The barn star mission

During last week’s Arctic cold and snow, I completed the restoration of an eight-point wooden barn star that had graced our home for about a decade.

Five-point barn stars are associated with 18th-century southeastern Pennsylvania. With various designs and point counts, they have become, like quilts, a beloved expression of the rich and varied textures of American folk art. These days, you can spot them on suburban homes and buy them on Amazon Prime.

Students of barn star traditions generally agree that their varied colors and shapes reflect flavors of European culture and religion. An article on the website of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center notes that Dutch Americans called the icons “Schtanne” (stars) and “blumme” (flowers). But during the 1920s, some began referring to them as “hex stars.” I prefer the former label.

Academic panels weigh in on their origins and mythologies, while flea market vendors pitch a particular barn star’s provenance and symbolism. I just find them pleasing to look at. I smile, knowing that generations of rural folk acted on hunches that barn stars, aka hex signs, would bring good luck to the farm and cast well-being wishes at neighbors.

Found art

I bought my barn star during a September fete in the town of Victoria’s Lions Park. The Nordic Music Fest boasted talented folk dancers and fiddlers in traditional costumes but also, strangely, enactors dressed like Viking warriors with battle axes and thrusting spears. Lutefisk, foul-tasting dried fish that is lye-brined and then boiled for eating, was available, and so too was the joking about it.

I’m an anti-war Scandi and dislike lutefisk and the limp humor it prompts. I retreated to a row of inviting canopy stands stocked with artisan candles, trinkets, sweaters, books, and barn stars.

The pinewood petals that formed the eight-point star I bought for 30 bucks sported the colors of the Norwegian flag: red, blue, and white. It appeared weathered but was no antique. A sly paintbrush had mimicked old age and wisdom. I liked it. 

My barn star spent the next eight years shifting locations on our backyard cedar fence, blessing humanity and resident chipmunks and chickadees. The star’s thin, hardboard mounting plate, however, began to warp a few years before COVID weaseled into town. Three Septembers ago, its ring hanger broke, and it crashed into a platoon of zinnias.

I could have used the broken star for fire pit kindling, but I didn’t. I stowed the eight petals under the basement steps and publicly vowed to reset them as a star that would again protect our Eden Prairie cottage. I was passionate. Family and neighbors responded with polite indifference.

The petals collected dust for two years until this February. Arctic cold, flu alerts, social media, and ongoing political dysfunction in Washington inspired me to do something useful, like repairing the star.

A workbench confession

Our basement workbench doubles as a safe place in winter for one of my banana plants and shares space with odd pieces of wood, a shabby cardboard box stuffed with paintball gear, and the occasional forgotten mug with an inch of cold coffee. The mess is lit by a grow lamp.

As I cleared space for the repair job, I thought some about my brief stint in a junior high wood shop class. My handmade shoe-shine caddy was laughably tippy. When school broke for summer vacation, Mr. Kreske, the shop teacher, sincerely thanked me for not signing up for metal shop in September.

A plan

I needed a work plan and established one. That plan changed more frequently than I had expected. Over the course of five days, with trips and revisits to Menards, Home Depot, Michaels, and Frattallone’s Ace Hardware in search of a pinewood mount that wouldn’t warp, wood glue, clamps, sandpaper, and brass screws, I ended up spending 45 bucks for materials to fix a barn star that any art fair entrepreneur could build from scratch for, say, 7 bucks.

I didn’t need to buy duct tape. The dryer repair guy had left us the roll we had paid for as part of his hefty bill. I recall thanking him.

Before the bonding surgery, I removed steel-hard splotches of old glue with coarse sandpaper and elbow grease after failures with a bench plane and a paint scraper.

I used the duct tape to temporarily hold the eight pieces in star formation while placing them onto the circular mount coated with quick-setting glue. Several petals fell apart during a practice run. I added more tape, lowered the star, pressed each petal by hand into perfect position, and clamped them down to set for 24 hours.

Mission completed

During 12 hours over five days of bumbling over a humble barn star, I pondered how members of the crew on “Ask This Old House,” a popular PBS series, could repair a banister, install a water heater, and landscape an entire front yard in a single day.

The last lap of my quest to be useful with real tools, rather than bothering with AI texting robots, involved driving two brass screws into each petal from the pine mount. The glue alone would work, but I wanted this repair to last.

I used my great-grandfather’s veteran, wood-handled screwdriver. Nels F. Carlson was one of the master cabinetmakers whom some family members recall helping to build the governor’s reception room at the Minnesota Capitol. He also helped craft woodwork and furniture in mansions along Summit Avenue. Grandfather Nels began learning his trade as a teen apprentice in Sweden before migrating to America.

My work was completed at 9:30 a.m. last Sunday with a tool that Nels had once used. At 4 p.m., I carried a sturdy barn star outside into the cold to see how it looked on the fence.

I then took a nap.

Editor’s note: Writer Jeff Strate is a founding member of EPLN’s Board of Directors.