A new mural on the side of John Deere in Horicon celebrates the company's history while giving a shout-out to the Horicon Marsh.
Prior to being painted, the wall was dated, with boarded-up windows and insulation showing, which wasn’t the best look for the company or the community, said Deanna Dickerson, who coordinated the project for John Deere. The wall also faces Bowling Green Park.
The side of John Deere before the mural went up on the building
“The Horicon Blue Heron Marsh Tours come up through here to tour the marsh, there are kayaks, and they see right into the side of our factory,” Dickerson said. “We wanted to give a better view of ourselves.”
They were thinking of fixing the windows, but Dickerson said they decided to go bigger, offering a mural the community could be proud of.
She contacted several artists before settling on James Barany, whose day job is a professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, to design the attraction.
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“I wanted it to celebrate both the natural history of the marsh and the progression of our equipment that we make in town,” Dickerson said.
A mural celebrating the history of John Deere in Horicon was placed on the building this summer. The last panel went up on July 3.
Barany went on a tour of the factory and visited Horicon Marsh before coming up with the design of the mural, he said. Historians and others worked with him to discuss the progression of the Deere products and the wildlife that frequents Horicon Marsh.
The mural depicts John Deere tractors lined up from the older equipment on the left to the newer equipment on the right, he said.
“It is kind of in a Darwinian way flowing from one era to the next,” Barany said. “You can see the colors transition and shift.”
The tractors are designed and manufactured in Horicon, Dickerson said.
“The composition highlights the Marsh’s extraordinary biodiversity: Canadian Geese, Redhead Duck, Wrens, Blue Herons, Warbling Vireos, Tree Swallows, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and Sandhill Cranes—all thriving within this protected environment,” according to a description of the project given to the Horicon Parks and Recreation Committee.
The Horicon Blue Heron Marsh Tour floats by the mural on the John Deere building in Horicon on Friday.
The mural is made of 345 4-feet-by-4-feet panels. Barany painted the panels by hand in his studio in Waukesha before they were shipped to Horicon. He painted from September through May, with the installation beginning in May. The last panel went up on July 3.
A bronze plaque in the park also gives information about the equipment depicted in the mural, Dickerson said.
