Thanks, but I don't need another old combine

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Obsolete farm equipment is Grey County artist Steven White's inspiration.  

White, a Collingwood school art teacher, used parts from an old Allis-Chalmers combine harvester found on his 50-acre farm near Walters Falls to make sculptures and prints. The abandoned harvester is the point of departure for a number of paintings. These works of art make up The Combine Project, exhibited at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound Nov. 27-Jan. 17.

White says the abandoned combine is a metaphor of how the landscape in his area is changing. Farm equipment is more "massive" and "efficient," there's greater mechanization of farm tasks, and larger operators are swallowing up smaller farms.

In some works, he combines botanical drawings of crops with technical drawings of the combine's parts that he bought on EBay for $5. The combination conveys how "plants themselves are becoming the ­technology," he says.

White is turning down offers to work with other old machines. "The reason why I was drawn  to this (combine) was because it was left on my property," he explains.  BF