Maryland Hill Farm
Oil on canvas, 20x32, special online price $350
When we bought our house in Carroll County, Md., one of the innumerable papers we had to sign said that we understood that we were moving into a farming region, and that there would be farm smells, farm noises and farm equipment in the area.
That was 13 or 14 years ago, and enough has changed here that I wonder if buyers still have to sign that document.
The farms are not all gone, but roads that used to wind past farm after farm after farm now wind through a few farms and a bunch of developments.
Certainly, people need places to live. But does everyone need a new house? Does everyone need to live outside of the city where they work? In Baltimore, I saw beautiful but abandoned buildings everywhere. With a little money and a fair amount of work (or the opposite) these buildings could be reclaimed. Whole neighborhoods could be reclaimed. And while this would be a form of gentrification, there are enough empty buildings there to mean that the renewal need not ride in on the shoulders of displacement.
Here in the foothills of the Appalachians, here in these rolling hills, farmers still till the earth. But for how long?
2 comments:
I bought two houses in Maryland eastern shore, actually three. the one in salisbury, md...no paper saying you are living next to a farm and it might stink...yada yada yada...another in somerset county 2003-signed the paper, 2007 wicomico county...signed the paper...so my guess is everyone in rural MD is still signing the paper. I wondered how many other people were entertained by this paper. I too am an artist...from NYS, Rockland County, relocated to eastern shore of MD and you and your work is encouraging me to wake up and create. Thanks for your blog and the pinch.
Hey, Art Gypsy, thanks for the note! I was down on the eastern shore in April, during that stretch when it was so hot. I got a few pieces in a show in Baltimore (yay!), and took the opportunity to bounce around your beautiful countryside, which I fell in love with while we lived down there. I worked my way up from Crisfield, ending up doing most of my painting on Tilghman Island. I just love it there. Where on the eastern shore are you?
I'm really not surprised that you didn't have to sign that paper. It could have been a Carroll County thing, but the honest truth is that the farms are just going under. I mourn their passing, but honestly, if some developer showed up at my door with a couple million bucks, I'd find it pretty hard to tell him to go away, if I were a struggling farmer.
Another thing - before we moved back to Conn. (we both grew up around here), we lived in Orange County, NY. I was the art director of the Times Herald-Record, before the paper eliminated my job. I still paint and show in NYS. The Black Dirt Region, around Florida - do you know it? - is one of my favorite places to paint.
At any rate, I'm glad you like my blog! Hope your painting goes well today.
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