Rhode Island Red Drawing

My drawings reveal the daily conversations between our animals and me. We all live here on the farm, the animals owning me rather than I them. They know me as the food goddess. I know their personalites, character, habits, foibles and follies. It's all fuel for the art. I create these drawings as my celebration of the choice we made six years ago to begin living as locavores. We're growing vegetables, planting fruit trees and grapes for wine, raising chickens for eggs and meat, bees for honey, and goats for milk and cheese. We view the land not as ours but belonging to the bees, goats, chickens, and us "” as it should be. My intent is to allow the animals' personalities to jump off the page "” a look in the eye declaring an unmistakable state of mind (feed me!). Some images are more edgy, focusing on a detail that can only be seen if you are close enough to smell their breath. Some are portraits, taking in the whole of their pose. All are done in charcoal so as to focus your eye on their personality without the distraction of fabulous colors. Charcoal also allows me to work quickly, catching the moment without getting too hung up on the process. In the end, my challenge is to create a body of work that defines my relationship to the farm. If this relationship has potential to advance the movement towards a sustainable agriculture, I would be one happy human being.