AGRI~CULTURE
Seasons of life and land
STATEMENT
Although responsive to the obvious aesthetic beauty of vineyards and orchards, I am also interested in the determination and work involved in cultivating and harvesting them. Climate change, economy and political agenda determine their survival and the farmer's livelihood and I am sympathetic to farm families, the connection to their land and the obstacles they must overcome to sustain it.
For the past nine years in every season my practice has comprised of visiting farms on the Niagara Escarpment and painting in all weather. The parallels in cultivating works of art and cultivating the land (Agri~culture) interest me. Working outdoors with and against the elements convey a true sense of what farmers live on: hope. ‘Growing' a painting keeps me as close as possible to the flow of natures' progress, if only for a few hours.
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 hope to communicate my desire to preserve it's fragility, strength and nourishment for generations to come.
ENCAUSTIC WORKS
‘Growing' a Painting
These encaustic works incorporate paintings and drawings made during daily hikes behind my escarpment home.
The uprooted field flowers and fragments embedded around the paintings were pulled from the earth in the same area. Black eyed susans, wild asters, milkweed, queen anne's lace, goldenrod, wheat, alfalfa and seeds have been dried and pressed the old fashioned way between the pages of books-and are now preserved forever, planted and embroidered in rich layers of natural beeswax.
Jan Yates, SCA, 2008Please visit my blog! click here
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