Artist Gary L Hightshoe | Farm Kid White Coffee Mug

from $16.00
A Farm Kid's summer didn't look like anyone else's. No camp. No sleeping in. No long family vacations — because the crops needed tending and the animals needed feeding and the farm didn't pause for anyone. A Farm Kid learned to drive a tractor before they learned to drive a car, knew the difference between a good harvest and a hard year before they knew algebra, and understood responsibility in a way that a classroom couldn't teach. They worked alongside their parents and grandparents, absorbing generations of knowledge through their hands and their boots and their earliest mornings. Gary L Hightshoe drew this Stagecoach Road barn in 1972 — a place where Farm Kids grew into Farm Adults, carrying the land with them wherever they went. You can take the kid off the farm. You can't take the farm out of the kid. Gary L. Hightshoe is an Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University, where he taught plant materials, planting design, and landscape resource management for more than 47 years. Over the course of nearly half a century, his colleagues, clients, students, and family have known him by many names — the Tree Whisperer, the Grandfather of the Prairie, the Godfather of Savanna Studio — and every one of them fits. A lifelong conservationist, ecologist, historian, illustrator, hunter, angler, photographer, and artist, Gary is the author and illustrator of two landmark works: Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Rural and Urban America and North American Plantfile — books that continue to shape the field of landscape architecture. His most enduring legacy, however, may be Savanna Studio at Iowa State: the only traveling landscape architecture studio of its kind in the world. Over two decades, Gary led more than 1,000 students out from behind their desks and into the field — to the Boundary Waters, Yellowstone, Theodore Roosevelt, the Badlands, and beyond — because, as he has always believed, "you can't develop a relationship with the landscape from behind a desk." Gary loves the great White Oak, the Pagoda and Flowering Dogwood, and any native prairie forb. His granddaughters will tell you he is decidedly not a fan of petunias, lilacs, or red-leafed varieties. And he has spent a lifetime restoring 40 acres of never-tilled original Iowa land — wetland, prairie, and forest — to the way it was always meant to be. "Long after we've come and gone, a tree still stands." — Gary L. Hightshoe Gary L. Hightshoe is one of five Kate Shu Collective STAR Resident Artists and a treasured member of the Monarch Shoppe family. His mugs are an invitation — to hold something handcrafted, to slow down, and to remember that the land has stories worth telling. About this Mug: • Available in 11 oz, 15 oz, and 20 oz • Premium white gloss finish • Printed using dye sublimation technology — the image is fused directly into the ceramic surface for vivid, true-to-life color that won't fade, crack, or peel. Ever. • Handle stays cool even when your coffee is boiling • Microwave and dishwasher safe • Print quality is exceptional — exactly as pictured
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A Farm Kid's summer didn't look like anyone else's. No camp. No sleeping in. No long family vacations — because the crops needed tending and the animals needed feeding and the farm didn't pause for anyone. A Farm Kid learned to drive a tractor before they learned to drive a car, knew the difference between a good harvest and a hard year before they knew algebra, and understood responsibility in a way that a classroom couldn't teach. They worked alongside their parents and grandparents, absorbing generations of knowledge through their hands and their boots and their earliest mornings. Gary L Hightshoe drew this Stagecoach Road barn in 1972 — a place where Farm Kids grew into Farm Adults, carrying the land with them wherever they went. You can take the kid off the farm. You can't take the farm out of the kid. Gary L. Hightshoe is an Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University, where he taught plant materials, planting design, and landscape resource management for more than 47 years. Over the course of nearly half a century, his colleagues, clients, students, and family have known him by many names — the Tree Whisperer, the Grandfather of the Prairie, the Godfather of Savanna Studio — and every one of them fits. A lifelong conservationist, ecologist, historian, illustrator, hunter, angler, photographer, and artist, Gary is the author and illustrator of two landmark works: Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Rural and Urban America and North American Plantfile — books that continue to shape the field of landscape architecture. His most enduring legacy, however, may be Savanna Studio at Iowa State: the only traveling landscape architecture studio of its kind in the world. Over two decades, Gary led more than 1,000 students out from behind their desks and into the field — to the Boundary Waters, Yellowstone, Theodore Roosevelt, the Badlands, and beyond — because, as he has always believed, "you can't develop a relationship with the landscape from behind a desk." Gary loves the great White Oak, the Pagoda and Flowering Dogwood, and any native prairie forb. His granddaughters will tell you he is decidedly not a fan of petunias, lilacs, or red-leafed varieties. And he has spent a lifetime restoring 40 acres of never-tilled original Iowa land — wetland, prairie, and forest — to the way it was always meant to be. "Long after we've come and gone, a tree still stands." — Gary L. Hightshoe Gary L. Hightshoe is one of five Kate Shu Collective STAR Resident Artists and a treasured member of the Monarch Shoppe family. His mugs are an invitation — to hold something handcrafted, to slow down, and to remember that the land has stories worth telling. About this Mug: • Available in 11 oz, 15 oz, and 20 oz • Premium white gloss finish • Printed using dye sublimation technology — the image is fused directly into the ceramic surface for vivid, true-to-life color that won't fade, crack, or peel. Ever. • Handle stays cool even when your coffee is boiling • Microwave and dishwasher safe • Print quality is exceptional — exactly as pictured