O Pioneers!
An AgArts Farm-to-Artist Residency
An artist residency sounds pretty decadent. Some weirdo holes up in a rustic cabin for a couple of weeks and doesn’t come out the door until it’s time to leave with a finished manuscript and the smoke of a familiar herb floating through the air.
I am the co-founder and executive director of a non-profit called AgArts with a mission to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts. We set up residencies for artists on farms throughout the country, but no weirdos need apply.
The artists are given plenty of solitude to work on their art, but they are also expected to interact with the farmers. Through their hosts, the artists learn about the American food system, and the issues that it creates. They take in their surroundings and discover how their hosts are attempting to address those issues. Then the artists create a piece of art that reflects the farmer’s joys and struggles living within our current farmscape.
Last summer, non-fiction writer Karen Downing left Des Moines, IA, to land on the Nancy and Alan Meyer farm near Cedar Bluff, NE. There, Karen discovered how one farm couple tries to both engage with their community and live in balance with their surroundings.
The Meyer homestead includes solar panels and electric cars, an earth-sheltered greenhouse, biochar production, and a design for a public-harvested edible yard. But Nancy Meyer is the central energy source on this farm, and Karen Downing captures Nancy’s sense of engagement and activism in her piece “O Pioneers!” featured in this month’s Blazing Star Journal, published by AgArts.
The smell of a still-warm rhubarb pie fills the kitchen as I lean on the island watching Nancy tidy up. A colander of freshly picked green beans stands at the ready, along with peppers and onions harvested moments ago from the garden. Ruth Bader Ginsburg presides over the happenings in the kitchen, her image on a poster near the doorway to the dining room. Despite the sense of abundance and plenty, we talk of aging and health and how to best use the resources we have in our remaining years, much like Ginsburg did.
After Nancy’s sister-in-law died on Flight 93, Nancy felt called to speak up. She became active in Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization founded by family members of those killed on September 11 who have united to turn grief into action and peace. Nancy wrote editorials and gave presentations on behalf of the Peaceful Tomorrows organization.
While she knows she can only do so much to change minds, especially in rural Nebraska, she did win an elected office on the board of directors for the Lower Platte North Natural Resources District. She has knocked on doors for her campaign and others, marched in parades, attended meetings, written letters to the editor and sent postcards. She stays informed on issues close to her heart, both local and national.
She has written more than 60 editorials that have been published on Daily Kos, a liberal blog site. From articles on climate change and fighting the Keystone XL Pipeline, to bringing in a Muslim American vet to a 6th grade classroom to talk about what Islam really is, Nancy works as a change agent and steward of the land and community.
As a board member for the Center for Rural Affairs and for the Nebraska Land Trust, she leads the charge for clean energy, brings attention to decarbonization goals and pushes power utilities to invest in renewable energy. Alan is also a letter writer and protest attender. Their reach goes well beyond their small Nebraska town.
The pie has cooled and is ready to eat. The rhubarb was grown in the garden and the pie crust was made at the granite island in Nancy’s kitchen. It would have been easier to buy the pie at the Hy-Vee in Fremont, but all of this effort nourishes me beyond the sweetness of the ice cream and the tartness of the filling.
Copyright © 2022 by Karen Downing
Read Karen Downing’s full article about her residency here on the Blazing Star Journal:
Do you want to learn about other power sources shaping our farmscape? At the AgArts website, you can view some of the work of other artists who have danced, written, photographed, painted, and interviewed their way across farms committed to conservation and sustainable agriculture. Are you a farmer who would like an artist residency? Or a donor who can make these matches possible? We welcome your interest and support.
Please support my fellow members of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. It’s a great group with top notch writers:
Glad you liked the piece!
Thanks, Suzanna. The AgArts residencies have been really successful. Both artists and farmers have benefited from the endeavor.