Making Scarecrows is a Passion for the Martins

Noblesville’s Jack and Chris Martin have been making scarecrows for the past seven years.

It all began when Noblesville Main Street decided to decorate downtown Noblesville with scarecrows made by members of the community for the first Fall Festival First Friday event.

And it was a contest.

So the co-owners of Martin & Martin Insurance Agency on Ninth Street in downtown Noblesville went to work on the project, and they created a scarecrow that resembled the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

“That was an easy choice for us as we have been longtime fans of Michael Jackson’s music,” said Chris Martin, who made the scarecrow with her husband. “We went to the Goodwill and Lowes, got him (the scarecrow) started in our craft room at home, brought him into the office and finished him off the next day just before the entry deadline.”

The “Michael Jackson” scarecrow was a hit, and they had a lot of fun showing it off.

“The following year, we wanted to do something that families would love.  We decided to create our ScareTrolls as the “Trolls” movie had recently been released and it was incredibly popular,” she said. So they went to work and created their second scarecrow for the contest.

“We had the best time seeing all the cute kiddos taking their photos with the trolls,” said Chris Martin, who admitted “the trolls were one of the bigger projects” they took on. “The whole office worked together on the lovable trolls for about a week and really enjoyed every step of the way.”

That’s when it happened.

”A scarecrow passion was born,” she said.

Creating a “designer” scarecrow each year is a lot of planning and a lot of work.

“We tend to do a quick brainstorm of ideas and land on something we all find intriguing and then work hard at the last minute to get it done,” Chris Martin said. “We love the creative process and prefer to take the fly-by-the seat-of-your-pants and a use-what-you-have approach. If you visited our downtown basement you would see what we mean. We keep just about everything and love finding ways to repurpose our treasures that we have collected over the years.”

To create the scarecrows, Chris Martin said, “You never know what you will end up using.”

She said everybody has their favorite scarecrow, but “Jack Skellington,” a character and main protagonist in the 1983 movie, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” seems to be the most popular “as he’s a good picture opportunity.”

Chris Martin said, “During the offseason ‘Jack Skellington’ sits in our office on a tall platform looking at the insurance proceedings.”

In 2021, they decided to stop entering Main Street’s Scarecrow Contest and display the scarecrows all together in and outside of their downtown business windows.

“We call it our Scarecrow museum of past and present,” Chris Martin said. “That has proved to be a good move, and the people in the community stop by all day and night looking at them and taking pictures. We even get people stopping in just to ask about our scarecrows. We love it.”

During the off season, the scarecrows are stored in the office’s basement, except for “Skelly,” and are lined up awaiting their time to be refreshed and put back out on display, she said.

So what materials do they use to create the scarecrows?

“We have found that plumbing pipe is best when forming the bodies,” Chris Martin said. The only scarecrows that do not include PVC pipe are the Day of the Dead” scarecrows.

Some materials they have also been known to use are pantyhose, nail polish, old pillows, Kroger bags, old Barbie toys, felt, paint of all kinds, marbles, beads, and clothes (from Goodwill and Salvation Army) that they sew and repurpose. They also learned not to use real straw but a raffia that looks like straw “but has proven to hold up very well in the elements.”

Chris Martin said, “Details are the most important thing and each scarecrow has to have a name.”

Over the past seven years, they named their scarecrows: “Michael Jackson You Can’t Beat It” in 2016; “Leave No Troll Behind” in 2017; “The Greatest Crow on Earth” in 2018; “The Nightmare Before Insurance” in 2019; “Fortune Favors the Brave … Fearless, Fierce and Fab Fiona Warrior Princess” in 2020; “The Dead Insurance Queen” in 2021; and “Antonio” in 2022.

“The whole office is involved, from planning to design to execution,” Chris Martin said of their Ninth Street insurance business, which will celebrate 35 years in April 2023. “We surprise ourselves each year with the amount of joy we get from creating something new.”

Jack and Chris Martin have been married for 42 years and have been business partners for 34 years.

I remember four years ago visiting the Martins’ insurance office, and Jack Martin — former two-term Noblesville City Councilman who serves on Noblesville Board of Works —  showed me around to see his collection of signs, Colts memorabilia, art, and a huge collection of Hot Wheels diecast toy cars.

“Everybody thinks insurance is stuffy; we’re fun,” Jack Martin told me.

And they’re proving it.

Chris Martin said, “We also love to oooh and aaah at each scarecrow from years past humbly complementing ourselves on our talents as we put them each on display in our windows.”

Folks strolling by their Ninth Street office this weekend, or on Halloween, will have the last opportunities to see the scarecrows, until next year.

Scarecrows are taken down the first of November, this year either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the insurance business load for the day.

Each year, Jack Martin smiles for the camera as he poses for photos with each of his scarecrows.

As do passersby.

“Skelly,” the winner from 2019, is currently on display out front to the left of the downtown business window. Actually, all of the scarecrows are out on display, two on the street, the rest in the windows. The scarecrows are all labeled with years except for the last two, which weren’t in the contest “Day of the Dead,” made in 2021 and “Antonio” in 2022, and are displayed in the store window of the Martins’ downtown business.

So any hint for next year? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Contact Betsy Reason at [email protected].