By Cameron Meier
SA Editor
Ray Bubba Sorensen’s
Freedom Rock
Have you ever felt stuck between a rock and a hard place when trying to gain exposure for your art? Well, not Ray Bubba Sorensen. He's stuck ON a rock.
Foregoing the traditional exposure that a gallery or an art show might give him, Sorensen opted instead to make a name for himself - and inspire a sense of national pride in his community - by painting a patriotic mural on a large granite boulder by the side of a road in rural Iowa, just west of Des Moines. For years, the rock had been the canvas for graffiti artists and artist wannabes, so Sorensen thought he would up the aesthetic ante by turning the rock into a true work of art.
"The rock has been in its location since the 70s, so I grew up knowing about it like everyone else in the surrounding communities," says Sorensen. "I definitely wasn't the first person to paint on it, as people did all the time. ... In the summer 1999, I saw the movie Saving Private Ryan and was very inspired. I wanted to go paint something for our local veterans. So I decided to paint it on the rock. After I did it, the local Vets were so touched, they have asked me to do it every year."
Since he first painted the Freedom Rock, the young artist has received national exposure resulting in requests for t-shirts and other items with images of the rock. He's also parlayed that fame into his own mural-painting business.
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