Blackbirds Leaving

August 30 2021 
24 x 39in 
acrylic on masonite

Although we’ve been growing organic vegetables on our farm for 28 years, this is the first time I’ve really attempted to explore ideas related to my vocation as an organic farmer.  I think the momentous decision to sell most of our land precipitated my decision to tackle the subject.  The buyers are conventional, GMO using farmers, and seeing the gigantic corn planter roll up and effectively negate a life’s work of organic soil building was a difficult thing to watch.  We continue to grow vegetables on 4 acres of remaining land, although I’m not sure for how much longer. Visually, I wanted to contrast the incredible biodiversity of our crops and it’s resident biota, with the monoculture of GMO corn.  Specifically, by designing a composition whereby our crops are running smack into a fortress of corn. A flock of Red-winged Blackbirds, as is normal for this time of year, are departing from their breeding grounds on our farm, to their wintering grounds in the south. A once majestic Green Ash has succumbed to the Emerald Ash Borer, and is slowly dying. Once what’s left of our farm is gone, so too will be the bird, mammal, insect, and plant life associated with it.

As I painted this, remembering the hundreds of crops we grew using certified organic methods, the process itself of technically rendering each minute characteristic of the various elements of the painting became a metaphor for the work we had put into our farm over the last 30 years. The degree to which I could draw on memory to render the details, spoke to the deep connection to the land Tina and I have nurtured over the years. The discipline and effort required to do these visual elements justice, mirrored the level of commitment and attention to detail that growing using organic methods requires. My life as an organic farmer prepared and informed me for the challenges of this painting on every level.  In a way, this painting is my own “Horse and Train” (Colville, 1954).