Event continues to grow, benefit economy
By Gigi Wood
It was a one-on-one battle.
Capturing the personality of the iconic Olympic gold medal winner and former University of Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable on canvas was physically and emotionally draining. Artist Jeff McNutt spent hours researching the sports legend, leafed through 400 images of Mr. Gable at UI special collections and was often up until 3 a.m. painting it. Then he decided his painting wasn’t good enough and he started over.
“Dan Gable has said, ‘Once you’ve wrestled, everything else is easy.’ Well, once you’ve painted Dan Gable, everything else is easy,” he said.
Mr. Gable often said that “good enough is not enough” that athletes need to strive to be their best. Mr. McNutt strived for the same in a portrait of the wrestling great.
“I realized wrestling and painting have a lot in common. It’s a one-on-one battle and I wanted to pin the painting,” he said.
The resulting painting will be auctioned off for charity at Fry Fest in Coralville Sept. 2. The three-year-old festival honors Mr. Gable, who will be at the event and signing autographs at the Coralville Marriott at 4:30 p.m. The painting auction is at 4 p.m.
Events will take place throughout the day at the festival, which aims to honor former UI football coach Hayden Fry and other Hawkeye greats, as well as kick off the football season. The Hawkeyes’ first game is 11 a.m. Sept. 3 against Tennessee Tech at Kinnick Stadium.
Each year, the festival has become more successful and created positive results for the local economy. About 22,000 people attended during the first year, while 25,500 attended last year, according to Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, which coordinates the festival.
The number of tradeshow dealers is up, as well. Forty-two were selling goods at what is billed at the world’s largest Hawkeye tradeshow last year; 63 will be there this year.
Based on a hotel survey conducted by the bureau, the festival brings in $1.8 million in new dollars to the community. Area hotels reported a 26 percent increase in occupancy during the festival’s first year. First-home-game hotel occupancy in years before the festival was about 72 percent. That number is now 99 percent, Mr. Schamberger stated in an e-mail.
“Every game is a sellout for the Hawkeyes, so this festival really just kicked off the pilgrimage to Hawkeye Football 24 hours earlier,” he stated.
This year, country music star Josh Turner will be the headline performer. Tickets to the event are $10, with proceeds going to Coralville’s 4th Fest. Last year’s concert, which featured Three Dog Night, generated nearly $10,000.
Mr. McNutt hopes the auction of the painting generates money for a local charity. Despite his hours of work, he does not worry about profiting from the work. The same was true when he painted a portrait of Mr. Fry for the first Fry Fest. While the work was grueling and the pressure was high to create a masterpiece, Mr. McNutt felt honored to do it. And his day job as a medical sales representative helps pay the bills.
A local artist, Mr. McNutt has taken an unconventional career route. While an undergraduate student during the 1980s, he was a business major and wore the Herky the Hawk mascot suit during games. Wearing the suit brought joy to countless fans and he decided he wanted his career to create that same positive effect, in a creative way.
He interned at the Walt Disney World College Program, where he learned how to illustrate. He then traveled toCalifornia, where he honed his skills on the streets ofHollywood, producing drawings and sketches.
After a few years, he decided he wanted to learn how to paint, so he could work as a children’s book illustrator. With no painting experience and not realizing he was a better match for an art academy, he applied to the UI’s art school. He was enrolled and placed in classes alongside artists who had been painting for years. The day before his first class, he went to Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City, to buy a book on how to properly hold a paintbrush.
“I drove my professors crazy; I was asking them questions my classmates learned in seventh grade,” he said.
Between his love for vintage Batman comic books, experience at Disney and fine arts training at the UI, Mr. McNutt has developed an unusual style and product for his fledgling art business. Vintage Herky is often the subject of his work, which features all the techniques found in a fine art painting, such as layering, light and shadow.
Working out of a studio off Summit Street in Iowa City, Mr. McNutt blends the thick black lines found in cartoons of the 1950s with his Hawkeye pride. His big break came in 2006, when, after displaying his paintings at M.C. Ginsberg in downtown Iowa City, he was asked to paint a portrait of former UI kicker Nate Kaeding for the Nate Kaeding Golf Tournament at the Brown Deer Golf Course.
“I poured my heart and soul into the Nate painting,” he said.
He has had difficulty finding galleries that will display his work, because to some, the paintings are too cartoonish. But Mr. McNutt has remained determined to pursue his artistic passion.
When Kinnick Stadium was renovated five years ago, he obtained some of the metal from the press box, as well as brick and wire, which he uses in his paintings for a 3D appeal. Many of his paintings have Kinnick Stadium brick dust affixed to the paint.
He plans to use multiple mediums in other paintings. He has acquired some historic pieces of the Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field and plans to create new paintings using those materials.
