NIAGARA ESCARPMENT AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPESSEASONS OF THE LAND
Although responsive to the obvious aesthetic beauty of Niagara's vineyards and orchards, I am more interested in the determination and work involved in cultivating and harvesting them. Global warming, economy and political agenda determine their survival and the farmer's livelihood. I deeply respect generations of farmers, the connection to their land and the obstacles they must overcome to sustain it.
For the past eight years in every season I have visited farms on the escarpment, painting on location in acrylic or oil. Often, before going out, I will prepare raw canvas with beeswax, and while on location create an oil underpainting with the intent of incorporating encaustic once back in the studio. I like the preservative qualities of beeswax as it relates to my work.
While monthly paintings document climate change on the farmland near my home, I have also become interested in the correlation between the seasons of our lives and the cultivation of our land. This transpires while I am working in vineyards, orchards and open fields. Back in the studio, I evaluate and either leave these paintings as complete or investigate further and embark on this new journey by re-working on a much larger scale. I defer from using photographs as reference, preferring to utilize memory and intuition to explicate my response to the rural world on the Niagara escarpment.
I want my work to impart the significance of man's reliance on and respect for both the simplicity and complexity of the escarpment's invaluable -yet vanishing- agricultural environment. By documenting the seasons of the land on Niagara 's world biosphere reserve I also hope to communicate my desire to preserve it's fragility, strength and nourishment for generations to come.
JAN YATES, SCA, 2008
To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the sun:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8