While out shooting I always try to see “new” things or at least revisit something I may not have paid attention too previously while driving about Siouxland. It was only recently that the idea of manmade patterns kind of jumped out at me. Not in a “lightbulb” moment, but a quite, Ahhhhhhhh, kind of realization while looking at some images I was thinking about using for this blog. It’s been kind of fashionable in smaller rural communities both in the town, but more likely in the country at farms to put up a “farm quilt” pattern on the side of a barn. A kind of fashionable trend that I noticed in the Siouxland area maybe around 2006 or so. And now one sees them more often. But in a way, those patterns have always been there, maybe in a slightly different form but still created by farmers, most often in their fields. To mention such an idea to my Dad when he was living would probably have provoked a raised eyebrow and a quick hand to my forehead to see if I was feeling ill. And then maybe a smile, knowing that I look for visuals where others may not.
Jerry Mennenga
Sioux City, Iowa
A local grain elevator building with a patch quilt attached and a wind or storm induced quilt of its own with missing siding in Coleridge, Nebraska Thursday, March 22, 2018. (Photo by Jerry L Mennenga©)
Clouds pass through rural Woodbury County, Iowa Thursday July 27, 2017, creating a patter in the sky that works along with the pattern on the ground after a farmer finished readying his alfalfa field for baling. (photo by Jerry L Mennenga©)
