Commemorative Handcrafted Tile – 2021

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and What’s on the other side?”  Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher ask in their song Rainbow Connection released in 1979.  The song poses an answer in the symbol’s connection to spirituality, hope and growth.  “Someday we’ll find it, The rainbow connection…”.  We never could have imagined a world where at any given time the earth’s population would experience the exact same emotions of fear, grief, and hope.  When life as we knew it changed overnight and we went into mass quarantine, people all over the world began painting rainbows in their windows as a message to their neighbors that they believed better days were ahead.  This message of hope, positivity, and the worldwide use of the rainbow to convey it, needed no translation.  We all know the sun shines magnificently after a rainbow.  The universal use of this symbol to convey hope and connection to the rest of humanity deeply inspired me and reminded me how there would be much growth to come.  The wheat in this year’s tile design not only represents the Wheatland community but also the new music this collective experience would inspire and the new growth that follows.  The future holds tremendous beauty and it up to us to interpret it in our own way, express it in any way we can and realize we have so much to look forward to.