by John Dowd
The Stevensville Scarecrow Festival is quickly approaching its 20th anniversary, and organizers, along with the scarecrow festival community, are excited to showcase something really special this year. Organizers also say they need the community’s help to do it.
This year, the Scarecrow Festival will take place the first weekend in October, and on Friday, October 3, the first night of the festival, the organizers want to unveil a commemorative sculpture. The sculpture will be made of metal, and will take the form of a female scarecrow.
A simple conceptual drawing of the metal sculpture that will memorialize Stevensville’s annual Scarecrow Festival. The sculpture will be placed in Creamery Garden Park on Stevensville’s Main Street.
The metal statue will stand six feet tall, and will be holding a glass bowl. The female figure will be fixed to the ground in a 3×3 concrete pad. Her name will be “Keeper of the Season,” and she has been modeled after previous scarecrows with similarities such as the floral design. These were originally made from real flowers.
According to Loey Knapp, one of the original organizers of the event, they really wanted to commemorate the festival, and to do something special for the 20th anniversary. “It’s become a very important part of Stevensville,” said Knapp.
Knapp said the Scarecrow Festival started with only eight entries and last year there were nearly 70 scarecrow entries. The event has become a Stevensville staple, and for many, it is hard to imagine Stevensville without the Scarecrow Festival. “It’s just been fun for 20 years,” said Knapp.
The “Keeper” will join two other public sculptures in town, including “Two Left Feet Dancing Free,” the Native American dancer made from recycled metal pieces on the corner of Main and Third, and “To Know Joy,” the bronze sculpture at Lange Park next to Ahava Coffee. Festival organizers want to place this one in Creamery Garden Park, in the 200 block of Main next to Mission Bistro. The Scarecrow Festival Committee has already sought approval from the Stevensville Town Council to do so, and approval was granted at the June 12 town council meeting.
Creamery Garden Park is considered a “hidden gem for Stevensville,” according to Dora Bradt, a Stevensville Scarecrow Festival Committee member. She thinks it will be the perfect place.
Placing the sculpture in Creamery Garden Park also meant the committee did not need to go through the Montana Department of Transportation for approval. They would have needed approval if the statue was in a state highway right-of-way.
Even with approval, the committee still needs to raise the money for the statue. It’s going to cost about $12,000 for the statue to be built and placed where it is going to live. The artist has donated $1,000 towards the project
Loey Knapp holds a poster advertising for the Scarecrow Festival, and the proposed Sculpture. Photo by John Dowd.
Even with that hefty price tag, the committee is optimistic. For Knapp, whose husband was the originator of the event when he was president of the now-defunct Stevensville Art & Sculpture Society, the sculpture means a lot more than just a remembrance of the festival. It also means the recognition of what she, and many others, love about the community of Stevensville. “This is an example of everybody being involved,” said Knapp. “I just like being part of a community like that.”
When asked about the scarecrows and why they decided upon a sculpture, Knapp said, “Scarecrow is a word, but these are really creations.” She said they use the moniker to resonate with the season, but she described each one as a piece of art. They chose the sculpture and decided to model it after a previous scarecrow as a way to mirror not only the festival, but to honor the creativity at the heart of the event.
The “Keeper” sculpture will be made from steel, copper and stainless steel, in order to give it a colorful look. The sculpture will require no maintenance, and in fact it is designed to weather naturally. The piece is designed with different materials that will tarnish in different ways, allowing her to change over time.
A piece created by Laura Jean Newby, made with metals similar to the planned design of the “Keeper of the Season” sculpture for Stevensville. Photo courtesy Laura Jean Newby.
Laura Jean Newby, the artist that will be building the permanent scarecrow sculpture, spoke about the process. According to her, the piece will be welded together, over a frame. Each individual piece will be hand cut, and Newby will utilize several metals, which she will then heat with a torch in a process she calls “painting with fire.” The heating and cooling causes the metals to color in bright and interesting ways.
Newby is a self-taught metal artist, who said she has learned through a lot of trial and error. However, all that work has granted her a deep understanding of how metals can be altered to look a variety of ways. She said she prefers to work with steel over other metals because, “if there is an error, it can be fixed pretty easily,” and it is “more forgiving in that sense.” Even with that said, she is excited about the variety that will be included in this piece, including the glass bowl, which she will also be making.
Laura Jean Newby, the artist who has been commissioned to create a permanent sculpture to memorialize the annual Scarecrow Festival in Stevensville.
Newby is especially excited for people to see how the sculpture will change and tarnish over the years, bringing out a greater variety in color and depth. “It’s going to be kinda cool to watch her change,” as she weathers over time, said Newby. The coppers will bring greens and blues, and the steel will bring rusty reds. The stainless will be coated in a way that will keep it shiny, so those elements stay present forever.
Working with the Scarecrow Festival team, Newby said they worked to get the piece to “symbolize harvest season, but without the bloom there is no harvest.” That is the inspiration behind her creation of the sculpture.
Newby also has a special connection to Stevensville. She was a welder on various pipeline projects, and found herself in Stevensville after looking for a different welding career. It was there that she started her business, Laura Jean Welding and Artistry LLc., and specifically the art aspect of her business.
“Creating this sculpture for Stevensville kinda ties into my roots as an artist,” said Newby. She now lives in Connor with her husband, step-son and three dogs. She does commissioned welding and art projects. Interested parties can find information about Newby’s business on her website, laurajeanwelding.com
Interested parties looking to support the creation of the statue can donate to the project on the Scarecrow Festival website. There are a few options to donate, both to the festival itself, and the sculpture project, so parties should look carefully. Parties that want to send checks can send them to Project 59870, P.O. Box 8, Stevensville MT 59870 with “sculpture” in the memo. The first 50 people to donate will get their name on the plaque. Information about that, and more, is available on the festival website, stevensvillescarecrowfestival.org.