Feed and Seed (Heisey Farm)

Feed and Seed (Heisey Farm) is part of a series of seven collaborations with farmers in which the artists provided ten percent of the farmers’ annual seed cost in exchange for the empty seed bags that had been subsidized. The bags are framed under Plexiglas sandblasted with the type of crop and the number of acres sown with seed from the bag. When galleries sold the work the remaining ninety percent of the cost of the seed was given to the participating farmers. The project linked the real-world economics of the small farmer with those of the art market, contrasting the labor and cycles of food production with the fluctuating and often fickle enthusiasms of the art world. The piece recalls Mel Ziegler’s youth on a working Pennsylvania farm. Its subject matter expresses the artists’ appreciation for the crucial labor performed by farmers today.