Seed by Seed: Crop Art of the Minnesota State Fair

Corn and soybeans near harvest peak in farm fields, while plump red tomatoes and bumpy green cucumbers swell gardens. But for hundreds of thousands of visitors to the annual Minnesota State Fair, late August is crop-art season in Minnesota.

Crop-art season is the culmination of months of work by dedicated artists and hopeful amateurs who have plowed through piles of seeds to harvest just the right shape and shade of tiny potential plants to create artworks.

They have a need. A need for seeds.

“Crop art is a mosaic, a seed mosaic,” says Liz Schreiber, an artist who has crafted the intricate folk art to enter in the Minnesota State Fair competition for 20 years. She’s won championship ribbons for her work and created crop-art illustrations for magazine covers and publications.

The marvelous mosaics created from Minnesota seeds—from miniscule poppy seeds to massive pumpkin ovals—are simply seeds glued to a board. But these go far beyond mere landscapes and simple portraits. They have depth and personality. They depict celebrities and intricate scenes. They are often political. And hilarious.

Each seed—from Minnesota-grown crops only—is meticulously placed on the artist’s design, one by one. Elmer’s glue, a toothpick, and a board are the typical tools of choice. Occasionally, the glue is spread, the seeds sprinkled on, and the excess brushed away, but “the judges can tell,” Schreiber says.

The Crop Art Competition and display at the Minnesota State Fair is the only one of its kind at this scale, according to State Fair officials. It’s grown since its start in 1965 and has yielded an enthusiastic fan base. The wait in the viewing line can be 45 minutes to an hour.

The display is set in the State Fair’s octagon-shaped Art Deco Agriculture Horticulture Building (known as “Ag-Hort”). Ron Kelsey, who recently retired after 25 years as the Farm Crops superintendent (which oversees crop art, farm crops, and a scarecrow competition), says more than 200,000 visitors were tallied in 2023.

That’s a good chunk of the fair-going population. The 12-day Minnesota State Fair, first held in 1859 (one year after statehood) as a three-day event that drew several thousand people, has blossomed to more than 2 million visitors in 2019, averaging 1.8 million in post-Covid years.

“For more people at the fair, [the crop-art display] is the first place they want to be,” Kelsey says.

The seed was planted in 1965, when Orris Shulstad and his sister Jean Hudak displayed crop art at the fair in an effort to “get publicity out for seeds,” Kelsey says. Shulstad worked for the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.

Kelsey, who’s been attending the Minnesota State Fair for nearly eight decades, saw that very first crop-art exhibit. His father, a farmer in western Minnesota, was friends with originator Shulstad.

He’s seen crop art grow in popularity.

“It’s gone kind of crazy,” says Kelsey. There were more than 400 registered entries in the display in 2023. There are 26 classes and categories, ribbons and rules, and every entry is displayed.

“It’s egalitarian—of the people,” says Marta Shore, who started making crop art in 2015 and became the new assistant superintendent for crop art at the fair in 2024. “You register and it goes up on the wall.”

With a steady stream of fairgoers lined up to see the display, “the State Fair is the best gallery show you could have,” Schreiber says.

Crop art has been featured in media reports all around the world. In 2023, the Smithsonian visited, and the plant-based art form was on the reality TV series What Not to Wear, according to Kelsey. It’s a fixture in almost any media coverage of the Minnesota State Fair.

Artists from around the world can submit crop art. The fair once had a winner from Africa, Kelsey says.

Crop artist David Steinlicht moved from Minnesota to Canada in 2012. He’s sent his international entry to the competition almost every year since.

The Seed Queen

The undisputed monarch of State Fair crop art is Lillian Colton. There is even a book about her work, Seed Queen.

Colton created crop art for the second year of competition, 1966, says her daughter, Linda Paulsen—also an accomplished crop artist who will exhibit her work for the 55th time in 2024.

Paulsen heard about crop art when it started in 1965 and encouraged her mother to check it out. Colton had done sketching and embroidery “in the days before TV,” Paulsen says. After a visit to the fair, Colton told her daughter, “I think I can do that. I have the rule book.”

And a crop art legacy was born.

Colton won nine best-of-show ribbons in 11 years before she decided to stop competing and give others a chance to win ribbons. After she left the competition, she demonstrated crop-art techniques at the State Fair, and her work is featured in a special display every year. Colton died in 2007 at 95.

Lillian “kind of insisted” Linda give it a try. Though it was “a messy hobby and I had a 2-year-old at the time,” Paulsen says, she entered in 1967 with a scene of a hill, three cows, and a tree. There were about 30 entries that year, she remembers, and the exhibit was in a small room behind the Christmas tree display in Ag-Hort.

“I won a prize and was hooked,” Paulsen says. “It was a good hobby for me.”

Paulsen, 80, lives in Hackensack, Minnesota. She says every wall of her house has “one, two, three, or four” pieces of her crop art. She completed her entry for the 2024 competition—a lion and cub—early, she says, because she was filmed for a public television segment. It’s unusual for her to have her piece done a month ahead of deadline. “Usually I’m putting the finishing touches on the night before.”

Paulsen’s four siblings and her dad tried their hand at crop art, but it didn’t stick. Her two children entered the amateur division when they were 5 and 9. Neither has made the decades-long commitment their mother and grandmother gave to the art, but in 1985, Paulsen was grand champion and her daughter won the amateur division. “That was quite an honor,” Paulsen says.

One year, four generations of the Colton/Paulsen crop-art dynasty were in the show. Although her children and grandchildren rarely do crop art, Paulsen hasn’t given up hope. She has a 4½-year-old great-grandson to recruit.

‘Just like a large family’

Crop art creators are a community. They solve problems and offer support on a Facebook page. They have a website: cropart.com.

They share where to buy supplies, Shore says. Food co-ops have bulk lentils and beans; seeds can be ordered online. She was surprised to find a favorite design seed at a Fleet Farm store in the hunting section. Apparently, she says, the seed attracts deer.

“The artists get into it,” former superintendent Kelsey says. “It’s just like a large family.”

Members of the crop-art corps include a lawyer, an epidemiologist, and the Minnesota state auditor.

While most crop artists communicate virtually these days, they used to host parties. Artist, cartoonist, and graphic designer Steinlicht was working at the Science Museum of Minnesota in August 1994 when a design co-worker invited him to a crop-art party. She provided materials and entry forms. “I think four or five pieces of crop art came out of that party,” Steinlicht says. “My first piece sucked. But it got me hooked, and from 1994 through 2014, I did at least one piece of crop art every year.”

Steinlicht started the crop-art website in 1999.

Ideas take root

For most crop artists, the seeds of creativity were sown by exposure to this quirky art form at the Minnesota State Fair or through other artists.

Shortly after Schreiber settled in Minnesota for grad school after leaving her home state of Virginia, a fair fanatic friend took her to the exhibit. “I was really enamored,” Schreiber says, and after a few more visits to the crop- art display, she found it irresistible; her background in fine arts helped.

“Just from seeing it, I had to give it a try,” Schreiber says. “A lot of people don’t know what it is outside Minnesota.” (Longtime Farm Crops Superintendent Kelsey has a theory about its Minnesota popularity: “I think it has something to do with the cold weather.”)

Shore caught seed fever in 2014 when her daughter was just out of kindergarten. Daughter Mimi was invited to a crop-art playdate by her friend Marge. Marge’s mom, Jill Moe, is a longtime crop artist and gave the girls some glue and seeds. Shore’s background is numbers and computers (she teaches biostatistics at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health), but “I wanted to learn how to do it, too.”

Moe was her guide starting in 2015 “and each year, I would do more and more on my own,” Shore says.

Shore and Moe now offer crop-art training at Wet Paint art supply store in St. Paul. The classes of 12 sell out and more have been added. They finished four sessions in June. The duo also hosts “Crop-Ins,” where crop artists can drop in for help.

For beginners, the process is sort of like paint-by-numbers with seeds, Shore tells the students.

Shore says crop art appeals to her “meticulous math side.”

When Cathy Camper moved from her native Wisconsin to Minnesota in 1984 and was introduced to crop art, she saw an opportunity to create work that went beyond gophers and loons. Her first entry in the crop-art competition was a portrait of Haile Selassie in 1989.

"I'd argue that I was the first to enter an 'alternative' version of seed art," says Camper, who is Arab-American. "I specifically created portraits of iconic BIPOC people in what was then a very white space."

A retired librarian and children's book author who now lives in Oregon, Camper says she chooses portrait subjects that are relevant to the times. She created a Malcolm X image when the Spike Lee movie came out in 1992. Her crop-art portraits have included Billie Holiday, Prince, George Floyd, and Ilhan Omar. She's entered the crop-art competition every year except one since her 1989 start.

"The art I created was fulfilling the function of art – making people re-see and think about the image of what they were viewing."

Schreiber was commissioned to create a seed-art image that became the Minnesota State Fair’s commemorative art poster for 2023. During the run of the fair that year, she sat in the Crop Art exhibit area and demonstrated the process. She had some of her award-winning pieces hanging behind her. The No. 1 question from visitors who saw her work: “How long did that take?”

Paulsen says she’s never kept track of the time she puts into her crop-art pieces. She might start to work and after 15 minutes the phone rings. She starts again for another 15 minutes and so on.

And a lot of time is spent in planning, Paulsen says. “It’s not just putting seeds on a board.”

She doesn’t worry that her idea well will go dry. “I have more ideas than I’ll ever be able to make.”

So, why do they do it?

The searching, the sorting, the designing, the gluing, and the hours upon hours of work picking up tiny seeds and placing them into an intricate design. It’s tedious. It’s time-consuming. Why do it?

As she was working on her entry for the 2024 State Fair, Schreiber admitted she feels an obligation to enter. She’s “compelled” to create new crop art.

“It’s a natural thing to want to make stuff out of stuff,” she says.

And, of course, “I have so many seeds.”

“Crop art is addictive,” Steinlicht said in an email. “Pasting seeds on a board. There’s a rhythm to it. It’s meditation. It’s time consuming, too. But, at the end, you get to participate in the Minnesota State Fair!”

Shore finds her crop-art hours clear her head. At a workshop on women’s health a few years ago, the instructor told participants to spend five minutes of quiet and calm. “I hated it,” Shore told the instructor afterward.

She was asked how she feels when she’s working on crop art. “Do you think of anything else?” the instructor asked.

“I can do it for hours and come out refreshed,” Shore replied.

“Crop art’s your meditation,” the instructor noted.

Crop art is “physically and mentally busy enough to get everything else out of my brain and come back with a new perspective,” she says. “It helps me handle everything else going on in my life.”

Inspiration Nation

Seed Queen Colton was known for her celebrity portraits—Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, Richard Nixon, Garrison Keillor, Kirby Puckett, Bob Hope, and so many more. A display of her work is part of the annual exhibit at the State Fair.

Schreiber’s crop-art portraits are celebrities and historical figures. Abraham Lincoln, Nikola Tesla, Evel Knievel, Col. Sanders, Frida Kahlo, and Chief Flying Hawk are among the notables enshrined in seeds on the walls of her northeast Minneapolis home.

“They’re mostly people I find inspiring in one way or another,” Schreiber says, “or I find an image I want to spend time with.”

Shore, a music fan, has created album covers from some of her favorite groups on the anniversary of the album’s release. Her first competition ribbon was for a re-creation of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album cover What’s Going On?.

Shore says she got into music in 1983. For her 2023 State Fair entries, she recreated three albums released in 1983: Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, Donna Summer’s She Works Hard for the Money, and Madonna’s debut album.

Crop art has also been a way for Shore to connect with her university students. In 2022, she let students pick her next project from three options: Star Trek, Erykah Badu, or drag queen Bianca del Rio (whose saying is “Not today, Satan. Not today.”) from RuPaul’s Drag Race series. The winner was del Rio, and Shore created the crop art over the course of the semester.

“The students loved it,” Shore says. “It made me more human, more real.” Students told her they were inspired to return to hobbies and projects of their own, like cross-stitch.

The choices returned the next semester, and another RuPaul drag queen was the student choice. She’s made four drag queens, including RuPaul.

Shore intends to keep making crop art, but as the State Fair’s new Crop Art and Scarecrow assistant superintendent, she won’t be in the competition. For 2024, her creation is Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”

Steinlicht is entering for 2024, only because he didn’t get to commemorate one of his favorite characters Pee-wee Herman after actor Paul Reubens died in 2023. The Canada resident says this will likely be his last piece for the Minnesota State Fair. “Participating from far away is a bit of a pain. There’s no last-minute, bring-your-piece-in-with-the-glue-still-drying rush,” Steinlicht says. “I have to get it done a month before the deadline and mail it to a trusted friend, and have that friend bring it into the fair on the deadline day.”

Of course, there’s always the hope that a celebrity subject will see an artist’s work. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda texted Paulsen after he saw her seed portrait of him. Garrison Keillor has stopped by to see his likeness, and “celebricat” Grumpy Cat made a stop at the display to see her portrait by Schreiber in 2013.

Picking seeds

Crop artists are always on the lookout for new seeds, Schreiber says. She’s found new varieties in other State Fair competitions, such as the crop competition for FFA (once known as Future Farmers of America). And with each entry in the crop-art show, artists must submit a “legend card,” showing what seeds were used.

Though seeds can be painted in some categories of the crop-art competition, Schreiber uses only natural colors. She likes the texture of wild rice, she says, and uses it “in pretty much every piece I make.” Crown vetch seed, which is kind of maroon in color, is another favorite.

According to a 2023 story in The Guardian, Minnesota crop artist Stephen Saupe used a seed from a plant called Job’s Tears from his own garden for just-the-right-size seed for the pearl in his re-creation of Vermeer’s masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Schreiber is a gardener, but she hasn’t collected seeds from her own garden for her work. “I usually collect seeds to replant,” she says.

Seed Queen II Paulsen collects seeds from her garden, she says. Purple balloon plant seeds are a favorite. She also saves cantaloupe and watermelon seeds.

“Nobody ever throws away a watermelon seed in our house,” Paulsen says, adding that she’s not concerned about “seedless” watermelons. She’s saved plenty. Paulsen has 128 different types of seeds in clear plastic jars in her hobby room, though she hasn’t used all the varieties. She also inherited seeds from her mother.

Shore once used seeds from a Navajo Nation organization that’s saving Indigenous seeds. The art piece wasn’t eligible for a ribbon because the seeds in crop art have to come from commercial crops in Minnesota.

One of Shore’s favorite seeds to use is crimson clover, she says. The seeds are different shades and can be sorted for skin tones. Amaranth and poppy, some of the smallest seeds, offer the most detail, she says.

Bugged

Yes, there’s a danger that bugs, mice, and other critters will go after the tasty seeds. So the crop artists coat their pieces with polyurethane or another clear protection.

Schreiber once sold a piece and little spots appeared on some of the seeds. “Gnat-looking things” had invaded, she says. The artwork spent a few days in a freezer to kill off the bugs.

It seems contradictory to shellac a chemical substance on a natural artwork, Schreiber admits, but it’s necessary.

The crop art and seed display areas at the State Fair are carefully cleaned, former superintendent Kelsey says. Exhibitors know even a few grains can bring unwanted critter visitors.

Bushels of history

Though Kelsey, 84, has retired from his role as Farm Crops superintendent, he’ll be at the 2024 Minnesota State Fair for his 77th time. His roots go deep and his history proves nothing can keep him home in the southwest Minnesota town of Lamberton, three hours from the fairgrounds.

The fair was closed in 1946 during the polio epidemic (and again in 2020 because of Covid). Kelsey was the only one of 10 children in the farm family who got polio. He couldn’t walk or move his head or eyes.

Polio was an unknown, Kelsey says. There was no treatment or vaccine. “I had to teach myself because they didn’t know what caused it,” he says. Kelsey learned to walk and move again.

He was back at the State Fair in 1947 with his dad, who raised corn and exhibited it at the fair for 54 years. Kelsey showed corn himself for 10 years.

Open-heart surgery, a broken leg, a broken arm—Kelsey was able to recover in time for the fair over the years. And when Kelsey got West Nile virus and meningitis a few years ago, he was released from the hospital on a Friday and stayed through the run of the fair. He answered questions that year from a cot in a storage room.

Kelsey has an agriculture education degree from the University of Minnesota. He taught agriculture at Lamberton for his entire career, retiring about 20 years ago. But he still works with FFA students and coached the “soil team” for 54 years, taking students to state competition 53 of those years.

Kelsey’s agriculture insights help the crop-art judges. Before an entry is judged, he looks it over to make sure the seeds fit the rules.

Kelsey also started the “wearable crop art” division in the contest, which has produced seed-bedazzled clothing, jewelry, and even a pair of cowboy boots from Schreiber and a bikini crafted by Kelsey’s daughter.

Though it’s not part of the Crop Art display, in a room just outside the exhibit there’s another Kelsey crop connection—some of his collection of seed sacks is on view every year. Only about 400 of his 1,400 seed sacks make the trip to the State Fair. Seed used to be sold in cloth bags that were printed with the seed company logo and location, Kelsey explains.

During the Depression, the sacks were used for clothing—everything from dresses to underwear, he says. In the 1950s, paper and plastic replaced the cloth bags—and would have made for extremely uncomfortable undergarments.

Kelsey’s seed sack collection is one of the largest in the world, he says. He’s been contacted about the collection from across the United States, as well as England and the former Soviet Union.

The seed sacks are pinned to the walls above the entries in the aforementioned Scarecrow Competition—a bonus for art-enthusiastic fairgoers.

Seeding is Believing

The hundreds of thousands of people drawn to the seedy side of the State Fair leave inspired, amused, incredulous—and, once, engaged. Kelsey says a man had a friend create a crop-art image of a diamond engagement ring. When his girlfriend saw the ring, she said, “Somebody is getting engaged.”

“We are,” he replied, as he proposed marriage.▪︎

Discover more perspectives on the relationship between artists and their locations in the ongoing article series Location, qhov chaw, goobta, ubicación here.