Influenced by the structural elements of grain elevator architecture, Omaha graphic designer Cathy Solarana chose the subordinate drive shed as her focus of exploration.  Drive sheds had their own structural and functional personalities despite being dwarfed by the huge multi-barreled contiguous white concrete cylinders they served. They were as unique and interesting as the elevators themselves, and as the result of Solarana’s research indicates, are quintessential to the representation of the Prairie Skyscrapers.  Although humble wood structures, the drive shed function was important: to protect farmers from the weather while unloading their grain.  A highly simple structure resembling a wooden lean-to, the drive shed is nonetheless an important part of the uniquely North American ‘architecture of grain’, designed for function and simplicity without unnecessary decoration.

Italian architect Aldo Rossi commented about the American grain elevator:

The Great Plains of America are vast … its villages turned inward as if time had stood still. These people [weren't] seeking America, but escaping Europe, and in [their] first wooden silos [was the] memory of [European] architecture. Over time the silos rose with ever greater assurance and created the landscape of the New World. In abandoning the problem of form they rediscovered architecture.

These new forms began to rise up along the railways of the Midwest — first in flammable wood, then tile, steel, and concrete – locating towns just as cathedrals located the towns of Europe. By the 19th-century Midwestern farming communities forgot their European cathedrals and created a new architecture of pure functional storage.  Just after World War I, Europe realized that America had created a whole new architecture with no precursor. Modernist architect Le Corbusier, who held disdain for the pillars and arches of the old European architectural orders as inhumane to the people who used them, revered the functional simplicity of grain elevators serving people and their purposes. These  prototypes of functional 20th-century architecture are wonders of the world – clean, anonymous, geometric and simple.

Cathy Solarana believes good design comes from inside the project — one must understand the depth of something before it can be communicated to the world. This is why she begins each project with thoughtful research into what the brand stands for now, and what its hopes to communicate in the future.

Cathy’s resume tells a thoughtful soul search of her own; founding her own small design firm, Visually Speaking, teaching design for nine years at her alma mater, Creighton University, and big agency life with six years at Bailey Lauerman where she created award-winning work for brands like Union Pacific, The Nature Conservancy, Omaha Community Foundation and AIGA Nebraska Chapter. Through this personal life research, Cathy learned that she loves working with people who are striving for something, she loves small businesses, startups, nonprofits … people with big ideas and bigger plans. Cathy likes to get in at the beginning, and be part of making it come true. That kind of work is more than just rewarding to Cathy. It’s inspiring.

Through Cathy’s exploration into grain elevator structure, she created an iconic design style of a simple line and shape. Together with graphic bold colors the drive shed becomes the focal point, rather than a supplemental structure. The use of scale pays homage to its purpose. The giant wheat stalk stands as a representation of all the grains that have filled the silos and fed families, not just in consumables, but as an employer, customer, investor, and a vital commercial hub, for generations. The striped curve pattern in the background is an abstraction inspired by a hand forged silo in rural Nebraska from the 1930′s.

According to author Barbara Krupp Selyem in her photo essay ‘The Legacy of Country Grain Elevators’:

With the increasing demise of drive sheds whose construction was not that of the concrete silo………It is now left to the painter, photographer, historian, and poet to capture the essence of the country elevator.  They are the ones who will weave the threads of function, architecture, and social significance into artfulness that will be used by future generations to evaluate and appreciate its legacy.

More of Cathy’s work can be seen at www.cathysolarana.com

Inspired by the Stored Potential project description reference to “reading the landscape,” public artist Matthew Farley immediately envisioned center-pivot irrigation circles.  An aerial reminder of the grid system imposed over much of the United States by Thomas Jefferson’s 1785 National Land Survey, the pattern still provides the basic geometric order of the once unruly Great Plains.  In June 1976, Scientific American magazine called center pivot irrigation “perhaps the most significant mechanical innovation in agriculture since the replacement of draft animals by the tractor.”  William E. Splinter, the author, then a professor of agricultural engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, though possibly biased, was not far off the mark.  A short 25 years later, US astronauts could identify the Northeast Nebraska region from 270 miles in space by the patterns of lush, green crop circles produced by center pivots.  When these circles began to fill the infrastructural grid of settlement, simple topographic potential became technological potential.

Using satellite imagery, Matthew has stitched together a “quilt” of parcels from the Nebraska landscape near the town of Ogallala so that the resulting arrangement of darkened crop circles emerge as Braille symbols.  Coded within the crop circles is a reference to the Ogallala (High Plains) Aquifer, the precious resource stored below—perhaps the ultimate “stored potential.”  The image’s pattern alludes to the originating word, “oglala” (lower case is used in the translation for visual purposes), meaning “to scatter one’s own.”  The watery color palette offers a visual clue to this coded text—and certainly, the “circles of blue” are appropriate as well.  The banner utilizes high-resolution satellite imagery courtesy of the United States Geological Survey that reveal details such as tractor tire marks, which form another layer of patterning reminiscent of quilting and an indication of deeper settlement: cultivation.  Seemingly plucked straight from a satellite, this composed landscape, although fictitious, also affords the inclusion of I-80 and the Lower Platte River across the top of thebanner and further integrates topography and technology.

Matthew Farley’s career as an artist began when he started signing his name next to the pictures he drew on the wall of his childhood home in Wichita, KS.  Growing up, he was exposed to the magnificent collection of outdoor sculpture at Wichita State University, where his mother taught.  Eventually, Matthew found his way to Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS, where, again surrounded by a wealth of art, he received his Associates of Arts.  Matthew went on to earn his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in sculpture from The University of Kansas in 2009 and is currently pursuing his interest in public art.  Since graduating, Matthew was awarded the 2010 Connor Meigs Artistic Merit Award, which culminates this October with the opening of his first solo show at the ArtLoft located in the historic Florence Mill in Omaha.  The artwork for this show, along with several of his public works, seeks to draw attention to the ways in which we view and use water in our everyday lives and, in turn, world water issues.  One such work, Frozen Assets, was recently selected for Americans for the Arts 2010 Public Art Year in Review, which recognizes 40 of the year’s best public art works in the United States and Canada.

Corn is undeniably the heart of the ‘Cornhusker State’.  Aside from the moniker of college football where on game days, Memorial Stadium is referred to as the third largest ‘city’ in the state, the seasonal landscape is ruled by the growing cycle of ‘The King Crop’.  In spring, fields on the outskirts of the cities and everywhere in between are tilled from last years nitrogen fixing soybean plantings in preparation for an increased every-other-year corn yield.  Summer is marked by perfectly hot and humid days where the corn responds with an alarming rate of growth. As the repetitive patchwork fields of tassling stalks brown towards completion, the sense of summer’s end and upcoming winter rest is initiated by a drop in temperature and shortening of days. And of course, there are the intense weeks of fall harvest where gigantic machinery emerges from a 10 month shed residence. With each passing year the machines push technological boundaries, many of which no longer require an active driver responding to the twists and turns of the terraced landscape, but rather a technician managing an intricately efficient GPS system.

Concurrent with increased cultivation technology is the increased prevalence of corn in our lives.  No longer just an exportable food crop, corn forms the basis of the fuel in our cars, the packaging of our food, and even some of the clothes we wear.  According to author Michael Pollan, over 1/4 of the 45,000 items in the average American supermarket contain corn.

For Omaha native, Jeremy Reding, his submission not only expresses the importance of the plant to the State of Nebraska but also its role in the transformation of our farms, livestock, grocery stores, and beyond.  By conveying the corncob as a scannable barcode, the simple image attempts to connect viewers to corn as a commodity. Viewers can use the scanner on a smartphone and be directed to a website currently being built by Reding that will list the derivatives of the crop, many of which are surprising and will undoubtedly further the conversation about the pervasiveness of corn in our lives, and impact throughout the world.

Reding graduated from University of Nebraska-Lincoln with his Master of Architecture degree in 2001.  He now resides in Seattle where he is a principal at Boxwood, an architecture and integrated design firm.  The firm has been involved in a number of Nebraska projects including: Urban Wine Company in Omaha, YMCA in Mason City, and a monastery, currently under construction, for the Omaha Poor Clare Sisters in Elkhorn.  Jeremy is interested in design that encourages a heightened awareness of everyday events, objects, or situations.  He attributes this to growing up in the under-appreciated Midwest where inspiration is often found where least expected.

It can be hard to believe, but once 75% of the American population lived in rural areas.  Remnants of this era, when more people were physically close to the production of food, come in many sizes:  from a towering grain elevator to simple, manually-run farm implements.  For pastel artist Matthew Rezac, who grew up near Bennington, Nebraska, a suburbanizing town northwest of Omaha, the Stored Potential project provoked this reflection on the intimacy between tool, farmer, land, and family:

“A hand-pushed cultivator rests in a pole shed near Bennington.  Dad used it to draw out the rows of a large garden, grown to feed his ten kids. He’d set straight-line guides made of string and homemade wooden stakes, align the single iron wheel and spade, and cut long, shallow grooves where sky and earth were better proportioned for planting.  Farming at this scale forges together the tool, the person and the land, embedding them with grit and exposing faults between ability and aspiration.  hTen children grew up, the garden grew small, my dad died, and the cultivator was balanced across the shed’s wall studs on a constellation of nails.  Now Omaha’s skyglow rolls forward like oncoming headlights.  Housing developments extend outward at tangents from the city, begun by nurserymen who own the land and have reapplied their skills of propagation.  At the margins, we attempt to carry forward the best of our agrarian inheritance:  solitude; craft; self-reliance; the ability to sustain; tell stories; have grace.  Each requires an enduring presence.  The cultivator and the grain elevator testify that commitment — to a people and a place, across generations — has made a difference.  To the freeway travelers heading east, to those sharing a meal to celebrate its yield, the cultivator’s bold, simple form draws notice and casts its shadow.”

To the Stored Potential jury, Matthew’s drawing of a simple cultivator took on the quality and scale of infrastructure when sized equal to the elevator and juxtaposed with the adjacent freeway.

Since leaving Nebraska, Matthew has studied world religions and theology and spent several years in public policy advocacy focused on social justice issues.  He now works for a private foundation in northern Minnesota, assisting rural communities in shaping their future through community engagement and cross-sector collaboration.  Matthew believes that the deep social capital existing in small communities and the relational culture that generates it are assets that need to be better understood and utilized.

Matthew continues to be transformed by the people, land, and structures that create his “home place.”  The risk of losing this connectedness pervades his paintings with grief, love and conviction.  A few times a year, Matthew can be found wandering the acres and outbuildings of his childhood home to collect reference photographs.  He describes this experience as “abstract, serene and unpredictable,”  qualities that translate compositionally in his work.  But this looking to the past is not an exercise in nostalgia.  ”Having a place to return to, where my history physically resides, allows me to propel toward the future with greater intentionality.  My art is one attempt to pass forward the best of my rural inheritance, honor extraordinary family ties, and extend the circle for my own children as we walk toward the future.  If I didn’t know where I came from, I couldn’t know where I am–or how to get to where I want to go.”

More of Matthew’s work can be seen at www.matthewrezac.com.

Producing nearly one and a half billion bushels per year, Nebraska is unquestionably one of the best places in the world to grow corn. Though Nebraska’s fertile soil and hot humid summers provide an ideal environment for corn, parts of the area lack sufficient precipitation to adequately meet the demands of such a water intensive crop.  As a result, seventy percent of the state’s annual corn yield is produced with the help of ground water irrigation, thus Nebraska farms account for one sixth of the nation’s irrigated agricultural land.

A majority of this water comes from the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground water system in the US, roughly the size of Lake Michigan.  Though the aquifer does replenish itself naturally, current levels of irrigation, combined with an increasingly hot and arid climate, create an unsustainable situation.  In some areas, water levels in the Ogallala have dropped more than a hundred feet in the last fifty years.

Leaving no struggling animals or marooned boats in its wake, this profound water loss does not lend itself to the types of dramatic scenes which often catapult other environmental issues into the public consciousness.  Hidden underground, the alarming depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer literally lacks visibility.  When California native, Scott Keyes, began doing research for his Stored Potential submission and for the first time learned of the diminishing Ogallala Aquifer, he saw the potential to make this hidden resource visible.  By taking advantage of the silo’s enormous height to create a 1:1 scale model of well 5N 40W28CDA, a groundwater irrigation unit located in Chase County, Nebraska, Keyes creates a tangible snapshot of the region’s precarious relationship to its most invaluable natural resource.  Using USGS data gathered since 1970, historical water levels within the well are marked at five year intervals along the silo’s interior – the walls that once contained the commodity created by confluence of sun energy and underground water.  The jury agreed that by rendering this important water issue visible, this submission represents a byproduct of the region’s agricultural legacy which is as real and concrete as the abandoned silos on which it is situated.

Scott Keyes currently lives in Waikiki, Hawaii, where he is an architect for the Federal Government, working on projects for N.O.A.A., the National Park Service, and the US Navy. He received his Master of Architecture degree from the University of Toronto and has also studied at the University of Bologna and UCLA. Scott has previously worked for Bruce Mau Design and Diamond and Schmitt & Architects and has had projects featured in Canadian Architect, Spacing Magazine and The National Post.

A neighbor of the towering grain elevator, 10-year old Tinca Joyner found inspiration for her submission from the plants she cultivates in her own backyard.  Both a productive farmer and artist, Tinca has lived in Omaha for all of her 10-year life and has been making art and planting seeds for most of it.  The Stored Potential jury found the intersection of these two things especially noteworthy in Joyner’s use of reds and oranges to depict the juicy fruit (or is it a vegetable?) in a style representative of Art Nouveau, especially in its tenet of applying artistic design to everyday utilitarian objects, in order to make beautiful things available to everyone. Although Tinca intended for the tomatoes in her drawing to be oriented to the bottom, as a tomato plant often looks like when supporting large bunches of fruit from a plant that commonly out-produces the needs of the grower, Tinca says the guy at Kinkos accidentally scanned her drawing with the tomatoes to the top.  Perhaps he knew that placing the bunch of tomatoes at the top of the elevator would maximize their exposure.

At Tinca’s house, her family has a garden set up in the front yard. She loves to choose seeds at the hardware store and watch them grow for harvest. Along with beets, carrots and peas, Tinca has decided to take on the task of growing a watermelon this year along with some poppies and sunflowers. She enjoys painting as well as drawing and always keeps an easel set up at the foot of her bed. She likes to host mini art shows in the stairwell of her house when her family is entertaining. While typically, Tinca likes to work in abstraction, she chose to draw cherry tomatoes for the grain elevator because they are the most fun of all vegetables to draw and eat.

When entrant identities were revealed at the end of the jury day, we discovered that Tinca is daughter of Omaha singer-songwriter Simon Joyner, considered by some as the forefather of the Omaha music scene.  Perhaps Tinca will be the forebearer of a burgeoning oversized art-about-agriculture scene?



Perhaps the most simply articulated submission of all, ‘………that Hourglass Figure’ by Bob Trempe, Professor of Architecture at Temple University, was a jury favorite both for its 2D manipulation of a 3D surface, and the method by which he achieves the illusion.  Manipulating a convex concrete silo with only an exterior surface is likely a frustrating constraint for an architect.  But with a series of simple black dots, Trempe’s submission virtually modifies the geometrical quality of one silo through the draping of a simple gradient pattern.  This pattern, designed in the shape of an hourglass, perceptually “tapers” the middle of the silo inward through the patterned shadow image. The pattern of dots creates the shaded quality one would find on a tapered, cylindrical surface.

Bob Trempe’s work as an architect and educator focuses on new methods of information visualization and how resultant emergent information can serve as instruction for architectural production. Thought of as the study of process itself, Bob’s works are typically articulated through repetitious systems, exploiting time-based qualities to notate, visualize, and analyze changes-in-state. Time always plays a critical role in these explora­tions of natural, man-made, and seemingly intangible phenomena as time is the living, breathing dimension of architecture.

Examples of his research can be seen through his office Dis-section Architectural and Media Design ( DAMD at www.dis-section.com ) as well as professional work with the design office of Verspoor & Trempe. Speculative projects such as “Slpistream” can be seen in the 2006 Birkhauser book “Distinguishing Digital Architecture.” Bob Trempe’s investigate works have been shown nationally and internationally at venues such as the ACM/SIGGRAPH Art Galleries in San Diego CA and New Orleans LA as well as exhibits such as DrawingOut2010 in Melbourne, Australia.

Whether seen as a statement about dwindling food reserves and farming, or simply as a playful gesture executed to make people look twice, ‘……that Hourglass Figure’ will, for the period of 3 months, reinvigorate and reinterpret an architecture of time past.  What appears to be a deep breath in will hopefully cause viewers to question perception and shifts in normalcy within the preexisting environment.