Rock City Coffee Roastery
Patrick Reilley owns and runs Rock City Coffee with his partner Susanne Ward. Here Patrick is releasing the beans after roasting! This was a French Roast batch.
GALLERY SHOW!
For the month of February, I am the featured artist in the Good Tern cafe gallery. Come look at my show! Below is my artist’s statement that’s hanging in the gallery with the photos. There are 10 frames in all.
Cow -Themed Catharsis
I have loved cows since I was two years old. Growing up next door to a retired dairy farmer in Somerville, Maine, I spent hours roaming fields with the cows that the farmer boarded for other dairymen. My old neighbor’s name is Don Hewett, but I called him Tractor. No matter how many times my parents told me it was rude, the name made sense to me because it seemed he spent most of his time riding old John Deere tractors. The name has stuck. Tractor is now 87 years old, and we are still close friends. He is still Tractor. And I still want to spend every moment of the day with cows.
The cows in these photos belonged to another dairy farming friend of mine, Wayne Cunningham. I’ve worked off and on for Wayne milking cows since I was in 8th grade. I bought my first pet cow from him when I was in 6th grade and resold her to Wayne when I was in 8th grade.
The cows pictured in this series are from Wayne’s most recent herd, which was sold in the summer of 2009 due to the economic situation and a very poor haying season. Over 80 of the bovine girls were sent to slaughter in Pennsylvania with funding coming from a dairy farming cooperative called Cooperatives Working Together. (Their website is www.cwt.coop.) I urge everyone to research this subject. Having been personally attached and connected to the cows, I found this financing of mass slaughter traumatizing. I hope my photos convey my love for these creatures as well as reveal the intelligence I believe they possess as a species.
I became interested in photography when I took a black and white photo class with Ken Martin while a student at Medomak Valley High School. I discovered digital when my high school Humanities teacher and mentor, Chuck Boothby, let me borrow his digital SLR camera. In college I took only one photography class while I explored other media, but I still carried my camera with me everywhere. Most recently I did a semester at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland where I spent three months photographing Joe Miller, a homeless man bound to a wheelchair, with a place on the sex offender registry, a tendency to dress in women’s clothing, and a long history of mental illness. During this time I also did a shorter documentary on the Short-nosed Sturgeon population in the Penobscot River.
Black Crow Bakery
Mark Mickalide owns Black Crow Bakery in Litchfield, ME and bakes bread 5 days a week in a bakery wedged between his house and the barn. He’s been creating bread in this location for 20 years. He also makes the bread for communion at The Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity in Lewiston, ME. (Click the photo to see slideshow)
White Orchard Farm
Cecil Linscott and Ann Wilson milk 14 Jersey cows at their farm in Franfort, Maine. They deliver their raw milk and yogurt to co-ops and markets in Rockland, Belfast, Bangor and around Frankfort. Click the photo to see a slideshow glimpse of their operation.
Heiwa Tofu
Heiwa Tofu in Camden, Maine is owned and operated by Jeff and Maho. Visit their website for more information on their business and click the photo above to experience the morning I spent in their mini-factory.
CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO GO TO THE THURSDAY GARDEN BLOG!!!Felted Bowls
Felted bowls. I’ve started making TALLER ones, standing at about 8 inches. The smaller bowls (like the green one in these photos) are roughly 5 inches high.
Autumnal Totes
The psychedelic purple bag is a small lunch bag sized version of the bigger totes. Can fit a yogurt, apple, juice box, sandwich box and maybe a carrot too. The bigger totes are all purpose grocery/papers and books/purse type bags.
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