MOUNT VERNON — She hasn’t seen the old barn very often since she was 11, when her family moved off the farm. But Rosa Lee (Stricker) Hogg was delighted to see it as one of the featured structures in the upcoming “Barns-R-Noble” driving tour, organized by the Knox County Renaissance Foundation with help from the Knox County Art League. Such structures are a shared heritage to an agrarian community.
“In 10 years, there’s not going to be any more big barns if we don’t start taking care of them,” Hogg said.
The barn portrayed in two paintings in the artistic exhibition enhancing the tour was once owned by Hogg’s father, Walter Stricker. The McManis Road building now houses the goats, llamas and other animals of Mike Hufnagel and Julie Brodie, who are restoring the structure.They just installed new period-style windows, according to event organizer Phyllis Williams.
“We started talking about this tour idea years ago,” Williams said, adding that KCRF finally found the perfect place for it during Knox County’s bicentennial year. She said that Tom Fish headed up the project of compiling a list of 40 potential barns of various ages, sizes and uses for the tour. That list was eventually winnowed down to a total of 14 barns, although only 12 sites, because one site on Wally Road has three barns.
An extra aspect of the tour is that works have been specially commissioned from artists recruited mainly from the Knox County Art League.
Ray Bohac used the latest technology to provide a traditional-looking rendition of two barns on John Robinson’s farm on Quaker Road near Fredericktown. Starting with a photograph, Bohac used sophisticated digital art programs to artistically manipulate the image and give it an old-fashioned look.
“Because this medium is so new, I wanted a big, old-style impressionistic picture,” Bohac said.
After working the image to give it the appearance of an impressionist oil painting, he had to send the file of to be printed as a 24-by-36-inch canvas. He then painted a finish over the printed image to give it the varnished look of an old painting, and to increase the sense of brush stroke simulated by the computer program. Bohac added that he was excited because he was in the process of setting up some online tutorial sessions with other KCAL photography buffs, so they can learn how to use the software by watching Bohac use it. The working image will be seen on their own computer screens, and they can type in questions as he demonstrates techniques.
Meanwhile, Bohac said he’d leave the controversy about how “valid” digital artwork is up to the academicians.
“I just do what makes me happy,” Bohac said.
Leah Geiger, a retired teacher who enjoys making bas-relief (slightly three-dimensional) images with torn paper, pen, ink, paint and more, said she was fascinated by the wide range of media and styles displayed by the art. She particularly enjoyed the challenge of portraying a specific barn (on the Steve Day farm, Lower Green Valley Road, Mount Vernon) instead of working completely from imagination.
“When I pick up the paper, the paper speaks to me,” Geiger said. “I don’t normally know what I’m going to do until I discover it.”
Painting in a manner that finds common ground between the Knox County countryside and the old Russian landscapes of early Kandinsky paintings, Wes Shorter created a distinctive vision of the Aberegg barn on Old Mansfield Road.
“The style I work from is very deliberate,” Shorter said. “It verges on the abstract.
The bicentennial barn tour will take place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Maps of the route and lists of the farms are available at Sips Coffee House, 101 S. Main St. A detailed brochure, including historical notes by barn consultant Pam Gray, is available by going to the Web site of the Knox County Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.visitknoxohio.org, and clicking on the link for the Barns-R-Noble tour. The brochure can be downloaded and printed.
KCRF president Pat Surbella said that they’re encouraging people to carpool to the tour, to save on fuel. She also suggested that groups such as bus tours, Scout groups and senior citizens’ groups would find the tour ideal. Special events will be set up at many of the barn sites, ranging from food buffets to tractor tours to historical displays.
Promotional items and memorabilia will be available at some of the barn locations for those who are interested, including note cards of the painted images, decorated coal shovels and the popular “Looking Up” poster, which features architectural details from downtown Mount Vernon. Anne Deister’s bicentennial cookbook will also be for sale at the sales locations, which are the Nyhart, Robinson, Day and Windy Hill farms. A tour-end reception will also take place at Windy Hill from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Orders for custom-made prints can be taken and paid for at any barn along the tour, and picked up at Sips the following week. Tickets for a raffle prize including several promotional goods are being sold and will be drawn during the Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival on the main stage on the square on Saturday, Aug. 9.
There is no cost to go on the driving tour itself.
“It’s our gift to the community,” Williams said.