Lessons in painting a field:
It's not about catching every squiggle
or even capturing every shadow
It's about finding what speaks to you
and making it your own
Taking what you need and leaving the rest
Understanding that colors have a way of running together

Asher (our dog) and I bringing the dairy cows back to pasture after milking. This was our second fall on the farm, and our first fall with our cows.

Malaika discing a field with our International tractor. That field, planted over two years ago, is now one of our most valuable and nutritious pastures (the cows favorite), full of clovers, alfalfa, chicory, small burnet, plantain, rye and orchard grass.

Pencil drawing of the Scadin Barn raising in Webster Township

Matthew sitting on the bucket loader with his hand on the roof truss of the Sugar House frame, on raising day. The sun is setting and it has been a long day.

A beautiful and unique barn I came across while bicycling around the dirt roads of Webster Township.

Violet Oplinger was my great grandmother, and her daughter Doris, is my grandma Tiani, who taught me how to paint with watercolors. Doris loves to tell stories about growing up on a farm in Mount Pleasant.

A relative of one of the earliest settlers of Webster Township. I was drawn to the weariness of his expression-for which the bare wheat field behind him offers an explanation. He has gathered the wheat harvest from the field. Threshing is still to come, though in this moment perhaps he is reflecting on all that came before the harvest.

My twin brother as a small boy walking up the laneway towards the farmyard. I've known this array of buildings all my life and I never tire of how they stand together. Through them you pass from the farmhouse to the farm. 

When my grandpa first saw this painting he said, “Malaika you could have at least made the muffler straight!” and I said “Grandpa, I just paint it like I see it.

Painted from a small black and white photograph found in an old Whitney Farm album. Pigs found on my family's farm around 1930.

Beef herd of the Kleinshmidt family, whose farm was just down the road from the Whitney Farm. The Whitney's often collaborated with the Kleinshmidt's to share and trade work or equipment. Paul Kleinshmidt was around the same age as my grandfather and they attended the same one room school house as children.

Gilbert Whitney (left) walking from the barn with his father Horace. Though I never met my great grandfather Horace, his farm diaries have offered me invaluable insight about this land. From these detailed and steady records of the farm and stories I've been told, Horace has become an important mentor, whose wisdom I look to often. My grandfather was still alive during our first years of farming and during that time his support and knowledge was a blessing beyond words.

My great grandfather Horace Whitney with a black lab puppy (there were many black labs on the farm over the years). Once somebody bought this card because they had a black lab puppy named Dodge!

Paul Kleinshmidt milking a Whitney cow with a Surge bucket milker. On his farm (neighboring ours) Paul milked Brown Swiss, however in this painting I purposely melded the two farms from two photographs I had found. The one of Paul milking I came across while visiting Paul and looking through his scrapbooks. Just a few weeks after this visit Paul passed away and I sure felt lucky to have had that visit. The one of the Holstein cow looking back I found in an old Whitney album. Upon showing the painting to my aunt, she immediately said, “Hey that's Donna!”

My grandfather as a boy, training a Jersey calf for the 4-H fair. The maple trees in this painting (as well as the red barn) still stand today, and are tapped each spring for maple sap.

Oftentimes many neighboring farms would come together to thresh their grain, sharing a threshing machine and each others company (and a hearty meal). In the late afternoon the fathers would return to their farms to begin milking chores, while the young boys would stay behind to finish up the threshing and then drive the teams of horses home. How neat to imagine young boys traveling home to all corners of the township, after a longs days work, with wagons full of grain.

One of the few paintings whose story I do not know with great depth. The photograph was found in a Webster Township collection.

My paternal grandmother Kathryn Whitney as a young woman on her honeymoon in Africa. My grandpa Gilbert met Kathy as they were training to be missionaries in Mozambique. They married in Africa, and after working there for 3 years, they returned home to the Whitney Farm.

With our old sap pans, in the old boiling spot in front of the red barn.

After raising a team of Randall Lineback oxen in Vermont, I became fascinated with this breed-their beauty, temperaments, and diversity of purposes. The Randall cow and calves in this painting are from Terravita farms in central Ohio.

A Vermont sugar bush.