Hay bales finding lots of art fans

Hay fields across Montana and Wyoming are filling with round and square bales, providing feed for the winter and artistic opportunities for the creative. It is called ‘hay bale art’ and it is increasing in popularity around the nation. In Montana, the Utica County Fair has played a part growing the popular medium. Each year fair directors include a “Follow the Bale Trail” display on U.S. Highway 239. Nobody really knows how hay bale or straw bale art started. But, like those mysterious crop circles, it appears quietly around the world, showing up almost overnight on little-traveled country lanes, busy freeways, or near gravel roads. Around the country, a lot of bale art will sport holiday themes. Giant spiders and pumpkins lurk in fields at Halloween time. Massive turkeys, large enough to feed 50 to 100 hungry cattle, often show up at Thanksgiving; and Christmas time is sure to find white snow-bales stacked up to form a giant snowman large enough to cause the puny snowman in the neighbor’s yard to melt with shame. However, from Hobson to Utica to Windham, there is no theme and bales of all shapes and ideas dot the fields along the 20-miles stretch. The bales and their artistic titles will make you smile. Viewers may see a giant pink and black bottle of “Oil of Old Hay,” waiting longside a fence; a “Grizzly Bale” lumbering across a field; a gargantuan “Baled Bald Eagle” surveying the land; even two, brightly colored fish spend time “Finding Hay-mo” in a central Montana pasture...more