Daniel Rhodes

After additional study in 1940 at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (where he began to work with clay), Rhodes entered the graduate program at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where, in 1942, he became the first person to graduate from that school's Master of Fine Arts program.

After completing his MFA degree at Alfred University, the Rhodes remained in that area, where he worked as a designer for Glidden Pottery.

In 1940, he married the former Lillyan Estelle Jacobs of Des Moines, a potter, sculptor and figurative painter whom he had met at Stone City.

[4] Titled Where tillage begins, other arts follow, the project was a commemoration of Iowa agriculture: planting, harvesting, production, and the meat packing industry.

In June 2008, Anton Rajer a professional fine art conservator from Green Bay, WI will begin work to move the mural to the Marion Heritage Center.

[6] On April 10, 2019, in Piggott, the US Postal Service released a series of postage stamps featuring post office murals, including "Airmail."

His success in completing these projects led to Rhodes being commissioned for New Deal art projects in other states, including post office murals at Clayton, Missouri (now at the Federal Building in Des Moines), and Glen Ellyn, Illinois;[7] and a cafeteria mural in the main U.S. Navy building in Washington, D.C.

In 1943, they moved to California, where he worked in San Jose as a researcher in high heat ceramics for the Henry J. Kaiser Corporation.

Three years later, they moved to Menlo Park, California, where in 1947 they built a full-scale ceramic studio, and created thrown and cast ware for Gump's, the San Francisco department store.