For 250th, artists bring U.S. heritage to life

Artist Scott Hagan’s canvas is both unconventional and iconic. Many of the murals he’s painted across the United States decorate barns, bringing patriotic imagery to a backdrop symbolic of America’s agricultural heritage.

The majority of Hagan’s barn murals are in Ohio where he started out by painting his father’s barn at age 19. In 2003, he was commissioned to paint murals for the Ohio state bicentennial celebration. And more than two decades later, the painter known as “the Barn Artist” is among those creating new murals in the agriculture-rich state in honor of America’s 250th birthday celebration.

The Murals Across Ohio project is one way U.S. artists are commemorating America’s founding. In Pennsylvania, artists are painting replicas of the iconic Liberty Bell that tolled atop the Pennsylvania Assembly building in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

In Virginia, volunteers at the College of William & Mary’s Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg are stitching a tapestry honoring miners who provided lead for the colonies during the Revolutionary War. The panel will be stitched together with similar tapestries representing each of America’s 13 original colonies to form a single America’s Tapestry.

The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association recently reopened George Washington’s Virginia home to the public after restorations, including repairs to original 18th-century fabric and structural improvements. In the nation’s capital, the Washington Monument served as the backdrop for a projection show of iconic American images, from covered wagons headed West to the Empire State Building to the Apollo moon landing.

The murals Hagan and others create for the Murals Across Ohio project will outlast any parade or fireworks show and honor the state’s contributions to America. Ohio was home to aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, and the birthplace of seven U.S. presidents.

One of Hagan’s murals depicts Ohioan and former U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, while another shows frontiersman John Chapman, who became known as folk hero Johnny Appleseed after planting trees across the Midwest.

Hagan says using barns as his canvas has turned mural painting into a community event. The artist who brings a recreational vehicle and a lift to work and pays close attention to the weather often draws spectators who watch him paint. Passing drivers sound their horns in approval, he says, noting that the “red, white and blue” murals receive the most fanfare.

“This is a way of piquing their interest,” Hagan says of painting barns. “You literally can’t miss these things.”