Gfarm Greatest Hits-2022
I’ve been so lucky to have been incubated as a photographer at Goranson Farm in Dresden, ME. I started there as a random visiting artist through a community art program. (Applying for that program was the first time I dared call myself “artist.”) Later, I took advantage of the months between odd jobs to work there for a summer. I returned for three more seasons, learning farmers’ markets and wholesale accounts and crop rotations and family business dynamics. And PLANTS! For the first two years, all I did was pick beans, peas, and strawberries, and weed long rows by hand. It was the first time in my life I felt ok consistently. Once a week I stood in the shade of the market tents at the Damariscotta or Boothbay farmers’ markets and started to learn how to be a public persona. The second two seasons I was the strawberry crop manager, worked more markets, and did tractor cultivation on a Low 140 with lillistons and sweeps. That’s also when I lived with the Gorhanson family and started to fill in what gaps I could find on the communications end.. I took over their social media at that time, too, when their Instagram following was 80. I photograph and independently write 95% of their posts. The other 5% I get help with.
I would not be a working photographer without the business and community education I received by hanging around Jan Goranson. I wouldn’t have the skill I do without feeling that my abilities were useful when I was developing them there. And I would not be half the human I am without the relationships with coworkers I was gifted with by being there.
When I uploaded these photos, I was worried they looked inconsistent. But then I realized how fitting that is, because Goranson Farm is where I get to experiment and develop my work the most. They keep me on payroll for however many hours a week I need to do my job, and trust me completely to deliver. I generate photos according to the mood of the day, current internet climate, and of course, my own emotional/creative capacity. So here are some of my favorites from my twelfth year photographing from the bottom of my heart at Goranson Farm:
