"Drowning in Amber Waves"

Country Values By Brian Wilkes

*Recipient 2021 Certificate of Artistic Merit, Luxembourg Art Prize* Both of my grandfathers were farm boys, younger sons who were forced to leave home and find new careers when the family farms could no longer sustain them. Over the July 4 Independence Day holiday, I heard the lyric “For amber waves of grain” and wondered how many American farm families are drowning in debt in those amber waves. The painting features the hand of a farmer “going down for the third time”, surrounded by the barely-perceptible ghosts of those who have already fallen and by the demons of debt, drought, and crop blight. The traditional family farm that fed America and the world is becoming obsolete as corporations and foreign interests buy up the land and introduce factory farming methods. While your price at the supermarket have been going up, family farm incomes have been flat for decades while costs increase. Fewer of the next generation want that 14 hour workday lifestyle, and they are likely to sell the farm they inherit. The sun still perceptible through the clouds is a symbol of hope. The crop is intentionally vague - Wheat? Barley? Rye? Corn? - recall the Parables of the Wheat and Tares. The cornfield adjoining my home was the inspiration. The hillock at right is a reference to the one that appears in several of Van Gogh's works. The greatest compliment received so far is from a local farmer who left to become a clergyman. He said the painting captured the way he felt "every day for five years". We live in a tornado zone, and a single storm can wipe out an entire year's crop. Psalm 90 captures the underlying despair and frustration of American family farms: "Save me, O god! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is dry; my eyes fail while I wait for my God."