Wee Herman) died, and I knew I had a little over a week to pay my respects,” Rindo says. “Unfortunately, this approach has led to a series of what I call ‘obituary art’ pieces.” (He received his first blue ribbon for the Pee Wee Herman-inspired submission, which is on display at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.)
Nick Rindo’s rendition of Pee Wee Herman is a blue ribbon winner. Photo: Nick Rindo
If access to seeds and inspiration conspire, Rindo can complete a piece in a week or two worth of evenings. “I’m guessing that’s faster than most, so I don’t like admitting that,” he says. “I don’t want to diminish the amount of time and effort others put into it.”
Where does he harvest inspiration? “The pieces usually have to make me laugh,” Rindo says. “If they don’t make me laugh or smile, I have no chance of finishing.” He also has to have a connection to the work. “If I don’t have an idea that inspires me enough to take me to the finish line, I won’t get it done,” Rindo says. “I was planning out a Bob Dylan piece for his 80th birthday a few years back. It was dragging. A friend asked me, ‘Do you even like Bob Dylan?’ I shrugged. I think I was doing it because he’s from Minnesota, but I never glued a seed.”
Farm Roots
The state fair’s crop art competition begin in 1965, and the creative outlet is thought to have originated on farms, “… where people had an abundance of seeds and were less busy in the winter, so they glued seeds on boards to make pictures,” according to the fair’s website. Learn more at mnstatefair.org.
In our March issue, we profiled Minnetonka bakers James Lind and Kim Narveson, who are also competing in this year’s state fair. You can also check out the blue ribbon recipes they shared with us.
