Image surfing this past week for historic graphics and photos with patriotic themes, and I came across this photo and story. I thought I would give it another posting with full credit to the author of the story and photographer from Racine Wisconsin. Truly an image with "Patriotic Seeds"!!

Photo/Jeffery Phelps

Mark Madson runs down a hillside in Racine on Wednesday, carrying markers used in painting a football-field-sized flag with a tractor. He will add white stripes to the red ones and white stars to a blue field. 'I want to share the feeling I have when I look at the American flag,' Madson said.

 

Giant flag painted across Racine field

By JEANETTE HURT

of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: Oct. 31, 2001

Racine - Using a tractor as a brush, 300 gallons of paint as a palette and a landfill as his canvas, Mark Madson painted a masterpiece Wednesday.

 

Madson, 49, usually spends his days running his Little Limestone Co. quarry in Clinton in Rock County, but Wednesday he took a turn playing a patriotic Michelangelo. With the help of landfill employees, Madson spent the day painting an American flag the size of a football field - more than 100 yards long and about half as wide - on a slope of the Kestrel Hawk landfill, which is off 21st St., just beyond the back parking lot of Sam's Club on the city's southwest side.

"I want to share the feeling I have when I look at the American flag," Madson said, helping Troy Underhill and Francisco Aralleno fill a hand sprayer with extra blue paint.

Madson, whose blond hair and sun-tanned face was dribbled with blue paint, said he originally wanted to paint the flag in a field outside of Clinton to show his patriotism after the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 in New York and Washington, D.C., but the state Department of Natural Resources said no.

"That's just begging for a flag, but the DNR said I couldn't paint over the weeds," Madson said. "They're protected weeds."

Driving an Oliver 550 tractor, Madson painted the blue corner of the flag with Underhill and Aralleno's assistance before working on the stripes.

"It's a good place to have this - there's enough space here," Underhill said, stepping out of the way as Madson drove by with the tractor, spraying streams of leftover blue paint.

Madson said he came up with the idea to use the landfill about a month ago while he was having breakfast with his friend, Mike Ettner, at Elizabeth's Cafe in Delavan. Ettner runs the landfill, and he offered the field and assistance from employees.Ettner's help, along with paint donated by Hallman/Lindsay Paints of Madison, computerized design donated by Beacon Ballfields of Middleton, and fertilizer equipment donated by DeLong Co. of Evansville and Janesville, got Madson on his way.

"These people had faith in my idea, that it was a worthwhile project," Madson said.

Madson said he designed the project - and the paint system - the Thomas Edison way.

"I found 87 ways to do it wrong before I came up with the right way," Madson said.

Madson is used to playing with equipment and trying out new ideas. He has a truck suspended in a tree outside of his house near I-43. He has produced a two-hour video, "How to Build a Pro Street Lawn Mower," a guide on souping up riding mowers. But this is his first foray into painting.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Nov. 1, 2001.

 

Photo/Jeffery Phelps

Apartment complexes provide perspective on the scope of Mark Madson's undertaking Wednesday in this aerial photograph on the southwest side of Racine. 'I've never had so much fun watching paint dry,' Madson said.