A place to document the process of my current studio project, un:Earth
For my final semester of my MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts I set out to find a balance between the personal and the political. I intended to explore my father's farm in rural Northern Kentucky as a way to question how corporate farming models were destroying the family farm in America. What I discovered as I began my inquisition was a much more complicated relationship between the farmer, environment, and local and national business interests. I also discovered that many of the artifacts I investigated were triggering memories that I had long forgotten. It has become a complicated inquiry into the way that memory and perspective can shape our politics, and the role that the land, the very earth itself, plays in a complex relationship between a gravel pit, my father and me.
I think for me I get two images - the cartoonish character of my childhood - you know with the big straw hat and the corn cob pipe, a plaid shirt and overalls (coincidentally a lot like the Fischer Price farmer toy). But I also think of the farmers I know now and see each week at the farmers' market. They tend to be well-educated, hard-working and politically active in the realm of protecting our food supply now and in the future. Some of them wear straw hats from time to time.
The ones Willie Nelson helps through concerts, my grandparents in Wisconsin, now more big businessmen than small farm farmers, in parts of Europe- small family farms with some animals kept in barns (too much), others now college educated with agricultural degrees, a wide range from subsistence to corporation.
overworked underpaid, underappreciated and yet have a passion for what they do in spite of all the surrounding negative connotations...still others do it because it;s the family way and have no other choice...
Intelligent, hardworking, honest, bound by routines, collaborative touching the vitality of daily life, in touch with where 'real' things come from milk, eggs, wheat, beef - and perhaps not as caught up in the bs of of modern life meaning news, drama, commercialism. many farmers today if they are still surviving are quite savvy business people and are financially successfull. Small farms are becoming a way of the past and many farmers are converting to large scale -buying more land, attending conferences and trying experimental grains and fertilizers ect...
Rod I am working on a somewhat similar project here in New Jersey. I grew up working on a Holstein Dairy and am interested in folding this subject into my work some how. I've been talking with my local farmer friends about how they are surviving or not as modern farmers. If you like we can discuss. I'd love to keep being updated about your project. Best of luck very interesting subject matter.
I envision a multi-faceted individual, for the traditional small-scale farmer wears many hats. He or she is a soil scientists, weather forecaster, market entrepreneur, small-machine repairmen (women), botanist, biologist. . . at least for a vegetable farmer.
Big business farmers with mass-produced livestock and corn -- the kind of farmers in food inc. I imagine tons of chickens and cows, squished together in the dark.
Smaller scale farmers who might sell pumpkins in the Autumn and trees in the winter to make ends meet. These are the guys and girls you go to if you have enough money for really fresh produce.
Hobbyists with vegetables and maybe chickens in their backyards.
I think for me I get two images - the cartoonish character of my childhood - you know with the big straw hat and the corn cob pipe, a plaid shirt and overalls (coincidentally a lot like the Fischer Price farmer toy). But I also think of the farmers I know now and see each week at the farmers' market. They tend to be well-educated, hard-working and politically active in the realm of protecting our food supply now and in the future. Some of them wear straw hats from time to time.
ReplyDeleteThe ones Willie Nelson helps through concerts, my grandparents in Wisconsin, now more big businessmen than small farm farmers, in parts of Europe- small family farms with some animals kept in barns (too much), others now college educated with agricultural degrees, a wide range from subsistence to corporation.
ReplyDeleteopen skies
ReplyDeleteoverworked underpaid, underappreciated and yet have a passion for what they do in spite of all the surrounding negative connotations...still others do it because it;s the family way and have no other choice...
ReplyDeleteIntelligent, hardworking, honest, bound by routines, collaborative touching the vitality of daily life, in touch with where 'real' things come from milk, eggs, wheat, beef - and perhaps not as caught up in the bs of of modern life meaning news, drama, commercialism. many farmers today if they are still surviving are quite savvy business people and are financially successfull. Small farms are becoming a way of the past and many farmers are converting to large scale -buying more land, attending conferences and trying experimental grains and fertilizers ect...
ReplyDeleteRod I am working on a somewhat similar project here in New Jersey. I grew up working on a Holstein Dairy and am interested in folding this subject into my work some how. I've been talking with my local farmer friends about how they are surviving or not as modern farmers. If you like we can discuss. I'd love to keep being updated about your project. Best of luck very interesting subject matter.
I envision a multi-faceted individual, for the traditional small-scale farmer wears many hats. He or she is a soil scientists, weather forecaster, market entrepreneur, small-machine repairmen (women), botanist, biologist. . . at least for a vegetable farmer.
ReplyDeleteI think of 3 categories of farmers:
ReplyDeleteBig business farmers with mass-produced livestock and corn -- the kind of farmers in food inc. I imagine tons of chickens and cows, squished together in the dark.
Smaller scale farmers who might sell pumpkins in the Autumn and trees in the winter to make ends meet. These are the guys and girls you go to if you have enough money for really fresh produce.
Hobbyists with vegetables and maybe chickens in their backyards.