Farm Project

In the spring of 1998 while riding my bike through the orchards near Palisade, CO, I saw a faintly apparent sign that had been painted over on the exterior wall of a metal fruit packing shed. The sign read "Fruit in Cooler." As a kid, we would place our money in the coffee can in the shed and take our bushel of peaches, pears or apples depending on the season. The idea struck me that today, both the fruit and the money would be gone eventually if left to the honor system. Several day later, I was in Paonia, CO and heard a radio announcement From the Colorado Commission on the Arts for applications. I went home, put together a grant over the course of of about 20 hours and sent it to the CCA. Several months later, I received the CCA newsletter, and had in essence forgotten about the application submission. Long story short, an artist in Telluride and I received the two annual stipends for our grant proposals. Thus CCA funded Farm '99 in its entirety. As a native of western Colorado, I grew up around farming.  I see agricultural land being lost to development at an alarming rate.  With this development comes a slow disappearance of a lifestyle, traditions, and subculture.  I have tried to capture these things in photographs over the past year.  In late 1998, the Colorado Commission on the Arts gave me a major grant to document for one year the farming community on the western slope of Colorado. Many of the farmers documented are small producers.  Discussions about the latest crop prices, the most recent guy to sell out, and the issues of irrigation take place over fences with neighbors, at auctions, or at the local diner over coffee. During this project, I learned about the financial strains placed on western slope farmers.  Crop prices have dropped to those paid forty years ago, while production prices have risen steadily-to the extent that selling off land is the only solution to justify operating at a loss.  Many farmers have also been lulled into using more and more chemical fertilizers over the years in order to produce bigger yields.    Unfortunately, the trade-off for this is that the land becomes depleted more quickly and crops then depend on chemicals for adequate yields rather than being able to employ the natural restorative process.  The reality is that farmers everywhere in the country are competing with the world market (and its cheaper production costs) within our global market. The integrity of the farmer and the rancher is eroding an acre at a time throughout western Colorado.  The changes that are occurring are typical of growth and progress elsewhere.  With these changes also come new and fresh ideas, along with innovative people who will hopefully inspire this area's evolvement.  The roots of a close community remind us that we are all connected in some fashion.  Understanding this helps us to create situations that honor this truth.  As the pace of life increases, the level of competition and mistrust also increases-making it more important than ever not to lose ourselves in the process. This body of work culminated in twenty black and white archival 16x20” silver prints, comprised of candid portraiture, landscape, livestock, and farming activities.    The Farm '99 showing of this work opened in Fruita at the newly renovated Civic Center on Friday, December 10th  and ran through January 14, 2000. This showing location was where I attended elementary school. © 2006 All Right Reserved. No photos on this site may be used without purchase or permission from the artist