Craig Nutt

What’s in That Sausage?

Southern humorist Roy Blount, Jr. once said that asking where you got an idea is like asking “what’s in that sausage.” The list may be long and some of the ingredients are unexpected. Here is one example:

I was born in north central Iowa where the land is flat, the corn grows tall, and silos and grain elevators punctuate the skyline.

In 1960 my family moved to Huntsville, Alabama, “The Rocket City,” where the rumble of rocket engine tests was commonplace.

Just across the state or county line you can find fireworks stands like this, peddling rocketry fantasy – promising so much, but delivering so little.

Many people in the South are vegetable gardeners. I started gardening seriously at about the same time I began making furniture. I soon found that gardening opened up a channel of communication with all kinds of people who grow things, and eventually provided a visual vocabulary that I used in my work.

Have you ever noticed how much the Space Shuttle launch vehicle looks like a silo or considered the parallels between the military and agribusiness?

Can you guess how George H.W. Bush provided the final inspiration for the work below? (More at the Yuma Symposium!)

Golden Bantam Bomb, 1989, 20”x21”x9”, Oil paint on wood.