Farming & The Arts
Before I started September Sun, I worked with Morgan Ashcom at Visible Records in downtown Charlottesville. Morgan, along with many artists in the area, had noticed a lack of affordable and flexible studio space for working artists. Morgan was determined to add to this specific form of support to Charlottesville’s robust community of galleries, performance spaces, and community organizing centers. He hoped to help retain artists in Charlottesville and prevent “brain drain” to larger East Coast arts centers, such as Richmond, Baltimore, Philly, or New York. As I helped Morgan launch the organization, I saw the effects of this trend clearly. If we don’t foster a community that supports artists, we risk losing creative thinkers, activists, and advocates. If we don’t encourage the making of art by local artists, we risk losing history, connection, and culture.
Pictured above: Volunteers at the Visible Records community garden, Common Field, also home to an installation of the incredible project, Solitary Gardens.
As I transitioned to full-time farming, I realized a similar trend could be mapped onto the world of small farms. The epicenters of ecological, community-supported, and small-scale farming seem to be centered in North Carolina, the Northeast, and the Pacific Northwest. There are lots of amazing farms in our area- Bellair, Whisper Hill, Double H- to name just a few. I don’t observe a similar kind of “brain drain” in the small farming community, but similar consequences for our communities and places unfold when locally grown food is inaccessible to our people.
This inaccessibility is not the fault of regular people- it’s the result of a colonial and white supremacist system that stole and concentrated land in the hands of a wealthy few, and continues the trend today by creating advantages for large farms while ignoring or deprioritizing the needs of small ones. The result is a “food” system full of labor exploitation, nutritionless commodities, and grave environmental/climate impacts. Within this context, small farms, like local arts organizations, largely depend on the support of like-minded individuals with the ability to contribute, or grant writing.
An overhaul of these systems and a cultural shift towards thriving local communities is possible- there are people all over doing the work to transform our society! The connections I see between local arts and small farms are one of the reasons I’m proud to have weekly CSA pick-up locations at New City Arts, Visible Records, and The Arts Center in Orange. Weaving these sites of cultural connection with food justice is a great way to encourage critical thinking about the capitalist food system, and each of these local arts institutions hosts consistent programming on related topics.
When people are creatively supported in a place they are historically and culturally rooted, amazing things can happen. Similarly, when people are connected to the origin of their food and the historical/cultural knowledge of cultivation in their area, the food system is challenged and the potential for transformation grows. This Thursday I’ll be at The Arts Center in Orange for the First Thursday Opening Reception of the Lake of the Woods Arts Group exhibition from 5:30 to 8PM. Please join us to celebrate the start of Springtime with some local art, and if you’d like to talk about the CSA, our farming practices, and how it all connects!
You can also catch me this First Friday (April 5th) at the exhibition openings of “Voroboros” by Adrian Wood at New City Arts (5-7:30PM), and “Fragment Of The Cosmos” by Filo Naxin at Visible Records (6-9PM).
