The work of Austen Camille will be featured in an exhibit, O-Horizon, at the Kent Cultural Alliance gallery Feb. 7 to March 16, 2025. Kent Cultural Alliance is located at 101 Spring Ave, Chestertown, Maryland.

AgArts is one of the supporters of Austen Camille’s work.

The opening reception is Friday, Feb. 7 from 5-8pm. Thursday, Feb. 13 is the day of the artist talk and panel discussion, from 6-7pm. Guests will be Judy Gifford (St Brigid’s Farm), Liza Goetz (Wildly Native Flower Farm), Trey Hill (Harborview Farms) and Francis Smith (Maryland DNR).

The gallery is open Wednesday–Friday 10am-4pm & Saturday 10am-2pm.

 

Camille’s Exhibition Statement

The uppermost strata of soil is called the O Horizon, a layer that is defined by both vitality and decay. Decomposing organic matter and a vibrancy of insect, microbial, algal, and plant life are simultaneously and continuously occurring within its bounds. The phrase also feels like it could be the beginning of an epic poem.

 The exhibit O-Horizon is an unedited glimpse into the process of writing a book. Austen Camille is currently working on her first manuscript, a series of poems and essays about soil health, regenerative practices and rural culture. The writing is primarily inspired by a series of interviews that Camille has been conducting with land stewards located primarily around the upper Eastern Shore.

 See the tangle of notes, drawings, objects, and experiments that collectively add up to a book. It is a complicated and interconnected process, overwhelmingly full of different life forms: fertile ground for stories to emerge from.

 The events are free and open to the public, and feature refreshments from local producers.

This exhibit has been created with support from the Kent Cultural Alliance, Campbell Foundation, Chesapeake Bay Trust, Joseph Robert Foundation and AgArts.

For more information on Camille’s work, see www.austencamille.com/

 

Mary Swander, executive director of AgArts and artistic director of Swander Woman Productions, is honored to be a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.

This group of individual writers have formed a collaborative approach to writing about and for Iowans… and beyond.

Read writings by Swander in Mary Swander’s Buggy Land: maryswander.substack.com

And check out short works by new and emerging writers, selected by Swander, Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices: swander.substack.com

 

Susan Strawn recently created a potholder quilt, photographed with Susan at the Modern Quilt Guild exhibit, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

The Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame recognized Mary Swander recently by naming her as one of the four honorees for 2022. The awards ceremony was held Saturday, August 27 at the Des Moines Playhouse.

Mary Swander is an author, playwright, storyteller, educator and musician. She serves as executive director of AgArts and Swander Woman Productions.

Accolades:

• Mary Swander and her troupe of actors are consummate professionals. – Keri Smith-Norman, Mayo Clinic
• An extraordinary biography. Ms. Swander artfully recounts Dr. Nick’s courageous journey. – Raphaela Sabino, nurse, speaking about Mary’s book, The Maverick M.D.
• Mary Swander has given so much to the Midwest for so many years in so many different capacities — Iowa Poet Laureate, visionary of Swander Woman Productions, executive director of AgArts, and much more. We all look forward to more great things coming out of her fertile mind and considerable talent. – Jonathan Andelson, Center for Prairie Studies, Grinnell College
• We have appreciated the powerfulness of Mary Swander’s work when we’ve brought her plays, Vang and Map of My Kingdom, to Nebraska. They are both thought-provoking and provocative, yet unassuming and relatable. That is the beauty of Mary’s work and makes it so relevant to these times. – Sandra Renner, farm & community program director, Center for Rural Affairs
• Mary has had a way of letting me know that she believes in me and my writing. She encourages me to trust myself and believe that what I have to say has value. I appreciate her talent for seeing through complexity to the absolute core of meaning in my writing. Mary gives freely of herself, her expertise, her resources, her experience. But she does not give unconditionally. She expects me to produce. I am grateful. – Susan M. Strawn, memoir student and author of Loopy: Stories of a Knitting Life, a Memoir
• I want to thank Mary Swander for providing such a cool program in AgArts.  From my hosts’ generously sharing all on their farmstead to connecting me with fascinating people and places, my time in Nebraska was stimulating and rich. I am grateful beyond measure for this opportunity. – Karen Downing, AgArts artist-in-residence
• Mary’s craftful storytelling is helping us work toward a better food and farm system in Iowa. – Sally Worley, executive director, Practical Farmers of Iowa
  
• I took a class from Mary Swander at ISU which led me to pursue an MFA. I loved her! If not for her, I would not be sitting here. – Mark Munger, general manager, Siouxland Public Media

To highlight women’s heritage and recognize their contributions, the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women (ICSW) established the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1975. Each year the ICSW and the Governor welcome four women into the Hall of Fame, paying tribute to them and setting them forth as role models for others. As of 2021, 188 women had been inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame and 33 individuals were awarded the Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice.

In addition to Mary Swander, 2022 Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame honorees are Laurie Schipper, Des Moines; Mary Richards, Ames; and Elizabeth Bates Cowles, who lived in Des Moines. The 2022 Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice recipient is The Honorable Ako Abdul-Samad of Des Moines, member of the Iowa House of Representatives since 2007. Read about the honorees in The Des Moines Register here.

 

Mary Swander’s bio

Mary Swander is the Executive Director of AgArts, a nonprofit designed to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts. She hosts the podcast “AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land” that highlights the Amish, sustainability and rural life. 

Swander’s most recent play, Squatters on Red Earth, about the white settler land grab from the Native Americans, will go on the road this summer.  Her latest book is The Maverick M.D.: Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez and His Fight for a New Treatment for Cancer (New Spring Press).

Swander has established residencies for artists on farms throughout Iowa and around the U.S., and she has hosted numerous international artists, touring them throughout the state.

The former Poet Laureate of Iowa, Swander is an award-winning author who has been given grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Whiting Foundation. She has published scores of books of poetry and nonfiction as well as essays, magazine articles, individual poems and radio commentaries in such places as National Public Radio, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, and Poetry Magazine. She is best known for her poetry book Driving the Body Back and for her memoirs Out of this World and The Desert Pilgrim. 

An emerita Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Swander taught creative writing for thirty years at Iowa State University and was a visiting writer-in-residence at Interlochen Arts Academy, the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Alabama.  She now gives online workshops on poetry, nonfiction and playwriting, as well as farmland transition, for other colleges and universities and nonprofit organizations. She received her own M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop.

The Artistic Director of Swander Woman Productions, Swander has performed her dramas from coast-to-coast in venues that include farmers’ barns to New York University, The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, The Mayo Clinic, and the Idaho Wine Commission. Her touring productions are The Girls on the Roof, an adaptation of her poetry book with the Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre; Vang, a play about recent immigrant farmers; Map of my Kingdom, a play about farmland transition; and Farm-to-Fork Tales, a storytelling performance.

Mary is now a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Read her first submission here.

Mary Swander also gives solo performances of her own work, playing the banjo, the harmonica and the spoons. She has dual U.S./Irish citizenship and has taught in Ireland many summers. The rest of the year, she lives in a former Amish one-room schoolhouse near Kalona, raises goats and has a large organic garden where she grows most of her own food. 

Land Alliance Folk School and Retreat Center, Oxford, Iowa

When you need an opportunity to step back from the demands of life,  Land Alliance offers space to rekindle your creativity, reencounter the land and discover the joy of learning together.  Join us for a class or retreat!

https://landalliancefolk.com

Mustard Seed Community Farm

 

Mustard Seed Community Farm, in Boone County, Iowa, is dedicated to sustainable, simple living, love of our neighbor, and creating a community in which everyone can participate in growing and eating delicious, healthy, locally produced food.  We offer agro-ecology internships, community skill-shares, and advocate for a more just and equitable world.  We love craft and art and hope to host our first artist-in-residency soon.

http://mustardseedfarm.org/

Whirling and twirling through a pandemic and a derecho, AgArts has landed on its feet during 2020. We’ve been able to maintain our central work—the farm-to-artist residencies—and do even more to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts.

In February, AgArts moved into its own home, a storefront in downtown Kalona, IA., the heart of the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi River. We are very near the busiest corner in town and have lots of street traffic of both tourists and townspeople.  During the first month, many people stopped in to say hello and find out what we were about. We were featured in interviews in local newspapers. The space had been a lawyer’s office who left the place fully furnished with antiques. We blew up frames from Jean Graham’s Farm Art Zine and decorated the walls. (Jean’s Zine is available for download on our website, and images of three of her works are here, above and below.)

In one corner of the office, we fixed up a small sound studio. Through the generous support of the Werner Ellithorp Fund at the Oregon Community Foundation, we launched a podcast series called “AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land.” This bi-monthly program is centered upon the activities of fictitious Freemartin Town. It features stories about the Amish, interviews with farmers, local old-time, bluegrass, jazz and blues music, readings about sustainability from the Amish newspaper Plain Interests, a Call-In Catastrophe show, and recipes from Ruby, the resident grossmomie.  Episode #6, a holiday story from Amishland, is now posted and ready for listening.

http://www.agarts.org/podcasts/

This year we adapted our farm residencies to our challenging times. At the end of February, visual artist Buzz Masters set up her easel in the River House at Whiterock Conservancy in western Iowa, isolated and surrounded by restored prairie. Buzz was wildly productive until the pandemic descended, calling her back to Maine. (Images of two of her works are below.) Several residencies had to be cancelled due to travel restrictions and lockdowns, but we were able to reconfigure and rematch other artists to farms. During July, dance artists Emily Climer and Marie Haas arrived at Whiterock from New York City, and later in the month, journalist and playwright Jeff Biggers and his son were able to spend time there learning about the complexities of agriculture.

This year the complexities of reaching our audience were simplified through online teaching. In collaboration with The Land Alliance Folk School, AgArts taught classes in poetry and memoir writing, and cell phone videos, as well as root cellaring and dehydrating food preservation. The Folk School filled out the schedule with botanical drawing, making dyes from plants, canning and a host of other skill-based courses. These classes were quite popular and this winter we will be planning an array of courses for 2021. We also had two interns from Central College in Pella, IA who helped with technical writing and staffing our booth at conferences.

“AgArts needs your help to continue to bridge the urban/rural divide by bringing artists and farmers together, allowing each to better understand the landscape of the other.”

Our artists have gotten to know the farmers and have been able to reflect their agricultural issues in their writing, painting, theatre, and dance. Our podcasts have added entertaining comic relief to a difficult year, all the while educating our audiences about agriculture and the rural environment.

This year we are offering premiums to thank you for your tax-deductible donations to AgArts.

• $100      A set of postcards made from visual artist Jean Graham’s Farm Art Zine.
• $250      A free signed book by Mary Swander
• $500      A set of postcards, free book, and your name announced as a supporter on the “AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land” podcast.
• $3000    A set of postcards, free book, and your name on all publicity materials as a contributor who endowed an AgArts Farm-to-Artist residency.

Here are ways you can help:

• Click the DONATE button on the AgArts website and make a donation on your credit card. http://www.agarts.org
• Or improve both your budget and ours by becoming a regular contributor through our website on Patreon.com. https://www.patreon.com/AgArts
• Send a check through snail mail to: AgArts, P.O. Box 516, Kalona, IA  52247.
• Tune in and subscribe to “AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land.” Like and follow AgArts on Facebook and Instagram.

I hope you will continue your commitment to agriculture and the arts with a generous gift to AgArts today. We are grateful for your support!

Sincerely, 

Mary Swander, AgArts Executive Director

319-683-2613, swandermary@gmail.com

Mary Swander was delighted to interview Marcia Wegman for AgArts from Horse and Buggy Land, S1 E5. Above is Marcia Wegman’s Passing Country Storm.

Artist Statement, Marcia Wegman:

“The Midwest landscape has surrounded me all of my life.  Having spent most of my childhood in Ohio and my entire adult life in Iowa, it is the images of these vistas which periodically inspire me to try a new way of expressing this subtly beautiful landscape.  I enjoy hiking in some wilder parts of the country so am also challenged by the unique forms of beauty found in each of these places.  In the past I have worked in acrylic and collage, now I am using the medium of soft pastel to capture the qualities of undulating hills, overlapping rhythmic forms, textures of trees and vegetation, rich colors, dynamic patterns, changing light, and always, the sky.  The land remains constant, the colors transform subtly from season to season, but the sky is an ever-shifting panorama of light, color and form.  The possibilities are limitless.

“The immediacy and directness of pastel is the quality I most value in this medium.  I feel I am able to best approximate and express the ephemeral and very magical essence of light as it moves across the land through pastel painting.” (Above, Lotus Pond and below, Autumn Creek, both by Wegman. Left, Marcia Wegman)

Artist Statement for show of abstract paintings, Marcia Wegman:

“Although pastel landscapes occupy the major part of my studio time, I periodically set aside the pastels and bring the acrylic paints, brushes, assorted tools and YUPO paper up from the basement into my studio which is an integral part of my little cottage of a house. I am always excited to find out what will result from what is generally a two-week period of exploration, experimentation and play with paint. Because it is such a different approach to how I create the pastel landscapes, it is like a palate refresher between courses of an elegant dinner.

“YUPO, the paper I worked on for this show, is a slick plastic paper made in Japan for commercial use in packaging and printing but taken up by artists, especially watercolor painters.

“I have nothing particular in mind when I begin a new abstract painting. I start out by choosing two or three colors to work with. Knowing this group of paintings would be shown together I consciously tried to use very different color combinations so each painting would be unique. The first layer or two of painting is applied quickly and spontaneously with a variety of brushes and tools. Each subsequent layer is applied more slowly and thoughtfully. Composition and color relationships are of primary concern with mark making also of importance. I use a lot of Venetian plaster in the layering which I sand down to reveal a bit of what is going on underneath. The painting is finished when there is nothing I want to change or add.

“I have won quite a few awards in international art magazines. Most have been for the pastel landscapes with the biggest honor a year ago in Artists Magazine. The competition is opened to all mediums and artists all over the world. My pastel painting of an Iowa creek in fall colors won first place in the landscape competition. In the same magazine, which also holds a separate competition for artists 60 and older, I won first place in the abstract category.” (Above, Summer Richness by Wegman)

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