Its been over a month since our awesome annual visit home to NC and I have tons of photographs to share with you but first I have to share some shots from an awesome project I was able to play a small role in while in NC. My sister Ashton is an awesome painter with a real vision for animal & landscape portraits. She brings this beautiful looseness to her paintings that I think really conveys the spirit of the animals & natures capes she paints. To me her animal portraits just spark an instant connection to the animals, a peek into their playful nature. So it came as no surprise that she was asked to illustrate a Farm to Table cookbook being published by PBS in collaboration with chef, educator & farmer Cassie Parsons. To help Ashton develop her paintings we had the opportunity to go out and visit Cassie's farm, Grateful Growers and take lots of photographs for her to work from. Due to the crazy scheduling of my once yearly visits home we were unfortunately unable to go during the "golden hours" so the lighting is admittedly not my best but I hope you can look past that and enjoy the adorable animals as you image me kneeling down in the pig slops to get them :)
Be sure to check out -
Ashton's work on instagram : AshtonNichols
Grateful Growers Farm : http://www.ggfarm.com
Here is an iPhone shot of a few of the paintings inspired by both my photographs & hers:
Images from Grateful Growers Farm- All the animals here (except of course Aurora the farm dog) are raised for meat or breeding. Whether or not you eat meat is a personal choice, a choice that I think each person should make based on their own convictions & health need. If, like me you, are a meat eater isn't this the kind of meat you want to eat? Meat from animals who lived stress free natural lives, raised on good healthy land. Yeah its more expensive… but isn't it kind of worth it, both for you and the animals?
Cassie's partner Natalie showed us around the farm. She is also a farmer, a baker, a sausage maker, a farmers market vendor, and educator to boot!
and a few images from our visit to our local farmers market where Grateful Growers (also Farmer, Baker, Sausage Maker) sells and a few chickens from Halls Family Farm (strawberries & pumpkins).
