Big News! Treinen Farm selected as one of the ten best corn mazes in the U.S. in the USA Today’s Reader’s Choice Award.
From USA Today:
The 10Best Readers’ Choice Award contest launches new categories every other Monday at noon, revealing each category’s 20 nominees. After 4 weeks of voting, the contest closes on the 28th day at noon. On the Friday after voting ends, winners are revealed. Rules allow the public the right to vote online for one nominee per category, per day.
Nominees for all categories are chosen by a panel of relevant experts which include a combination of editors from USA TODAY; editors from 10Best.com; relevant expert contributors; and sources for both these media and other Gannett properties.
10Best.com provides users with original, unbiased, and experiential travel content of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world. The core of the site’s uniqueness is its team of local travel experts: a well-traveled and well-educated group who are not only experts in their fields – and their cities – but discriminating in their tastes. These local experts live in the city they write about so the content is constantly updated. 10Best.com averages 5 million visitors per month.
https://treinenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/10Best2018-BestCornMaze-TreinenFarm-copy-e1546244028224.png300300Treinen Farm/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.pngTreinen Farm2018-10-18 11:14:502025-04-30 13:14:52Treinen Farm voted one of the ten best corn mazes in the U.S.
Before we started to plan the 2017 corn maze, we were contacted by the UW-Madison Geology Museum folks, RIch Slaughter and Brooke Norsted. They suggested doing a trilobite corn maze–and they were pretty persuasive.
We talked a lot about making a trilobite the main image in the maze, and having a sort of geology-ish theme, and then having a lot of fun education and engagement opportunities. I was basically sold when they showed me their trilobite temporary tattoos. So, we were committed to doing a trilobite very early on in the design process.
Angie’s Trilobite
The trilobite was a challenge, though, because a fairly significant proportion of people have never heard of a trilobite. And I was concerned that photos of the maze might be confusing as well. We prefer that people can easily see what the maze is supposed to be when they see the photo.
I struggled over this maze design for a lot longer than usual. I just couldn’t see a way to make the trilobite the main figure and the other geology and science-related imagery make sense.
Paris Metro entrances
Everything started to come together when I settled on an art nouveau style for the design. In a number of the earlier mazes (the dragonfly, the mermaid, Icarus) I’d used a Tiffany stained glass-esque style, and that started to get old. I decided that each year I would pick a different style. For instance, I used a folk art style inspired by linocut designs for The Fox and Grapes maze, and a Japanese Kawaii (“cute”) style for the Killer Baby Unicorn in 2016.
I found the art nouveau style to be interesting, and it was fun to research the artists and their work from that period. I discovered we had a lot of old books in the house from the period of 1890-1915 or so, and many of the covers featured art nouveau designs. I settled on art nouveau as the final selection when I broke my ankle and was unable to accompany my son on a school trip to Europe–I kept looking longingly at those iconic Paris Metropolitain entrances…
The art nouveau style is perfect for our maze because of all the organic forms, like vines and tendrils and all kinds of swirling lines–perfect for getting lost in! And trying out curving fretwork as a border gave me the idea to put the trilobite in a cabinet. A Cabinet of Curiosities, of course.
Cover art nouveau
Cabinets of Curiosities (also called “Cabinets of Wonder”) were, according to the British Library website, “small collections of extraordinary objects extraordinary objects which, like today’s museums, attempted to categorise and tell stories about the wonders and oddities of the natural world.”
Perfect for our maze theme! We already had “Shelves of Curiosities” in our library here at the Treinen Farm, so it was simple to use an Art Nouveau cabinet design to contain the various preserved specimens in our Trilobite Maze Design.
Number one question at the Treinen Farm this year is “Why are the unicorns killers?”
Let’s go back to how we think up a maze design. I (Angie) am the designer, so basically I get to do whatever I want. But I am willing to accept some input in the idea phase.
Alan (my husband, the farmer): We should do a horse.
Me: Horses are boring. And we did one in 2001. (Our very first maze was a horse and cart.)
Alan: They aren’t boring. And that was a long time ago. How about a mare and foal?
Me: No.
Alan: How about a mustang?
Me: Mustangs are stupid.
Alan: How about a team of —
Me: No.
Alan: How about–
Me: No.
Iris (the farmhand, pipes up from eating her sandwich): How about a Pegasus?
Me: No. Wait…hmmm. No.
Iris and Alan: A Pegasus would be cool. You know, it’s got wings–
Me: I know what a Pegasus is. No.
But, when I think about it a little, it’s not completely out of the question. We did Icarus a few years ago, and the wings were pretty awesome. But we’ve done quite a bit of Greek mythology, and it seemed repetitive to jump into it again (we did the Owl of Athena in 2014.) And an ethereally lovely winged horse alone was terribly boring–I couldn’t really think about what we’d talk about. A big part of coming up with the maze design has to do with how our staff will be able to engage customers–sometimes they are telling a myth or a fable, or explaining technology or math concepts. They couldn’t just stand there and say how beautiful horses with wings are.
But when I hit the internet to check out pictures of pegasi, the whole concept of the maze clicked almost instantly. We didn’t need a winged horse–that was definitely boring. We needed a badass horse: a horse that could shoot laser beams out of its eyes. A horse that could stab you with its head…
A unicorn.
And what would be even better than a Killer Unicorn? Obviously, if it was also a baby…
The rest of the process involved spending a lot of time collecting unicorn pictures, unicorn memes, unicorn songs, Youtube shows, MLP stuff. (Check out my Pinterst board for a view into my mind circa May 2016 https://www.pinterest.com/angiedvm/maze-ideas-2016/ )
https://treinenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Unicorns-are-real_sparkles-Fotor-e1476802556111.jpg207286Treinen Farm/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.pngTreinen Farm2016-09-27 10:59:112025-04-30 13:10:43Why? Why are the unicorns killers?
Preliminary drone photo of the 2014 Athena’s Owl Maze.
Designing the corn maze is a challenge every year. I’ve gotten better at handling the actual, physical design using Adobe Illustrator (not the easiest program to teach yourself, BTW…) but the theme is always tricky.
Here are some of the parameters I always set for the design:
Aesthetically pleasing and interesting
The central figure must be easily recognizable
Must make a good maze (no long dead-ends; multiple ways to get through the maze; trails fill up the 1 acre field more or less equally throughout the entire field)
Math concepts incorporated into design
History/literature/other connections to design
New parameter for 2014: must be awesome enough for outdoor advertising–last year our Kraken maze made incredible billboards, so this year I wanted to also make something that could looking amazing and maybe a little scary for the outdoor people to work with. That’s why the owl turned out so creepy…
I’ll post more on the math and mythology connections in the maze, but the basic ideas involve geometry (most prominently the Platonic solids) and the Greek mythology stories of Athena.
Maze plan with grid and cutting aids (circles and golden spiral templates) overlaid
So, contrary to popular belief, the corn maze does not simply appear in our cornfield one day…it would be awesome to wake up one morning and find a giant squid visible from the tower, but alas, we need to rely on forced labor (OK, not really forced…) in the hot sun to get the design in the field.
Here’s how we do it:
1) Finalize the design. This can involve heated discussions between the designer (Angie) and the farmer (Alan) but eventually we come up with the plan.
3) Stake the cornfield. This allows the workers to figure out where they are and relate that to the plan, which is printed out on a grid. We don’t use GPS, as our design is so complex it would be difficult to get the accuracy we need.
4) Transfer the design from the grid on the page to the grid in the field, using paint and flags to mark the trails.
5) Mow the trails as a preliminary step–corn that has been mowed off at this stage will still grow back, so if a mistake has been made, it will hopefully be caught before the next step…
6) Till out the trails. This removes the corn plants, and so the tilled trails are “permanent”–they had better be in the right spot! (although Alan has been known to take “artistic liberties” with the design on several occasions.)
Sometimes the reaction to the design is “Are you kidding me? You want me to cut that!?”
Sections can be enlarged to help get the details right–trails must be laid out accurately to 6 inches.
For perfect circles, we find the center point, measure the radius, and paint the circle. This year’s maze has a LOT of circles…which is good (check out all of those circles on the tentacles!)
Once a trail is marked with paint or flags (and double-checked against the plan), we mow the corn short.
The crew leader consults with everyone who is marking and checks over the layout. It takes about a week to get the design in the field.
Tilling is the last step–it’s the equivalent of drawing in pen, because it removes the corn permanently.
Finally! The design for 2013 is finished, and the crew is working on getting it cut into the field!
The inspiration for this year’s maze started with thinking about octopi, which are one of my favorite animals.
I collected a lot of images of octopi, but I realized that an octopus wasn’t quite exciting enough on its own…but a giant squid, or better yet, a Kraken, is definitely maze-worthy.
Once I settled on the squid, I found some old maps that had sea monsters and often really ornate compass roses, which worked well.
I tried to fit in some other images, like the face of the wind blowing and the ship sailing over the edge of the world, but they didn’t work within the size of the field.
Here There Be Monsters–perfect theme for our 2013 corn maze
I think that the thing that Alan and I love most about our corn maze is the process of creation–all of it, from brainstorming and sketching, to actual design, and then to the task of carving it into the corn field. This year, we’ve partnered with the Center for Engagement in Madison WI , to turn our incredibly fun but private process into something that can be actually experienced by young people: the very first “Maze Mania” summer camp.
The camp will consist of twelve kids and three teachers, and their task will be to work with Alan and I as they learn the maze design and cutting process. And it’s not easy work: they’ll be challenged to come up with a design (for the Children’s Maze) that meets very specific parameters, and part of the camp is spent actually cutting the maze into the cornfield on a (probably) hot summer day.
For me, the camp is about sharing the joyfulness of math and design art and seeing a project through from the beginning to completion. I spend a good week designing the big maze, and Alan spends another week cutting it, so in early summer we just living and breathing the maze 24/7. It’s pretty intense, but fun. It’s not often that a real-world business has a process like this that is both interesting and accessible to young people, so we are eager to share the experience.
https://treinenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2013-05-01-16-35-30-scaled.jpg19202560Treinen Farm/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.pngTreinen Farm2013-05-23 10:46:032025-04-30 12:42:48The Making of a Maze Summer Camp
Last night our corn maze was featured on the Tonight Show during Jay Leno’s monologue–check out this video (at 1:20) to see our maze! (Of course, we missed it because it was past our bedtime…)
/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.png00Treinen Farm/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.pngTreinen Farm2012-10-11 10:46:032025-04-30 12:41:39Treinen Farm Corn Maze featured on the Tonight Show
We always like to include multiple layers of meaning within our corn maze. We like to have an aesthetically pleasing image that is fairly easily recognizable (this year it’s da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” aka “that guy, you know, the one in the circle with this arms out like this <insert realistic demo of arms outstretched here>, yeah, that guy”. However, our da Vinci guy is a cyborg–note the ray gun hand and the mechanical wing, not to mention the assorted gears for joints and a clockwork heart.
Cyborg guy is shown not in a circle/square deal like da Vinci’s, but in the planar projection of a hypercube (aka a “tesseract”, aka “what are you talking about?”) So, a hypercube is like this: you know what a square is, right? Okay, now a cube is just a three-dimensional square. Still with me? A hypercube is simply a four-dimensional cube. ( Here’s a little more technical explanation.) Very cool.
The gears are a nod to mechanical technology, especially the steam-era –aka Steampunk, which is also cool. We’ve got a little circuit-boardy stuff filling in the spaces on the lower right and mid-left.
The knot-like thing in the lower left is, well, a knot, because knots are mathematically interesting. It’s made out of a carbon nanotube, which leads us into the fascinating world of nanotechnology.
The theme this year is technology, ranging from the awesomeness of da Vinci to the steam-era, all the way to modern math and tech. Specifically the “GRIN” technologies: genetics (umm, because the cyborg is also genetically-modified–yeah, that’s it…); robotics (again, cyborg guy sort of counts); information tech (circuit boards); and nanotech, as previously noted (plus the weaponized nanoswarms employed in patrolling the maze for people cutting through the corn…)
More info and links to come on all of these elements.
https://treinenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/maze-2012-final-lower-res1.jpg387640Treinen Farm/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.pngTreinen Farm2012-08-23 10:44:282025-04-30 12:37:42The Meaning in the Maze
The maze is DONE! (Actually it was done a little while ago, but now we have a photo to prove it.) Alan and the crew got the design cut into the field right before we had to leave for Montana…and then we thought we’d be returning to beautiful, six+ feet tall corn. Instead, we returned home to mournful, very thirsty corn that was about knee high and had pretty much stopped growing. Hmm, it’s not that great a maze when you can see all the trails. So, we did our rain dances, hung clothes on the line, left the laptop “accidentally” open on the patio table, all the things that in the past have guaranteed rain. No luck. We got a backyard swimming pool, thinking that would trigger a cold, rainy summer. Nope. We finally pulled out the only trick we could think of–we purchased irrigation equipment.
That worked–before we had pipe set up to irrigate the maze, we got a few storms and the corn perked right up. It’s been growing at that insanely fast rate that corn can do with adequate moisture and hot weather, so it’s going to be plenty tall for the season. Yay!
The video shows the final design, and here’s the preliminary photo below. Alan and I have to go over the photo, see where he made any errors–sorry, “took artistic liberties with my design”–and then we either go back into the maze and make changes, or, more likely, change the map to reflect the real maze. And there’s always Photoshop…
Our first photo of the 2012 corn maze–we’ll get a better photo once we correct any errors that we find using this one.
https://treinenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/maze-2012-preliminary-scaled.jpg11312560Treinen Farm/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-best-corn-maze-wisconsin-padding-300x196.pngTreinen Farm2012-06-27 10:44:282025-04-30 12:34:02How I Design the Treinen Farm Corn Maze Part 4
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