He found both in Trumbull County.

The Tribune Chronicle published a story in March about the Cincinnati artist’s search for vintage barns in Trumbull County as part of a project where Kroeger wants to do paintings of the structures representing all 88 Ohio counties. Several barn owners contacted him through Becky Keck, president of the community arts school Students Motivated by the ARTS (SMARTS), and he photographed the farms during a visit Mother’s Day weekend.

“It’s really an interesting process to meet the barn owners,” Keck said. “They’re all really proud of the history the barn has in their community, and Robert has a really unique appreciation for the history, how they were built and how they served their owners in the past.”

The nine barn paintings that resulted from the visit will be auctioned off Friday at Art for SMARTS, a fundraiser for the school. Kroeger, 71, will do a painting demonstration on Friday at the fundraiser and on Thursday for SMARTS students and their families.

Special to the Tribune Chronicle In addition to his barn paintings, Robert Kroeger painted the former Republic Steel blast furnace, where he worked as a teenager.

“My primary objective is historic preservation,” Kroeger said. “I want to capture these barns before they’re destroyed by wind, by fire, before they fall down. Once they’re lost, we lose a piece of Ohio history, Americana.”

Most of his paintings are donated for fundraisers like the SMARTS event, but he shares photographs of them and the stories behind them on his website — barnart.weebly.com/ohio-barns.html

One of his favorite stories is about a barn in Kinsman, built in 1885 by Frank Reed and now owned by Jeff and Bonnie Mathews.

The size of the barn and its slate roof indicate that Reed was a successful farmer, but he abandoned his farm and his family in 1898 in search of gold in the Canadian Yukon. A year later he sent a letter to his wife and told her to sell the farm and keep the proceeds. No one in Ohio ever heard from him again.

“I would love to have been a fly on the wall,” Kroeger said. “Who would go 2,000, 3,000 miles away into 30-, 40-below temperatures?”

While chronicling the history of Trumbull County barns, Kroeger also ended up reliving some of his own. In addition to the barns, Kroeger did a painting of the former Republic Steel blast furnace. He was in the area two years ago to photograph barns in Mahoning and Columbiana counties when he read about its demolition in 2016. It was the last blast furnace still standing in a region that once had more than two dozen.

The painting is titled “Last of the Mohicans.”

“I worked there when I was in college for a summer, doing different jobs inside the mill,” Kroeger said. “I had to join the hod carriers (bricklayers) union. It cost $90, which was a lot of money at the time, but I was making $3.64 an hour and figured I’d recoup in a couple weeks. As I was painting, all these memories came back to me.”

He also included a painting of Mill Creek MetroParks’ Lanterman’s Mill, where he used to ride his bicycle growing up in the 1950s.

Instead of a brush, Kroeger uses a palette knife to create his paintings, manipulating thick globs of oil paint to create the textured works. Those textures give the paintings a different appearance, depending upon how the light hits them.

“I think his paintings are awesome,” Keck said. “I think it’s going to add a nice dimension with him doing a demonstration for our Arts for SMARTS event.”

Kroeger is used to giving away his paintings for charity, but Friday’s event will be more difficult than usual.

“The blast furnace will be a tough one to let go of,” Kroeger said. “Ask any artist and they’ll say they have trouble parting with some of them, but it’s for a good cause. I think Becky works really hard at what she does.

“I haven’t met the students yet, but I’ve done demonstrations before with kids and especially the creative ones, they’re really into it. They want to learn.”