Entry - 8.3.19

My youngest son and I recently returned from a trip to Ohio where we spent a week with my nephew Rich and his wife Sam on their farm.  Our goal was to assist them in their work, perhaps tackling a few tasks that might require multiple hands and the wee bit of muscle that we could provide.  To be honest, I guess our initiative was partly altruistic and partly selfish, in that, while their gain was in material labor, ours was in experience.  I mean how many opportunities do you have in a lifetime to immerse yourself intimately in a completely alien way of life?  Through sheer serendipity, it turned out my sister was visiting the same week, which proved a great benefit for not only did she participate in many of our chores but also provided babysitting services for Rich and Sam’s young daughter.

Sam

While there I talked a lot with Rich and Sam about their farming methods which are far from mainstream.  They grow a large variety of vegetables and fruits in two not extremely large fields which they maintain mostly by hand.  They don’t use pesticides or weed killers.  I used to refer to their approach as “organic” until Rich explained to me that the regulations that determine if produce can be certified as organic have been so watered down as to make the designation practically meaningless.  Their goal is to produce food that is safe to eat while preserving the environment for our and future generations – an admirable objective which necessarily results from a firm personal commitment, for farming this way is time consuming and labor intensive.

Rich

Unfortunately, the week we spent at the farm will most likely end up being the hottest and most humid of this summer.  So when we were out in the fields the sun was bearing down on us without mercy.  I must admit that lollygagging and socializing meant that we usually missed the prime early morning hours when the sun was low and temps reasonable; consequently we often were active during the worst part of the day.    I would work in the heat until I felt a little lightheaded and nauseous, then take a break in the shade for a drink of water.  My son was infinitely more robust.  He could work for hours in the sun without respite.  I kept my eye on him to make sure he didn’t succumb to heatstroke, but he tolerated the conditions superbly.

Sam in the Fields

While at the farm, we participated in a great variety of tasks.  We weeded by hand.  This meant that we were bent over for long stretches of time with our heads at knee level and a Japanese hand hoe in hand.  Of course, the back started to ache mightily after just a quarter hour of this activity.  Rich told me that when he first started farming his back hurt like hell, but with time his muscles strengthened and bending over no longer bothered him.  I felt the worst part of weeding was the tedium of extracting the weed without taking the desired plant along with it.  Often, the two were inextricably united.  One day we assisted with the harvest.  This was easier than weeding, but once again we were stooped over the plants - often straddling them, our legs splayed out awkwardly. Before going to market, all the produce had to be cleaned.  My son and I individually washed by hand a large variety of cucumbers and squash, carefully rinsing off residual soil and removing prickles.  This was an agreeable activity because it was performed standing upright out of the sun.  I particularly liked submerging my hands in the ice cold basins of water which was extremely refreshing in the July heat.  The ongoing joke was that I was completely lame at identifying the produce that Rich set out in bins for us to wash.  “Zucchini?” I’d ask.  “English cucumber,” Rich would patiently reply.  “Romaine lettuce?” I would venture.  “Nope.  That’s basil.”  My favorite activity during our stay was repairing the long driveway.  This entailed shoveling and tamping down gravel again out in the sun, a job that appealed to me because it was purely physical and not fussy.

Washing the Harvest

I would be misleading you if I left you with the impression that we worked our asses off while in Ohio.  Not by a long shot.  We probably spent as much time watching Disney movies with Rich and Sam’s baby daughter as we spent in the fields.  I took one day off to paint in the yard.  And we certainly whiled away many an hour gabbing around the dining room table, so much so that I often wondered if our net contribution to the farm was actually negative.  Maybe all we accomplished was to disrupt the routine of two extremely productive people.  Rich and Sam assured me that this wasn’t so – that our assistance was tremendously helpful.  I think they were just being nice.

Ohio Clouds

We brought along with us to Ohio a sign I had made for Rich and Sam displaying on each side the image of a fox and the name of their farm: Foxhole Farm.  The process by which this piece evolved is extremely circuitous and resembles the machinations I go through in creating any artwork.  Yes.  Occasionally a work does progress methodically and predictably from start to finish exactly as I have planned, but, much more commonly, my process is about false starts, clumsy blunders, corrections and reinventions.  I think it might be interesting to examine how this sign came into being, hopefully revealing along the way some parallels to my regular process.

Almost immediately upon learning of Rich and Sam’s foray into farming, I thought their fledgling enterprise could use a sign.  Maybe my inspiration was the strange sign that Balthus made for a seafood restaurant back in the 40’s.  It surely was in my thoughts.

Balthus - The Cat of the Mediterranean - 1949

In my mind I imagined a thick, rustic plank showing, carved in relief, their business name and the image of a fox.  I sketched out a few drawings of foxes, radically simplifying their structures to create a graphically accessible image that I could execute with some crude carving tools.  For my birthday, I asked my wife to get me a set of carving knives and a strop for sharpening them.  Then I visited a couple of local hardware and lumber stores to seek out the perfect slab of wood – preferably a thick, solid, soft, knotless one.  Unfortunately, none of the stores carried what I was looking for.  In fact, it was impossible to purchase any solid piece of wood in the size I desired, but I did find a large composite panel constructed of a multitude of knotty sections which I reluctantly bought.  This panel leaned against our living room wall arched over a baseboard radiator for months while I contemplated it, wondering if it could withstand the stress of the carving process without fragmenting.  I recognized already that my relief would have to be shallower than I had intended because my panel was not particularly thick.  Finally one day this spring I thought to myself “nothing ventured…” and retrieved the panel to begin work, only to find that, while exposed to continual heat throughout the prior winter, it had dried considerably and had developed a crack along one of its seams.  I sawed off the cracked segment, rounded off the corners of the panel and applied glue to the edge of the panel to strengthen it.  Clearly, I would have to give up my plan to carve the panel.

So I thought I would draw on the wood with an indelible Sharpie hoping to create the feel of the busy illustrations in 19^th century newspapers.  I had come up with a simple concept that one side of my sign would depict a fox out hunting at night while the other would show him descending into his den with the morning’s sunrise.  After I had worked on my drawing for several hours, my wife came in from work, examined the results of my efforts and could only observe: “My!  That’s a lot of lines.”

I felt my drawings were satisfactory but noticed that the many dark toned knots in the panel distracted from the imagery.  Perhaps if I stained the wood the contrast between lights and darks would lessen.  I used a Weathered Oak stain which did little to temper the harsh glare of the bare wood while introducing subtle grays which simply made the sign look dirty.

So I stained the panels a second time, in this instance using an Early American stain.

This resulted in a definite improvement but I still wasn’t completely happy.  The imagery required greater definition and distinctiveness.  I decided to use oil paints in transparent layers to give the images more clarity and provide greater visual appeal, but I wanted to retain the drawings I had executed with the Sharpie too.  Initially, I was painting as intended in thin washes but soon found myself employing the more robust, impasto technique I typically use in my work.  After several days of painting, I was satisfied with the piece and felt I could call it complete.

Morning

Night

I believe I achieved a balance in these two images.  Though the painted surface is primarily perceived, the underlying drawing is still plainly visible; in fact, in some areas I left the stained wood and ink untouched, permitting it to read as earth.  I also wanted to achieve a balance between graphic and illusionistic representation.  Of course, this work is a sign and as such should serve to capture the attention of passersby and communicate a message.  To accomplish this, a powerful graphic quality is required.  For instance, the stylized rays of the rising sun in one image and the giant full moon and black silhouettes of pines in the other refer to real phenomena while presenting them in a more striking format.  At the same time, I couldn’t avoid getting interested in the real anatomy of a fox, the sinewy structure of its legs, its magnificent feathery coat, the complex variations in coloration of the fur on different parts of its body, the absurd balloon of a tail nearly equal in girth and length to the fox’s torso.  Or in painting the full moon, I made sure its patterns of craters, valleys and swirls were accurately represented.  So there’s a lot of nuance and observation in these images as well.  Finding the right balance between simple graphic design and convincing illusionistic detail was my challenge.  Hopefully I found that balance.

I must admit that as a sign my work is truly a failure.  My original concept was to create a sturdy, rustic, two-sided placard that could be hung from a signpost on Rich and Sam’s property to promote their business – a kind of quaint declaration of their presence, more fun than utilitarian.  Right from the get go, I learned that the composite panel was too fragile to endure being suspended from a bracket.  And oil paints cannot withstand the extreme temperature variations that come with exposure to the elements.  So when I presented Rich and Sam with this albatross, I informed them that it was their job to figure out what to do with it.  I’m sure they’re still scratching their heads.

Random Farm

But that’s what makes painting interesting for me.  You may have a very unambiguous goal in mind at the start of a work but still end up with something completely different.  If it weren’t for the twists and turns, the conundrums, the gambles and the compromises, I don’t think painting would excite me.  Painting is really about process.  And, speaking of process, since our trip to Ohio, I’ve been thinking about how many parallels there are between painting and farming.  First, before you can begin you must have a solid knowledge base.  Whenever talking with Rich and Sam, I was often in awe of how much they knew about farming and how much experience they had gained in a relatively short period of apprenticeship.  Secondly, you have to have the right tools.  Rich seemed to pull out some odd looking tool for every task he assigned to us, and, as we discovered, the right tool made an incredible difference in how effectively and efficiently that task was addressed.  Thirdly, things don’t always go as planned.  Weather is definitely the wild card on a farm.  Earlier this year, during our extremely wet spring, the new plantings were washed away and the fields had to be reseeded.  I’m sure, when it comes to weather, it’s always going to be too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet.  And then there are pests.  Just during our short stay on the farm, Rich showed us slug damage on the English cucumbers and I stumbled upon a Japanese beetle infestation among the basil plants.  As with a painting, you can’t throw in the towel when confronted with your first complication; you have to seek out solutions.  And finally, you have to be willing to put in hours of labor.  We only experienced a “snapshot” of one phase of the farming process, but, even then, I was astounded at how much work goes into putting produce on our tables.  We spent hours in the fields weeding and harvesting.  All the produce had to be washed, often individually by hand, then weighed, bunched, packaged and labeled.  Ultimately, the produce was loaded into a trailer and carted off to restaurants or offered for purchase at a local farmers market.  I’ve often been stunned at the ridiculously low prices for which dealers and collectors have suggested I should sell my work.  I’ve thought to myself that, considering the hours that I put into a single work, I could earn more per hour working at the neighborhood McDonalds.  Rather than sell at such insultingly deflated prices, I prefer to give my art away to receptive and appreciative friends and family members.  After witnessing how much work goes into farming, I believe a turnip should cost $50.

Adena Burial Mound

I am most grateful to the folks at Foxhole Farm for welcoming my son and me into their home and providing a unique hands-on experience of a way of life completely alien to our own.  It was great to get to know this wonderful family a little more intimately and work side-by-side with them for a short while.  On our last evening at the farm, I gathered the work crew out in the yard for one final farewell group shot.

If you live in the Dayton area, you can purchase produce from Foxhole Farm at:

Oakwood Farmers Market 22 Orchard Drive, Oakwood, Ohio

     Every Saturday from 9-1, June 1st through October 20th 

Centerville Farmers Market 892 South Main Street, Centerville, Ohio

     Every Thursday from 3-7 pm, May 16th through October 25th 

To learn more about Foxhole Farm, please visit their website at: https://www.foxholefarmohio.com/

As always, I encourage readers to comment here.  If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.

(Note to Rich and Sam:  Though I tried to be as accurate as possible, I’m sure I got a lot wrong; don’t hesitate to set me straight by commenting here.)