He was up before the sun and the last one in at night. The American Farm Dad cleared the land, broke the prairie sod, raised crops and children with equal devotion, and tied his family to the land and the land to his identity. For generations, the family farm wasn't just a livelihood — it was a legacy, measured in century farms and callused hands and quiet pride. Gary L Hightshoe captured one such Iowa farmstead in 1972 — a wood silo and barn from the 1880s-to-1930s era of Midwest agriculture, demolished shortly after, taking a piece of that legacy with them. Well, I'll Be Barned. This T-Shirt is for every Farm Dad who gave everything to the land he loved, and for every kid who watched him do it.
Gary L Hightshoe is the "Tree Whisperer." The grandfather of the prairie. The godfather of Savanna Studio. As Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University, Gary taught plant materials, planting design, and landscape resource management for more than 47 years. His students, his colleagues, and his friends gave him those names because they captured what was true: nobody knew the trees, the prairie, the savanna, the Midwest's living landscape the way Gary did, and nobody loved them more.
Gary is the author and illustrator of North American Plantfile and Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Rural and Urban America — books that have shaped the field of landscape architecture for a generation. His most enduring contribution may be Savanna Studio, the only traveling landscape architecture studio of its kind in the world. Over two decades, Gary led more than 1,000 students to the Boundary Waters, Yellowstone, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Banff, and the Badlands — teaching them that you can't develop a relationship with the landscape from behind a desk.
Through his art, Gary brings the natural world he has spent a lifetime studying into spaces where people can carry a piece of it with them every day. Every tree he draws, every barn he sketches, every silo he renders is a small act of preservation — a record of the Midwest as it was, as it is, and as it deserves to be remembered.
"Long after we've come and gone, a tree still stands." — Gary L Hightshoe
About this T-Shirt:
A Kate Shu Collective exclusive, available only at the Monarch Shoppe.
He was up before the sun and the last one in at night. The American Farm Dad cleared the land, broke the prairie sod, raised crops and children with equal devotion, and tied his family to the land and the land to his identity. For generations, the family farm wasn't just a livelihood — it was a legacy, measured in century farms and callused hands and quiet pride. Gary L Hightshoe captured one such Iowa farmstead in 1972 — a wood silo and barn from the 1880s-to-1930s era of Midwest agriculture, demolished shortly after, taking a piece of that legacy with them. Well, I'll Be Barned. This T-Shirt is for every Farm Dad who gave everything to the land he loved, and for every kid who watched him do it.
Gary L Hightshoe is the "Tree Whisperer." The grandfather of the prairie. The godfather of Savanna Studio. As Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University, Gary taught plant materials, planting design, and landscape resource management for more than 47 years. His students, his colleagues, and his friends gave him those names because they captured what was true: nobody knew the trees, the prairie, the savanna, the Midwest's living landscape the way Gary did, and nobody loved them more.
Gary is the author and illustrator of North American Plantfile and Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Rural and Urban America — books that have shaped the field of landscape architecture for a generation. His most enduring contribution may be Savanna Studio, the only traveling landscape architecture studio of its kind in the world. Over two decades, Gary led more than 1,000 students to the Boundary Waters, Yellowstone, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Banff, and the Badlands — teaching them that you can't develop a relationship with the landscape from behind a desk.
Through his art, Gary brings the natural world he has spent a lifetime studying into spaces where people can carry a piece of it with them every day. Every tree he draws, every barn he sketches, every silo he renders is a small act of preservation — a record of the Midwest as it was, as it is, and as it deserves to be remembered.
"Long after we've come and gone, a tree still stands." — Gary L Hightshoe
About this T-Shirt:
A Kate Shu Collective exclusive, available only at the Monarch Shoppe.
