“Papa wants to give you $2,000.”
”What?!”
”He said you could have more fun with it and wants to help you get to Morocco.”
<speechless, mouth agape>

My Grandpa Stoner made a HUGE contribution to our Kickstarter campaign to get to Morocco last year. This was our inaugural trip to launch The Jobs Project and a trip that is an anchor point in our young family’s life. But to fully appreciate how dumbfounded I was to hear of my Grandpa’s contribution, I need to give you a glimpse into the 93 years that Dwayne R. Stoner has been kickin’ up dust in rural South Dakota.

Dwayne “Papa” Stoner. He loves giving M&M’s to the great grandkids.

Papa, as we grandkids call him, was born near Mellette, South Dakota in 1927, just before the Great Depression. The oldest of seven kids, he grew up quickly and was tasked with taking care of his younger siblings from a young age. They didn’t have much and the unceasing dust covered most of what they did have during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. His parents were farmers and Papa learned to work the land ever since he could walk.

Eventually, he settled near Tulare, South Dakota (my hometown) where he started raising livestock and growing crops. My Grandma LaDean (we grandkids call her Nanny) and he had four kids, one of which is my mother, Janelle. Eventually, he moved into town, where he began tinkering on small engines and making trailers and other functional things out of metal. He was respected in Tulare and was elected mayor for a time. Papa also fostered a reputation for being able to fix damn near anything and “Doc” Stoner handpainted a sign above his workshop to let folks know where to bring their dysfunctional lawnmowers and tractors.

Stoner Family, including my mother, Janelle, as the little doll front and center

The shop is where I often found him when I got old enough to ride my bike the three blocks to my grandparents’ house on the corner of town. The classic country music would be playing and I always snuck a peek at the women in neon swimsuits that reminded him which month it is (some months lasted half a year). It smelled like grease and hot metal and work, which Papa would always take a break from to ask what I was up to. He’d offer me a Cert breath mint and I’d ask if I could take the four-wheeler he’d fixed up for a spin around the makeshift track encircling his shop. I don’t remember him ever saying no.

Like many folks who grew up during the Great Depression, Papa was thrifty and wouldn’t throw anything away, choosing instead to keep it until he found a use for it. Scrap metal of all sorts awaited their chance at a new life outside his shop while inside you could find all sorts of knick-knacks and pieces of machines, gears, and bolts organized and ready to be repurposed. It was a dream for a treasure-hunting kid like me and I always loved picking over his stash. Papa’s never-waste mentality carried over to his spending, where he was always willing to wait to get the best deal or to make something broken work again rather than buying it new.

This is all to say that, while Papa’s generosity wasn’t surprising when he said he wanted to chip in for our trip Morocco, the amount he gave was. It is also important to keep in mind that the only Kickstarter that Papa knows anything about is the one he would tinker with on a dirtbike to get it running again. Needless to say, he did not know about the reward tiers that are a staple of any Kickstarter campaign. He expected nothing back, which made the gift all the more touching.

When I started pondering what to paint for Papa, my mind first went to the jobs that he’s held in his life: farmer, mechanic, tinkerer. But last year when he and my grandma decided that they were too old to live on their own anymore and needed to move to an assisted living apartment in neighboring Redfield, the idea for the painting really began to take form.

Tulare is a tiny town. A little more than 200 people live there. My high school graduating class had 9 (yes, nine) people. During track practice, we used to run around the entire perimeter of the town and it was just over a mile. It’s rural. But I love Tulare and I know Papa does too. So I knew that since he couldn’t live there anymore, my painting could bring Tulare to him.

The tallest structure in Tulare by far is the water tower. It is surrounded by the flattest land you can imagine for miles in any direction and the water tower silently looms above it all. It is the only landmark you need when navigating Tulare’s four avenues and in case you forget which town you’re in “TULARE” is prominently painted on its side.

Tulare, South Dakota (photo credit: Chad Tipton)

So to bring Tulare to Papa’s new apartment, I decided that I would paint him the water tower and the painter that would climb its numerous rungs to repaint it every so often. The Water Tower Painter features this worker hauling his brush and paint up high above the surrounding farmland, which melts away into the horizon. Far below him is an aerial view of Nanny and Papa’s house and his beloved shop where he would tinker and work his mechanical magic. A crane, which is how they repaint many water towers nowadays, rises above the landscape, showing the evolution of this specialized profession.

When I presented The Water Tower Painter to Papa, it was his turn to be speechless. “Thank you, Tyler, “ he finally said after taking a moment to find the right words. He looked meekly up at me with a twinkle in his eye, his frail frame bent over from a life of hard work. We shared a knowing smirk and a silent moment that I will never forget.

I haven’t ever been able to properly express to Papa how much he’s meant to me and all of our family. The words just never come out right. But when words fail, art can step in and say the unsayable. The Water Tower Painter is my ode to Tulare and to my incredible Grandpa, who built a good life for himself and his family there on the windswept plains of South Dakota.

The Water Tower Painter is now available as a limited-edition print and you can SHOP HERE. Stay tuned for more art adventures from our home base in rural Michigan.

A Commission for a Stoner /May 19, 2020 by Tyler Voorhees

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