Minnesota Prairie Roots

ART EXISTS EVERYWHERE, even at a farm-themed event. My photos from the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Fall Show last Saturday in rural Dundas prove that. As a creative, I view life through an artistic lens. So I’m naturally drawn to photograph items that others may not necessarily see as art.

In this photo essay, you’ll view a sampling of the “art” I discovered. I found art on vintage tractors, on clothing, at the flea market, especially at the flea market, and beyond.

Let’s start there, among market vendors selling a variety of goods ranging from toy tractors to glassware to home décor and everything in between. The art that drew my deepest interest—two massive brass sculptures of African men—sat on a flatbed trailer. They were nothing short of spectacular. Such grace. Such power in their muscular arms and legs. Truly, truly stunning. Seller Daniel Bell of Faribault, who calls himself a picker, found the matching pair in Iowa. The sculptures once supported tabletops, now missing. He’s priced each at $575. I can connect you with Dan if you’re interested.

Almost as interesting, and certainly thought-provoking in 2025, is a 1950s image of children dressed in western attire and brandishing pistols. When I reflect on that scene printed on a tray, I remember how I, too, owned a toy cap gun and played “Cowboys and Indians.” That all seems so terribly wrong now when viewing this as an adult in a world riddled by gun violence. I’m thankful for changed attitudes and perspectives about our Indigenous Peoples and about toy guns.

I spotted art on a plastic coffee mug from Minnesota Valley Canning Company featuring the Green Giant brand of GREAT BIG TENDER PEAS. The back side of the mug is imprinted with the story of the Jolly Green Giant. I should have purchased the cup, which belonged to the father of the flea market vendor. He worked at the canning company in Le Sueur until its 1995 closure. This mug is more than a mug. It’s a collectible piece of regional literary and visual art.

And then I found art on the cover and inside the Northfield Arts Guild’s 25th anniversary cookbook from 1984. Not unexpected, it features the art of rural Northfielder Fred Somers, whose work I admire.

At another vendor, I spotted a bullet-riddled cow weather vane, a form of functional rural art. And apparently a shooting target, too. I saw a horse weather vane inside a showgrounds building.

And then there were the duck decoys, the red plastic lips and the jar full of colored plastic clothespins, all viewed as art by me.

I even saw a vendor painting, freshening up the words “C’MON MAN!” on his van. He was selling mostly leather belts, an inventory purchased when a leather goods shop closed.

Elsewhere around the showgrounds, art exists also. I discovered it on commemorative buttons, stickers and signs. Inside the 1912 farmhouse a vintage sewing machine and fabric scraps highlighted the creative arts.

I even found fashion art—in a John Deere/Hawaiian shirt worn by a John Deere tractor owner.

Art (prints and photos) graces a wall of the Waterford Community Center, once a one-room school, moved onto the Steam & Gas Engines showgrounds and opened to the public this year.

And then there are the culinary arts as perfected by an Amish family selling handheld fruit pastries and pies plus homemade ice cream crafted on-site as attendees watched. They are new-to-the-show vendors. The peach pastry and ice cream, oh, my, so delicious. They sold out of pies and handhelds.

This may be a show themed to farming of yesteryear. But, as I discovered, art also abounds. Sometimes you just have to look through an artistic lens to see it.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling