Barn Art; A Dying Profession

Growing up as a little boy, I remember seeing advertisements painted on barns, especially their roofs. I especially remember the Stuckey's restaurant signs. Barn art was used to give directions to the next stop on your journey or simple advertising. Usually, a farmer would get his barn painted for free, if he agreed to let ads be placed on his barn roof. In some cases, the farmer would be paid a small stipend. Barn art acted the same as billboards would.

Pictures of the Past
Throughout the America countryside, you can see signs of faded old barn art. Most have never been repainted. Barn structures themselves are in dire need of maintenance and repainting. Old wooden barns are being replaced with new metal buildings. You can see some of these old faded barns, as you travel along America's interstate highways. It is not unusual to see old advertising sign or a picture of an American flag or American eagle.

Barn Art Production
Authentic barn art is done by freehand painting. However, many forms of barn art today is done by computer graphic design. Scott Hagan from Jerusalem, Ohio is one of the free-handed painters still working. Scott has done over 400 paintings. He got his start by doing an Ohio State Buckeye for the Ohio bicentennial.

He begins with a regular carpenters crayon and few large rulers. A barn painting works best, if it already has good undercoat of paint already on the barn. A painting takes between 3 to 15 gallons of paint. It usually takes 1 to 3 days to do a job. Scott gets from $1500 to $4000 per painting. Lettering alone costs $500.

Scott says he got his motivation from Harley Warrick. Warrick, who died in 2000, did thousands of barn paintings throughout his lifetime. You can view many examples of his work at the site above. Warrick used a simple one plank scaffold to do his work off of.

Barn Art Today
Today most metal barns have painted signs, that can easily be attached or taken down. Metal barns are more durable than the old wooden barns. Once the old wooden barn has worn out, it is being replaced by the metal ones. The same is true with barn art. Except for a few individuals, like Scott Hagan, barn art is dying out like the old wooden barn. A piece of American art is fading away.