I’m honored to have my work awarded an Honorable Mention by Carla Rodriguez, juror of the 110th Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition in St. Paul, MN. The show runs through Sept 6. I hope to make it to the fair this weekend to see all the art in the show, the largest juried art exhibition in the state. Scroll to the end to see the winning photograph.
I want to share with you the back story not only of the exhibited photograph, but the project as a whole, and the specific sheep featured in the photograph, Tantor. The story features a poetic ending. First, the backstory.
Josilin and Tantor, 4-H Lamb Lead Show, Minnesota State Fair, 2015.
The Unchosen Ones began with a visit to a quintessentially American event, the state fair. I was in Minnesota, where I live, which still has a strong community of small family farms. My longstanding interest in animals and their connection to humans drew me to the 2015 Minnesota State Fair. For my previous project, Divine Animals: The Bovidae, I photographed goats and sheep in lush landscapes throughout Western Europe. I knew I wanted to continue photographing domesticated animals, but my ideas about a new series were still inchoate. As I was canvassing the fair looking for inspiration, I took in all the carefully tended-to animals and their owners, often young children. After the 4-H Lamb Lead show, I met the fourth-place finishers, Josilin, and her sheep, Tantor. I could see Josilin was disappointed, yet she held her head high. Her determination inspired me, and I made a portrait of them. Photographing the pair spurred me to think about my own childhood and its run-of-the- mill disappointments. I had a supportive family and a fulfilling childhood, yet I still vividly remember being picked last for the basketball team and not earning a ribbon at the local science fair, even though I had tried my best. As I grew older, I knew well the feeling of not being chosen—for a job, or for love. But not being chosen for something can have a valuable upside: it can create empathy. Empathy connects people and forges bonds. Later that year, I included the portrait in a Minnesota State Arts Board grant application, and that act would shape my artistic journey.
I began to look for a certain typology: exemplary youth and animals from a small but geographically diverse area in Minnesota. I chose goats and sheep because they were competition animals that also fit within the constraints of the six-foot-wide backdrop I was using. The formality of the backdrop elevated the subjects and also allowed a story to emerge between the animal and the child. My strobe lights failed to flash during my initial session, so I used the diffuse, ambient light of the overcast skies. This serendipitous accident produced a soft tonality I loved: the light fell onto my dignified subject, rendering shadows as though from a painter’s brush. I was drawn to this aesthetic.
Josilin and Escapé, Benton County Fair, Minnesota, 2016 (left) and Josilin and Tantor, Benton County, Minnesota, 2021 (right).
In 2016, I made 65 portraits of youth contestants at Minnesota county fairs. Each participant—some as young as four years old— spent a year raising an animal, which they entered into a 4-H livestock competition. None of the youth I photographed succeeded in winning an award, despite the obvious care they have given to their animal.
Four years later, in 2020, I returned to photograph the young subjects, asking them what they carried forward from their previous experience. Some of them have continued to pursue animal husbandry while others developed other interests. We imagine some of these kids will choose to continue running their family farms, an unpredictable and demanding way to make a living.
As I created the second group of photographs, I asked them what were their thoughts, their dreams, and their goals for the future? How do they fit in the future of agricultural America?
Place matters to me, especially since these portraits were not taken in a studio. Using a wide-angle lens, I stepped back to view the pastoral environment, with farm machinery and architecture and the occasional barn kitty or chicken cameo.
In January 2021, while completing the book project (forthcoming MW Editions, November 2021), I felt the urge to photograph. I called up Josilin and checked in on how Tantor was doing. She was aging with grace, I learned. I also was told female sheep with “masculine” names, like Tantor, perform better in livestock competitions.
Honorable Mention, 110th Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition, Juror Carla Rodriguez:
Josilin, Pastoral Study, 2021, by R. J. Kern, from the upcoming monograph, The Unchosen Ones: Portraits of an American Pastoral (MW Editions, 2021). Archival pigment print mounted on dibond, 37 x 50 inches, Edition 1 of 3 + AP, 2021, $3600 framed.
Although there is abundant evidence that this way of life is disappearing as kids leave the farm, the crisis of climate change and a concern for both sustainability and stewardship of the land point to a path for survival for these agricultural practices and traditions. I hope county fairs will still be around in a hundred years.
Tantor passed away two weeks after our portrait session.
Tantor, Benton County, Minnesota, 2021 (unpublished)