(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) (gentle upbeat music continues) - I grew up on this farm.

My, or my dad's uncle, I believe, had the farm at one time.

My dad grew up here, and we were milking cows.

I grew up on a dairy farm.

We delivered milk house to house with glass containers, and that was part of my job as a little kid growing up, is I'd run bottles to the house.

(gentle bright music) (gentle bright music continues) (gentle bright music continues) Dad wanted me to go to college, the only one who went to college, and I happened upon the art studio.

Of course, I took some art classes in high school but as a fast-track to a class through the art department.

And they were throwing pots, and I thought, "Well, I can do that.

I'm not afraid to get dirty," so.

And that's how I ran into...

They offered glass at that particular college in 1964.

When I left college, there were several opportunities out there where I could have done this or that, including teaching at the college level.

At that time, I chose to come back to the farm specifically because I wanted to raise my family on a farm where I had the freedom to roam, so to speak.

So I chose basically to come back to the farm and farm to make art.

(liquid splashing) It's what I finally really did when I focused specifically on making art from a motif that I understand or a symbol that I understand, which is the ear of corn.

You gotta hit the top before.

Okay, so right on the top.

(air hissing) (air continues hissing) So the latter work that I started that I'm making now, I have a piece called "Primordial Shift."

(upbeat music) - The exhibit behind me is called "Primordial Shift."

It's an amazing blown-glass installation that gives our guests a chance to delve into genetic engineering, especially around corn.

I mean, that was the original intent of the exhibit.

But it's been an amazing opportunity to talk about genetic engineering, not just of crops, but of other organisms as well.

Humans have been modifying crops for thousands of years, but in the past couple of decades, that's really sped up with the advent of some of the new technologies with genetic engineering.

And it's been an amazing opportunity to really look at what those technologies are and the type of questions that we need to be asking about both the pros and cons of technology.

- I planted my first genetically seed in 1995, and that's when I made the decision to make work strictly about agriculture and how it affects our world environment.

When I started working, it took me a while to get into making something that would represent that whole concept.

And so when I started making these very large pieces of corn, it's based on some... You make it larger for that shock reaction.

If you make it big, people can't ignore it.

So by doing so, I'm using that as a technique to make people think about what they're looking at.

And a lot of the work that I do will have little, small objects that make you think, "Well, what is it?

Why is that there?"

And there's several things that come into play with that, is that that's what art is supposed to do.

This is part of a later piece called "Corn Hanger" series, and the whole concept here is to take us back in time to an arrowhead as hunter, representing hunter or gather, as all of us are a part of that at one time.

We have that same DNA.

So this particular section is the kind of a mechanical part, this one and this one.

And that represents the industrial revolution, which was a big jump from, in history.

But the real big jump came in selective breeding.

It's where they got really good at at crossing one variety with another, all hung on a glass bar, which represents the fragility of our food systems.

If I'm a contemporary artist, I'm making work that's about our time, and our time is really, my time is really about how do I make enough food to produce and feed the world.

I'm a part of that, and so that's always on my mind.

My grandfather had a 60-acre farm.

My dad had a 200-acre farm, and when I started farming and just recently retired, we were running 2,000 acres.

But 40 bushel is where it started, and when I retired, we are getting upwards of 300 bushels to the acre.

(gentle guitar music) (singer hums) It is a very complicated situation to try to do both professions really well, but the timeframe was right because farming is seasonal.

And so I had this opportunity in the winter with the slow months.

Funny thing is is that so often I couldn't wait to get back into the studio.

The downside to that is I had to drop what I was doing in the spring, and by the time I got around to the next year, it was like, what was I doing then?

But the best thing about it is that I never tired of making art simply because I had a break from it.

I came back fresh, and that's really how I got to the point where I am with my work.

(gentle guitar music continues) (flame hissing) Yeah, good enough.

(door squeaking) - Okay.

(handle clanking) Yeah!

- Yeah.

- [Announcer] Thanks for watching "The Arts Page."

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