Artist Statement:

The inspiration for this tile came from the Archives of Ontario’s collection of photographs that document the history of agriculture in this province. Many of the photographs include late 18th century and early 19th century depictions of men and women taking a break from their work in the field to pose for the camera, and images that document more recent and industrial agricultural infrastructure and products.

Within my own experience growing up on a dairy farm in Ontario, the moral satisfaction that came from producing food was given authority by its association with the hard-working and religious predecessors that, in the minds of agricultural culture, are embodied in historical images of farmers that are found in the Archives. For the subject of my tile, I wanted to loosely associate images of contemporary and historical agriculture to address contemporary farming values and identity.