Jeff Jarvis is a Faribault native who lives on Cedar Lake near Morristown, MN.
Following the family custom, Jeff is a third-generation artist who practices and teaches traditional painting and drawing. He has exhibited over much of southern Minnesota and his genre includes historical sketches and scenes painted from everyday life.
Early on, Jeff developed methods of merging conventional art with computer-aided techniques when the technology first became available. These types of designs are included today in each issue of the City of Faribault’s Buckham Bulletin and accompany his personal artwork and writings as well. Studying at Mankato State University helped Jeff learn to straddle the commercial and fine art worlds. He graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Around 1900, Jeff’s great-grandfather, William Jarvis, a steam engineer by trade, arrived in Faribault for a position at the Polar Star Electric Plant. A bit later became employed as engineer at the Sheffield-King Mill, a frontier mill site built on first by city founder Alexander Faribault. While doing additional research, many other family milling connections were found. These findings and much more provide a unique view of Faribault as set down in the forthcoming book, Historic Mills of the Cannon Valley. This literary and illustrated body of work outlines the rise of the first industries in the Cannon Valley—sawmilling, flour milling, and woolen milling. A fascinating aspect of the book is that it will contain stories of and interviews from people important to these local industries.
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