Kansas artist carves Kamala Harris’ portrait into a field — and left room for her VP pick
July 24, 2024 | Sam Zeff
Editor’s note: The following story was published by KCUR, Kansas City’s NPR member station, and a fellow member of the KC Media Collective. Click here to read the original story or here to sign up for KCUR’s email newsletter.
World-renowned crop artist Stan Herd is almost finished with the portrait of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee outside Lawrence, Kansas, near the Kansas River
Crop artist Stan Herd just had a feeling that Vice President Kamala Harris was going to ascend to the top of the Democratic ticket.
“I’m a political junkie, you know? I follow this stuff moment by moment,” he told KCUR. “It just seemed like the writing was on the wall.”
So 12 days ago — before Biden officially dropped out, but in the middle of public pressure following his disastrous debate performance — he got to work carefully crafting a giant image of Harris’ face into a half-acre field north of Lawrence in the Kansas River bottoms.
“The landowner is a little nervous about people coming out there. So, he’s not giving the exact location,” Herd said.
Herd, who is in his 70s, is a native Kansan but has created earthworks all over the world, including a four-acre permanent installation in China’s Yunnan Province called the Young Woman of China that took two years to build.
But when he must, Herd can move pretty quickly. Like when he did President Joe Biden’s portrait during the 2020 Democratic primary race.
“When he won South Carolina, I did his portrait within seven days,” Herd said.
Earthworks artist Stan Herd stands on an elevated platform to show the phrase he and his team seared into a hay field near Lawrence in January 2021. The phrase, burned in with a torch and outlined with mulch, was featured in Joe Biden’s virtual inaugural celebration; photo by Carlos Moreno, KCUR
Herd’s art was also featured in Biden’s inauguration in 2021. He and his team carefully charred the phrase, “America United” in a former hay field outside Lawrence, which was featured in a video on Inauguration Day.
It took a 12-man crew to make that project happen, although Herd said it was “the simplest image I’ve done in 25 years.” Herd and his team cut the shape first with weed trimmers, then used mulch to form an outline around the letters. Using a butane torch, they burned the interior part of the phrase to make it stand out.
At the time, Herd told KCUR he wanted to move away from political pieces — a sentiment that apparently only lasted a few years.
“This was just an opportunity, quite frankly, to get involved in this final throwdown of the inauguration after this arduous journey that we’ve all been on to try to move the country back in a direction of normalcy,” he said in 2021.
This earth works installment, created by Stan Herd, on display in Wisconsin with the words “Build Back Better”; photo courtesy of Stan Herd
The recent Harris portrait is a half acre and made of native prairie, compost and sand and paid for out of his own pocket. “When I create a big Oreo cookie ad and I make really good money, I put 10% of that back into the art that I want,” he said.
Although Herd was confident enough to begin crafting Harris’ likeness well before Biden dropped out of the race, he’s being a little more cautious before finishing the installation.
Herd left space next to Harris for whoever she picks as a running mate. He thought it would be the governor of Michigan.
“I started a portrait of Gretchen Whitmer,” he said. “And then, you know, if you wait a little bit, you learn a lot.”
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