Hello, farm family!

Since you’re reading this, you already know that “farmer” is really a hyphenated word.

It stands for farmer-carpenter, farmer-mechanic, farmer-veterinarian, farmer-sales manager, farmer-marketing director – you get the idea!

Farmers take great pride in that hyphenated identity, and rightfully so. Few other occupations require that you also successfully perform a dozen other jobs that are actually separate professions with their own associated training, degrees and certifications.

If you’re a farmer, you are resilient, intelligent, adaptive and creative.

Farming as an Act of Creativity

Wait, what was that last one? Creative?

Farmers often ignore their creative sides, but the truth is farming itself is an act of creativity. You decide what to produce and how to do it. You literally help bring something into being that was not there before, at least not in its final form.

Farmers are optimists and philosophers. You have to be. What other mindset would allow a person to wake up every day to a job where they knew they were at the mercy of so many things beyond their control – weather, customer preferences, tariffs, taxes, immigration policy – and enjoy it?

It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that so many farmers are also artists, poets, novelists and essayists.

Famous Farmer-Creatives

We farmers come from a long tradition of creative hyphenation. As far back as 1000 BCE, King David added poet, musician, soldier and politician to his shepherd identity.

Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE) was a farmer-cum-writer-historian-soldier-orator-politician-Roman culture preservationist. I wouldn’t advocate imitating his vicious and cruel behavior, but he is a sterling example of farmers’ versatility and potential for influence.

Then consider Horatio Shaw (1847-1918). His nephew, Wilfred B. Shaw, recalled, “He was a born shepherd, and, as many of his paintings show, he loved his flocks. His rural associates undoubtedly thought him queer – spending his time painting when there were more important things to be done … he was a nonconformist.”

Another sheep farmer, Ben D. Cable (1865-1938), was known as “the Farmer Sculptor.” His sculpture “Homeward” portrays a farmer walking home with his horse at the end of the day and poignantly communicates how exhausting the day had been.

And who can ignore Wendell Berry (1934-), one of our most well-known, modern-day farmer-writers. Born on a tobacco farm, his experience producing corn and small grains and raising sheep has inspired many of his poems, essays, novels and short stories (not to mention his activism).

If I had to pick my favorite hyphenated farmer at this point in my life, though, it’d be Bennett Konesni of Belfast, Maine. This garlic farmer incorporates the traditional art forms of papercutting and work songs into his farm life and business.

In Carrie Braman’s article “Singing to garlic: Maine’s farmer musicians,” Konesni said, “Not only are songs a tool for enhancing teamwork, they are an under-utilized resource for bringing community and audiences to farms. There’s a synergy between the two that feeds the financial end of farming … People love to hear that their garlic has been sung to.”

I can’t say I’ve ever sung to garlic, but I’ve done my fair share of singing to beets, squash, cattle, horses and even wagon ride guests! I’d never considered including that in my marketing…

Take a little time each week to express some creativity. Photography is a great outlet. Photo by Kyle Llewellyn/Images by Llewellyn

The Value of the Hyphenated Farm Life

While I believe the creative spark burns within us all, I am convinced that there is a special synergy between farming and artistic expression. It’s the old cycle of art imitating life imitating art.

When one takes time to really drink in the beauty (and the ugliness) in their immediate world, there is a natural desire to reflect that back into the world. To find the source of it all. To make meaning of it. To express the inexpressible.

This is why art often focuses on the sublime … and the tragic. At the same time, the very act of taking something “ordinary” – a farmer leading his horse homeward, a flock grazing in a meadow – and turning it into art transforms it into something extraordinary.

When we take the commonplace out of its natural setting and place it in a frame, on a pedestal, in a score, in a chapter, we suddenly see something that was always there, but we never recognized before. We see nobility in drudgery. We find healing in sorrow. We experience growth in tragedy.

Without art, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, we risk reaching the end of our lives and discovering that we never really lived.

What’s Your Creative Hyphen?

Now I’m going to throw down the gauntlet to your creative farmer side: “What’s your creative hyphen?”

Notice I didn’t ask “Do you have a creative hyphen?” You do. You just might not recognize it yet.

My family is a great example. Most of my farmer relatives do not consider themselves terribly “creative,” and yet they are. Here are a few of our creative farmer hyphens:

  • My great-grandmother made braided rugs
  • My grandmother organized family photo albums and knitted
  • My brother turns wood
  • My dad draws and paints
  • I wrote children’s books and poetry while farming full-time

Perhaps some of those don’t strike you as “art.” For example, Grandma’s photo albums didn’t have fancy borders or stylish lettering. They were simple, clear-pocket albums with names and dates written on the back of the photos. I consider that art.

Making fancy desserts with decorations and layers is art.

Scribbling cartoons while you sit on hold is art.

Spinning wool, sewing, painting by number – these are all art.

So I repeat, what’s your creative hyphen? Whatever it is, take five or 10 minutes this week – and every week – to engage in it. It’s not an indulgence. It’s life.

We want to see and hear your family-friendly art. Email photos to kcastrataro@pen-light.org or penlightfarmers.com or to Country Folks Grower at cllewellyn@leepub.com.

It’s your time to grow!