A Jefferson artist put her skills to the test as she completed a mural on one of Iowa’s biggest stages.

Greene County High School Art Teacher Sarah Stott was chosen to paint an agricultural mural at the Iowa State Fair after a representative with the Iowa Food and Family Project heard about the chicken mural that her students designed and painted on the former chicken hatchery along Highway 4 in Jefferson. According to its website, the Iowa Food and Family Project celebrates and unites rural and urban Iowa to explore how food is grown and meet the producers who grow the food.

Stott tells Raccoon Valley Radio she was given keywords as inspiration as the painting itself shows an agriculture landscape, a family silhouette cut-out and within that cut-out is a picture of a typical Iowa family table with food. She explains what she drew for her own inspiration.

“I wanted to use my past and then I said, ‘How can I do that?’ So the first thing that came to mind is of course was my childhood growing up. Outside of Jefferson, my grandparents Don and Mary Coon had a beautiful acreage and farm, and I have all these treasured memories mainly of my grandma’s kitchen and gathering as a family for too many to county family occasions, Sunday after church dinners, to holidays, (and) to birthdays. So I really wanted to incorporate this nostalgia that I had with my own childhood.”      

Stott shares her thoughts on how the mural came together.

“That whole experience from planning the mural, kind of the nerves and stress of getting that design finalized. And then I was just excited once I had that final plan, I was just excited to get going. Yeah I just couldn’t wait to start painting. I was surprised myself by how quickly I got it done. It was a really fun, different experience.”    

Stott adds her mural was on display during the entire state fair and it will now go to an agriculture business where it will be kept for the foreseeable future.