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Monroe County Artist Featured at Ohio State Fair

Local barn artist Scott Hagan of Jerusalem is showing off his work and technique at the Ohio State Fair this week.

Hagan, who painted logos on bicentennial barns across Ohio in 2003 for the state's 200th birthday, is partnering with the Ohio History Connection to paint a mural in the Cox Fine Arts Center during the fair. The work will feature portraits of Ohio natives Gen. Charles Young and President Ulysses S. Grant, who was born 200 years ago this year.

Hagan is working 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. He started Friday and may be finished this morning.

"It's been about a four-to-five day project. It's probably going to be six days and many, many hours to finish. It's a very large type of painting," Hagan said. "It takes up the whole side of the building, so it's just a very large piece."

Hagan said some of his pieces are on display at the fair, but he believes this is the first time he has painted a mural as part of the fair's festivities. He said the work has its share of challenges.

"When I'm painting a person or a face, it's always challenging because at that size if you don't like the color that you used, it could be a two-hour mistake or a half-a-day mistake ... just to make the improvements. That's what's going on here, just to make the eyes look right and the color and skin-tones look right, and of course the scale of the whole thing. It's just a tedious, slow project and that's just part of it.

"It's interesting that in here are so many pieces of artwork that's nice from around the state, and my canvas is right on the wall," Hagan said. "That's how I look at the work. The country is my canvas."

The mural was designed by graphic artist David Browning.

"This particular project was presented to me, and I'm simply the 'vessel' to put the painting up on the wall," Hagan said, noting he is honored to have been chosen. "It's very humbling. It's nice to be, I guess, sought out in a sense."

Visitors included Gov. Mike DeWine observed and even took a turn with a brush.

"He had a brush and he filled in a spot," Hagan said.

Hagan said DeWine is no stranger to his work, since he has painted murals on barns at DeWine's home at Cedarville.

"The governor and I have known each other probably since about 2000. I painted his barn about three times over the past 20 years, so we're familiar with each other and he liked the painting," Hagan said. "He's always been very nice to me, a very nice man. He seems interested in the project, so it was nice that he could come out to the fair and see it."

Hagan said Curt Fields, a portrayer of Ulysses Grant, and a woman portraying his wife, Julia Dent Grant, also stopped by to see the painting.

"We had a governor there and a president at the same time," Hagan quipped.

He noted that his career started simply.

"It was just sort of an accidental career, I had just been doing some paintings when I was younger, and I just wanted to see how big I could do it freehand," Hagan said.

His distinct barn paintings eventually would catch the attention of local news outlets, which led to him getting more noteworthy jobs.

"At the time, they were about to do a bunch of billboards around the state for the upcoming Ohio bicentennial, and they thought it might be a cool idea to do barns instead of billboards," he said.

"One thing nice about this particular project is I'm inside, so I don't have to worry about the weather, although it's really hot in this facility," he continued. "In painting outdoors, weather is the biggest factor."

He said much of his art these days is in school gymnasiums.

"Which I really enjoy. It's fun to come into a high school gym and make it look a lot better," he said.

A typical project takes him two to 10 days, depending on size and detail. His projects can be 10 feet long to 150 feet. Hagan said photographs of painted barns often fail to do them justice, compared to seeing them in person.

Hagan added that another challenge is staying away from the food and entertainment of the fair while his family enjoys the event.

He advised people who are interested in trying out barn painting to learn the basics of painting and maintaining barns.

"You have to know how to just paint in general before you're going to start doing artwork, because a lot of my work, I have to paint and maybe fix the side of the barn first. A lot of people don't realize there's a lot of prep work ... before you do any artwork," he said. "I didn't know what I was doing at 19, and I'm self-taught. I don't have a degree, and here I am making a living at it.

"Anybody who wants to work right now can find a job," he said. "Any kid out of high school could just start like I did, just start doing labor. It doesn't sound like something you want to do, but that's how you're going to work your way up."