Search Site   
Current News Stories
Solar eclipse, new moon coming April 8
Mystery illness affecting dairy cattle in Texas Panhandle
Teach others to live sustainably
Gun safety begins early
Hard-cooked eggs recipes great for Easter, anytime
Michigan carrot producers to vote on program continuation
Suggestions to celebrate 50th wedding anniversary
USDA finalizes new ‘Product of the USA’ labeling rule 
U.S. weather outlooks currently favoring early planting season
Weaver Popcorn Hybrids expanding and moving to new facility
Role of women in agriculture changing Hoosier dairy farmer says
   
News Articles
Search News  
   

Art park dream comes to life on Kentucky farmstead

 

By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Sustainability is a buzzword often used in agriculture referring to the ability to keep family farms functional, operational and, more importantly, in the hands of the family.

With the decline in the number of farmers in a state that once was so heavily dependent on a tobacco economy, sustaining the farm has taken on many different looks – from going into vegetable and fruit production to converting cow dairies to goat dairies.

Melanie VanHouten is really no different than others who have made these kinds of monumental changes. Her specialty is art, sculpting to be exact, as opposed to livestock – but her goal has been to keep a family farm alive and vibrant. Through her artwork she is doing just that.

The Franklin County native spent much of her early childhood on her grandparents’ farm. There, she began her career in art simply by drawing or arranging grandmother Josephine’s stamp collection.

“My grandmother was always supportive of my artistic endeavors even at a young age. She died when I was 10, so my memories of her are from pretty far back but they were really significant,” she said. “I spent a lot of time on the farm when I was a kid and it was significant, too. Whenever I thought about what home is, this was it.”

VanHouten’s love for art would stay with her through college at the University of Kentucky then on to the University of Minnesota, where she attended graduate school. It was there she discovered Franconia Sculpture Park, a 20-acre park dedicated to artists local, national and international, who shared their sculptures with the public.

“I just fell in love with the place. It was on an old farm. There were artists there from all over the world and (it) was open every day. The public would come and they could talk to artists and see things being installed,” she said. “It was all the things I loved about art and the outdoors all in one beautiful package.”

A seed was planted and VanHouten remarked then that someday, she would do the same on her grandparents’ farm.

She would remain active at the park while living in Minnesota. During that time the family farm in Kentucky was rented out. But VanHouten had a dream of saving it, although it would be a while before she came home. Out of graduate school, she wanted to teach and found a great job at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, as head of the sculpture program.

“I loved it there. It was like my dream job, but something still was pulling me home,” she said.

VanHouten and her husband would stay in Minnesota for several more years, but sadly, she found herself returning all too often for family members’ funerals, something that finally prompted her to tell her husband she wanted to go home.

The time spent at Franconia would serve her well as she learned about day-to-day operations and how to make a nonprofit organization work, through the park’s director and VanHouten’s mentor, John Hock.

“He was an amazing mentor and shared everything, encouraging me the whole way, inviting me into the business part of running a nonprofit,” she said. “And we just did it, we left and came home.”

The couple moved into her grandparents’ home and began work right away to turn the family farm into Josephine’s Sculpture Park (JSP), in memory of her grandmother. VanHouten officially opened the park to the public in September 2009 and has watched it grow and evolve in the last couple of years, often hosting school groups.

“It’s feels really good to be taking care of it,” she said. “People, all the time, they thank us for sharing it. How could you not? It wouldn’t be right not to share it,” she said. “To see kids having this magical experience, it is so much like what I had here when I was a kid. It’s really rewarding.”

The park is visible from the main highway that passes by the farm and is open to the public, free of charge. There are sculptures created by artists from around the world, as well as a couple of painted murals on an outbuilding and a barn. The park even has a small amphitheatre area which staged a production of “Macbeth,” something VanHouten would like to see continue.
“It has been a work in progress, but I’ll say we’ve been overwhelmingly, positively received,” she said.

Community support has played a big role in getting the park off to such a good start, with volunteers and businesses joining in; this has been a little bit of a surprise to VanHouten, but not totally unexpected.

“We felt this really good energy every time we came home and we said there is something really good happening in Frankfort,” she said. “It felt like the time was right, and there is nothing like it in the state. We thought it would be well received but the first year was really a fantastic surprise.”

The park is unique because of the many different kinds of sculptures that can be found there, and also for how well they blend into the environment. VanHouten’s intention was never to replace the farm, but to enhance it. The artwork actually becomes part of the landscape, with wildflowers growing around the pieces and becoming an extension of the art.

Visitors may take a walking tour through the fields and experience the sculptures up-close, an opportunity usually not given in a museum setting.
VanHouten’s artistic flair may well be partly genetic. Her great-grandmother loved to draw and left pieces for the young girl to gaze upon. Her grandmother was an artist in her own right, through her gardening. VanHouten continues the gardening and considers all aspects of the farm artistic in their own way.
She has even created a sculpture from tobacco sticks left on the farm. For her, agriculture and art are similar in that the creators use their hands to take something and make something else out of it.

“It’s a labor of love and people who do it, they know what that means, and people who don’t probably think we are crazy, in that we work way too hard and get paid way too little,” she said.

VanHouten would like to see the park continually evolve and bring more artists there to work and learn, and art lovers to expand their love of the art and the land on which it resides. She said there is calmness to the farm that others feel once they visit.

She credits it to the good energy her grandmother possessed and has left behind. In fact, an artist friend painted a mural on a small building visitors see upon entering the park, which includes an image of Josephine.
“This place really does combine all the things that I love about the world,” VanHouten said.

The park open daily from dawn to dusk. For more information, call 502-352-7082, visit http://josephinesculpture park.org or email info@josephinesculpturepark.org

8/3/2011