A Blue Feeling

Recently I have been preparing several paintings for the “In A Blue Mood” show at the Virginia Beach Art Center. The piece with blueberries in a vintage measuring cup highlights country life of by-gone days and a focus on the good things families and communities experienced when living close to the land. As Wendel Berry often has pointed out, big commercially driven farming has dislocated us from the land and distorted understandings of interconnectedness between soil, water, plants, and people. Agricultural accomplishments when exclusively measured by quantitative understandings— volume of crops and reduction in the number of people needed to bring them to market don’t come close to a full description of our current situation. In recent years, something has been gained with increased yields on large farms, but something has been lost as well. “Preserving Blueberries” urges us to be more careful to adopt a viable holistic view of land use.