Judges for the 2018 Iowa State Fair Fine Arts exhibition have selected the painting "Tornado Watch, Fall" for exhibition at the Iowa State Fair, August 9 - 19, 2018.
Tornado Watch, Fall. 2018. Oil on canvas. 30 x 30 in.
The oil painting depicts a 'tornado slide' in an Eastern Iowa park.
Every fall, I take my family to Backbone State Park, and we drive through the Delaware county town of Manchester, on the way to Backbone. In the fall of 2017, we stopped by Denton Park in Manchester, just so I could take some photos of the slide. This slide appears to have been repainted many times, in different colors. I used to play on slides like this when I was a boy, and I felt it was important to capture it.
A symbol of Americana and cultural touchstone for a simpler time, tornado slides like this one were once common in parks and playgrounds across the Midwest, but have slowly disappeared over the years.
"Tornado Watch, Fall" is the first in a series of 4, featuring the subject matter in each season of the year.
The Iowa State Fair Fine Arts Salon has a rich and vibrant history, going back to 1854. Many of Iowa's finest artists have won prizes at the state fair, including renown regional artist Grant Wood. Beginning in 1929, Wood won prizes in oil painting four years in a row, before receiving national recognition for his iconic masterpiece, "American Gothic". This is the fourth year my work has been selected for the Iowa State Fair exhibition.
Over 1 million people attend the Iowa State Fair annually.