Painting the town, again

By Kim McDarison  

Artist Larry Schultz might live in Milton, but he’s made an impression on Fort Atkinson. 

Those familiar with the mural on the city’s water department building, 37 North Water Street, know his work, and visitors to the National Dairy Shrine at the Hoard Museum may be familiar with his painting: “The Seven Wonders of Wisconsin,” created as a commemorative piece for Wisconsin’s first All-Dairy Breeds convention held in Oconomowoc in 2000. The painting features the seven breeds used within the dairy industry and hangs today in the museum.

Larry has also created cover art for two Christmas editions — 2016 and 2020 — of Hoard’s Dairyman, the national dairy farm magazine, located in Fort Atkinson. 

Regionally, visitors to the Milton House Museum in Milton can also view a mural painted by Larry. His nearly three-story rendition of American history, as it relates to slavery, spans a staircase and its associated landings. 

Recently, Jude Hartwick, president of the Fort Atkinson Beautification Council, the organization that commissioned the Water Department building mural that was dedicated in the fall of 2019, said the organization is looking at other opportunities to employ Larry’s skills. The council is looking at several structures in nearby locations to the Water Department building and along the Rock River. More information about upcoming projects will be released soon, Hartwick said. 

So who is Larry Schultz, and how did he discover and develop his talents? 

Finding his way 

A native of Iowa, Larry arrived in Milton with his parents when he was a year old. The family would grow to include eight children, including Larry’s six sisters and one brother. 

Although he never married or had children of his own, as a director of a youth ministry called “Kononia,” a Greek word meaning “fellowship,” Larry said, “I have everyone else’s children.”

The ministry holds weekly youth meetings and Bible studies and performs a Christian musical each summer featuring the Kononia Singers. 

“We take it on the road,” Larry said. 

Between his work with Kononia and his devotion to art, Larry said, “It’s like I have two lives.” 

Larry makes his home in a modest 16- by 20-foot cabin situated on a 15-acre Seventh Day Baptist Church campground in Milton where he serves as caretaker. 

His dwelling is heated by a wood-burning stove and is situated near the camp’s lodge where Larry has access to a bathroom. The space is filled with art, art supplies, and printed materials depicting images Larry has produced or used as reference materials for paintings he’s made. It’s both cluttered and cozy. 

Larry shares his space with a former barn cat named “Sugar Lips.” 

Larry has occupied his cabin for 16 years and enjoys rural living.

“It’s always an adventure in the country,” he said. 

Larry said his interest in art began with a drawing made by his mother.

“When I was a kid, I was easily inspired. I asked my mom to draw a house. She would have never called herself an artist, but she drew it in perspective, as a cube,” Larry said, adding that the drawing piqued his interest and he began taking art classes at school. 

His pursuit of art lapsed in junior high, he said, after he felt discouraged in an art class. In high school, he resumed his classes and by his senior year, he was spending some four hours each day in the Milton High School art room. 

Larry graduated in 1970 and continued his education at Madison Area Technical College, earning an associate degree in commercial art in 1973. 

After graduation, Larry went to work at a print shop in Janesville where he was employed as a graphic artist. 

In this work he found frustration, he said. His dreams revolved around producing fine art. 

It was during this time, Larry said, that a friend living in Colorado invited him for a visit. Upon his arrival, while relaxing in his hotel room, he came upon a Bible. 

The Bible instructed him that the way to heaven was by trusting in God. Larry said he found the words inspiring. 

Larry moved to Colorado and found work in an advertising agency. 

It was the 1970s, he said, and the economy was showing signs of decline. Larry decided to return to Wisconsin, gladdened to be coming home, but concerned, he said. “I thought God might only be in Colorado.” 

He decided to seek out Christian fellowship, and in the summer of 1975, he found an opportunity as a bus driver for a youth group. 

While driving the bus, Larry said, he found himself taking an active role in guiding the group’s trip and activities. 

He organized the kids as singers, which, he said, was the inception for what would later become the Kononia Singers. 

At the trip’s conclusion, Larry said, he was asked by the group’s pastor to stay on as a youth leader. Larry spent the next seven years as a church volunteer. 

While volunteering, he also took classes at  UW-Whitewater, earning his teaching degree in art. He graduated in 1981. 

That same year, he said, he became a full-time director for Youth for Christ. The group was supported through donations. After a time, there was a lull in donations, Larry said, so the organization allowed him to find an income through his art. 

Larry also served, between 1982 and 1992, as a substitute teacher within the Milton school district. 

Forming an art business

Larry began selling his art through commissions from family and friends. Among his early clients was a former 4-H acquaintance who asked Larry to make a painting of his horse. 

“I enjoyed it so much that I started painting horses,” Larry said. 

Larry has a long association with horses and today keeps two of his own. 

“When I started painting horses, my friend said: ‘you need to get a booth at the Midwest Horse Fair.’” 

Larry opened a booth in 1990. 

Larry found success painting portraits of people’s horses and sought opportunities at horse-related events. He set up a booth at the Region 10 Arabian Horse Show, held in 1991 in Milwaukee at the Wisconsin State Fair grounds, and he attended a saddlebred show. He also attended art shows in Lake Geneva and Madison. He even attended one in Arlington Heights, Ill, at the race track, he said.  

While at the Midwest Horse Fair, Larry said, a contest was held to select an artist to create art for the fair’s program cover and promotional poster and he won. 

That was about 20 years ago, he said. He has been doing the fair’s program cover and poster art ever since.

Looking for more horse-related opportunities, Larry next attended the Villa Louis Carriage Classic in Prairie du Chien. That was about 15 years ago, he said. 

Every year, the event gives a print to its patrons who support the show. Before deciding to set up a booth there, Larry said, he visited the show and took a photograph of an older couple harnessing their old horse. 

He used the photo as inspiration for a painting which he sold at the event the following year. 

The painting brought attention to Larry from the horse-driving community and he was asked to create art for a poster for the Dairyland Driving Club’s Sesquicentennial Coach Run. The event featured a horse-driven coach that journeyed from the state Capitol in Madison to Prairie du Chien.

(Artwork for and information about the coach run is found here: https://www.dairylanddriving.com/3d-flip-book/1998-sesquicentennial-coach-run/.) 

Always looking to broaden his art opportunities, Larry next set his sights on the dairy industry. 

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a dairy farmer, like my uncle. I didn’t get to be a dairy farmer, but I like farms, cows, and animals. So I got a booth at the World Dairy Expo,” Larry said. That was about 20 years ago and he has been attending ever since. 

“That was the best thing for me,” he said, adding that the expo attracted people from all over the world. 

The exposure brought attention from various breeders looking for art at breed conventions. They hired Larry to do art for their posters and advertisements. 

Larry was commissioned to make a commemorative print for the World Dairy Expo’s 50th anniversary in 2016. After that, he said, he became known for including all seven dairy breeds in one painting. 

Making murals

Larry said his interest in painting murals grew from his involvement with painting sets for his ministry’s singers and other establishments. 

He saw the large backdrops as similar to murals. 

Several years ago, he said, he was commissioned to paint the mural in the stairway of the Milton House Museum. 

(A video featuring the mural is found here: https://miltonhouse.org.) 

That was the first mural, Larry said. 

In Fort Atkinson, he said, an agriculture teacher within the School District of Fort Atkinson, Jeff Agnew, was a former youth group member. 

Agnew is retired now, Larry said, but he was on the city’s Beautification Council, and, he added, “he wanted to be sure there were cows in the mural.” 

In the spring of 2018, fundraising for the project kicked off. 

Seven artists were under consideration for the project and after a bidding cycle, Larry was selected.  

Once he was chosen, he said, the committee supplied him with history books and gave him a list of items they wanted to see depicted within the mural. 

Among items on the list was a representation of the Jones Dairy Farm, and members of the Hoard family.  

“Old Mr. Hoard is standing on top of the bandstand and Mary Hoard is in the boat. The boat is called the ‘Uncle Sam’ and it used to go up and down the river,” Larry said. 

Placed in the boat also are members of the Beautification Council and other likenesses of living people whose pictures were brought to Larry by Hartwick. 

Larry also found items in history books that he thought would bring significance and depth to the mural. 

Giving it a personal touch, Larry said, he snuck the likeness of his dog, “Kiddo,” into the mural, twice.

Larry said the process of painting the mural began with a rendering on paper, showing how the completed project would look. It took about six hours to complete, he said. 

He started painting the mural in August of 2018, working between 6 and 8 hours each day, until October of that year, and then the weather turned bad, he said. 

When he began the project, area high school students and other members of the community helped him paint the larger blocks of color. 

He resumed work on the mural in April or May of 2019 and finished the project in July.

Larry is also the artist who painted the logo for the Fort Atkinson Generals, a Home Talent League baseball team, on the reservoir in Jones Park. The logo was painted in 2020.