![]() “Brim is 225 miles from Melbourne and has a population of only 170 people, but many days there are 1,000 people who come to look at that mural.” “Guido did a huge mural on the grain silo in my former hometown of Brim, Victoria,” says Hedt. “The mural has had a big impact on business because people now stop rather than just driving through town, but what it’s done for community pride and morale is even greater,” says Dave Hedt, a former Australian resident who knew of Van Helten and arranged for him to come to South Dakota. “I want the mural to be a monument to this place and I want people to go out of their way to experience it,” he says. Van Helten adds that he’s obsessed with bringing small details to a very large scale. The iconic images I chose were a young boy and girl in big hats, blue jeans and dirty shirts.” ![]() “I was impressed with people’s commitment to the land, to their family and to their community. “I wanted my mural to reflect the spirit of the people in this community and portray what daily life is like in rural South Dakota,” says Van Helten. Van Helten spent more than a month with farmers, ranchers and townspeople in Faulk County to get a feel for the community and formulate a design for the mural. The mural was painted by award winning Australian artist Guido Van Helten, who’s done several similar grain silo murals along Australia’s Silo Art Trail (read more later). ![]() That means an uptick in customers for local businesses. “Now, the elevator and the other murals in town are a source of pride, and the expected boost in tourism has proven to be true. “Some people thought we were crazy and wondered why would anybody want to put art on the grain elevator,” says Jodi Moritz, member of the Faulkton Area Arts Council. The 110-foot tall mural on Faulkton’s grain elevator (shown above) is a great example. ![]() The trend is not only transforming rural infrastructure into sites of world class mural art, it’s also telling stories of people and places that serve to rekindle lagging pride while also spurring local business. Street art has gone country! From the facades of high end restaurants and boutiques in New York’s fashionable SoHo district, the plus-sized public art form is migrating to such rustic places as the side of the Agtegra Coop grain elevator in Faulkton, South Dakota or to a concrete wall on the south side of Shorty’s barber shop in Waukomis, Oklahoma. ![]()
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