Gorky’s Cornfield of Health

  

Arshile Gorky, Cornfield of Health II, 1944

Back from a serendipitous trip to Kansas City this weekend with Mom and Molly, this painting grabbed my attention at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Its wall text:

This is example of Gorky’s poetic understanding of nature’s organic, undulating forms and varied colors. The painting was inspired by the artist’s experiences at his wife’s family farm. There he looked deeply into the grassy fields, as if to magnify nature in all its lush detail. “That’s my goal,” Gorky said, “to achieve fluidity, motion, warmth and the pulsation of nature as it throbs.” Just below the center and the right floats an ovoid of yellow with a blue and black center. A signature motif of Gorky’s work, this shape recalls a cell and its nucleus, thus evoking the eternal flux of life.

- F. Siobhan

Iowa Colored Glasses

Arriving back in Los Angeles for a visit, I find that Iowa colors my view. Los Angeles’ crops are rows of strategically planted cars that fashionably reflect city lights and culture. Its native bird: the ghetto bird. Just a mile or two away it chirps in the dead of night,”Come out with your hands up!,” as it circles its domestic violent nest.

Strangely, I find as much comfort in these attributes as I do the return of the blue birds or the green sprouts in the black dirt of my home land. They are all signs of life in their own right.

There are challenging realities in each location and they don’t exist in a bubble. The tainted advancements in our food production and agricultural systems provide as much opportunity for learning as the prices paid for a lifestyle of creative freedom and diversity. We all play a role in the so called good and bad, and one cannot happen without the other because, if they could, I’m quite sure life would cease to progress… which would be such a drag!

 -Siobhan

Get in the Zone!

The jury seems to be out on which zone our farm on Ford is in. Some experts put us in 4 not quite 5. Others call it 5a and the Arbor Day Foundation sets us clearly in 5. Planting seasons seem to vary a bit too but for the most part, zone 3&4 advise general planting after April 20 while in zone 5 they give you a whole month advantage – March 23. 

Either way, it’s time to plant just about anything! 

JoAn has plenty to put in the ground so if it’s in your time zone – hook up! 

After all the digging and plowing we’ve done lately, would have been nice to come across this trick a bit earlier …

A prisoner in jail receives a letter from his wife. “I have decided to plant some lettuce in the back garden. When is the best time to plant them?” The prisoner, knowing that the prison guards read all mail, replied in a letter, “Dear Wife, whatever you do, do not touch the back garden. That is where I hid all the gold.”

A week or so later, he received another letter from his wife: “You wouldn’t believe what happened, some men came with shovels to the house, and dug up all the back garden.”

The prisoner wrote another letter: “Dear wife, now is the best time to plant the lettuce.”

Thanks Sean, Pat, Jordan and JoAn (and anyone else who was there) for all your work last week before the rain. The ground is ready, so get in the zone!
- Farmer Molly