On the 2nd to last day of the

Fields Project

, resident artist

Cathi Shwalbe

orchestrated a water event at a public well located outside

Ashton, IL at Gurler Road and Schnell.

These

photos document her fourth gesture related to water. Her

handmade cups and this public well brought out many folks from the community througout the day. It was a beautiful thing and the water so fresh and cold and and lovely in her earthenware cups.

From Cathi: "Water should be free and clean = that is my the foundation. I was told about this well last year during

The Fields Project

Aneda Ebert

and knew what I would be doing during the 8th annual (for me) Fields

Project experience."

Anne, Cathi, fellow artist Carol Luc and Farm Hostess with the Mostest, Aneda Ebert!

These additional photos show the sky at the time I arrived to help Cathi set up at the well: Roll Clouds. I'm sure I've mentioned how much I love weather and storms and clouds. These were extraorinary...but it wasn't good timing for Cathi's event, luckily we were spared. Not even a drop of rain fell. The folks at either ends of this front were not so lucky. There had been pretty torrential rains the night before as well..as can be seen below. Farmers were out all morning anxiously checking the fields.

Aneda and Carol arrived fashionably early in the storm armoured John Deere!

The

Full Fields Project 2013 Blog Series:

Part 1: Bocker Farm/Barnacopia

Part 2: Walks/Drives/Sights

Part 3: Elevator/Horse Ride/Sprayer

2013 Fields Project Part 5: Shoot out!

August 20, 2013My Candy Colored World, TravelAnne Leuck1 Comment

A few days before we departed for the

Fields Project

, fellow artist and good friend,

Cathi Schwalbe

posted this photo on Facebook with the caption:

Anne & Cathi head for the country.

We decided we needed to re-create the photo in this modern day setting, as the 'Silo Sisters' (you might recall from my earlier post - we each had a guest room for the week sleeping in the silo (behind us). We enlisted the help of fellow resident artist Barbara Diener and her vintage 4x5 camera. We have not seen her rendition yet, these are candid shots taken by our 'farm dad' Gary Bocker. He outfitted us with his pistol and shot guns and yep, we all took a turn with the 12 guage!

Barbara Diener

Cathi sporting the ruby red shell casings on her fingers with our esteemed photographer, Gary!

I doctored this one up...until we get the real deal!

The

Full Fields Project 2013 Blog Series:

Part 1: Bocker Farm/Barnacopia

Part 2: Walks/Drives/Sights

Part 3: Elevator/Horse Ride/Sprayer

My dog spotted on Mapquest satellite map...

July 19, 2011My Candy Colored World, Press & Published ...Anne Leuck1 Comment

At this year'sFields Project Art Fair I had a lovely lady and her daughter come to my display and excitedly share with me that my dog field sculpture (done in 2007) shows up on the MapQuest satellite map! This is pretty amazing because we mowed that field in one day and the photo was obviously taken early in the day since the negative space around the dog and the flowers was not mowed yet. You can't see us, by we are down there on the tractor...we stayed out there until it was done, in spite of the fact that Jennifer, the farmer was pregnant at the time...women farmers rock! ; ) See below for the finished project:

....it was an amazing week on the farm: part I

June 30, 2011My Candy Colored World, TravelAnne Leuck7 Comments

I spent a magical 9 days, June 18-26th, at the 13th Annual Fields Project Artist Residency. I'll split my recap into a few posts because I have a lot of photos that I would like to share. I stayed with the Pfieffer Family near Ashton, IL on their pig farm, and I'm glad to report that they have agreed to adopt me! ...do you like their license plate?! My toes are the green ones, painted in honor of the week, which was filled with laughter and an endless supply of rural artistic inspiration.

I'll start with the family farm dogs...this is Beauty.

...and Bebe, hard working farm dogs most of the time!

...and old, Tiger - he has quite a set of lungs!
Lots of kitties running around, too!
Pigs! I'll go into much more detail about these guys in the following posts. Momma cow and her calf...sorry Taryn, I forgot momma's name, baby'g going to be an 'L' name...I suggested "Louie", "Lester"....oh, how about "LeRoy"?
And this is Frosty (note the ears...struck with a little frost bite) and Daffodil in the background..they were really fun goats, totally engaging and loved attention! So beautiful.
A painting of them in process in my outdoor art studio at Castle Rock State Park.
Daffodil, so pretty.