Lately I've been conducting field interviews with farmers from different villages in south west France for a study where i work. I really feel some days its the requiem of a dying world. I'm bearing testimony to the last of our traditional family farms, the last of our livestock farmers soon to be retired, the cows sold, an once upon a time thriving farm being shred to piece and sold to remaining farmers, always bigger and bigger yet always financially insecure, the story of single men who toiled all their life and have no children...the farmers strikes have started again yet we are so outnumbered. And in the middle of it all, I met two young persons wanting to start a dairy farm....
Thank you for writing this Alice, and what a great work and study it is you are dong. Documenting these old farmers stories is such a vital task and you are creating an immensely valuable record. One of my favourite things to do is to look at old farming photographs from the 30s-40s to see how things once were. I am immensely grateful to those pioneering photographers who captured the mundane, the ordinary and the vanishing.
But, amidst all the loss and decline, it is those two young potential dairy farmers to give us hope.
I've shared the same sense of grief about these dying ways, and an unbearable sense that there are more of them than I even know, ones that might not be "trendy" enough to be rediscovered and broadcasted, like crochet and sourdough baking; ones that might slip into oblivion with the passing of older generations. But I've also noticed, more recently, an incredible itch amongst the people to return to many more of these ways than I thought - weaving, darning, hand-dying, embroidery, to name a few. The problem is that those itching to rediscover these things don't always have a human avenue to do so, and in the absence of a mentor, resort to books or youtube tutorials. These are valuable repositories of instruction, no doubt, but I always feel there's something lost when the transmission of skill lacks direct human interface. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Great thoughts Penelope. The lack of a human mentor is a real challenge, most pertinently I think is the lack of gentle but firm critique. A master will always guide and critique his or her apprentice, it is how the apprentice will improve and one day become a master themselves. The book or video lacks this personal interaction and lacks the relationship where critique and encouragement can be received, where accountability is fostered and where style can be passed on.
I too have noticed a renaissance of sorts in some of the lesser known crafts. One day I would like to learn how to dye fabrics with natural foraged dyes to support my wife with her quilting.
You're right about firm critique. So many of us have lost the appetite for that kind of mentorship, maybe because we've never experienced it. Definitely creates a kind of fragility antithetical to mastering a craft.
Lately I've been conducting field interviews with farmers from different villages in south west France for a study where i work. I really feel some days its the requiem of a dying world. I'm bearing testimony to the last of our traditional family farms, the last of our livestock farmers soon to be retired, the cows sold, an once upon a time thriving farm being shred to piece and sold to remaining farmers, always bigger and bigger yet always financially insecure, the story of single men who toiled all their life and have no children...the farmers strikes have started again yet we are so outnumbered. And in the middle of it all, I met two young persons wanting to start a dairy farm....
Thank you for writing this Alice, and what a great work and study it is you are dong. Documenting these old farmers stories is such a vital task and you are creating an immensely valuable record. One of my favourite things to do is to look at old farming photographs from the 30s-40s to see how things once were. I am immensely grateful to those pioneering photographers who captured the mundane, the ordinary and the vanishing.
But, amidst all the loss and decline, it is those two young potential dairy farmers to give us hope.
I've shared the same sense of grief about these dying ways, and an unbearable sense that there are more of them than I even know, ones that might not be "trendy" enough to be rediscovered and broadcasted, like crochet and sourdough baking; ones that might slip into oblivion with the passing of older generations. But I've also noticed, more recently, an incredible itch amongst the people to return to many more of these ways than I thought - weaving, darning, hand-dying, embroidery, to name a few. The problem is that those itching to rediscover these things don't always have a human avenue to do so, and in the absence of a mentor, resort to books or youtube tutorials. These are valuable repositories of instruction, no doubt, but I always feel there's something lost when the transmission of skill lacks direct human interface. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Great thoughts Penelope. The lack of a human mentor is a real challenge, most pertinently I think is the lack of gentle but firm critique. A master will always guide and critique his or her apprentice, it is how the apprentice will improve and one day become a master themselves. The book or video lacks this personal interaction and lacks the relationship where critique and encouragement can be received, where accountability is fostered and where style can be passed on.
I too have noticed a renaissance of sorts in some of the lesser known crafts. One day I would like to learn how to dye fabrics with natural foraged dyes to support my wife with her quilting.
You're right about firm critique. So many of us have lost the appetite for that kind of mentorship, maybe because we've never experienced it. Definitely creates a kind of fragility antithetical to mastering a craft.