Dirt
This sculpture was created for an exhibition titled "AgriCULTURE," through which exhibiting artists were paired with farms in Boulder County. I was interested specifically in soil health and remediation and was paired with The Golden Hoof Farm. As we walked around the Golden Hoof, farmer Alice Maritz Starek described the complex interconnections between her farm operations and the natural world that support healthy soil and the farm’s holistic approach.
In response to the complexity of systems that the Golden Hoof nurtures to build healthy soil on their farm, I sought to create a piece of artwork that would capture some of that complexity using moving images of debris photographed both on the farm and in my own vegetable garden. The images rotate within a silo sourced from the Trevithick farm in Boulder County.
Special thanks to my father, Ron Barbee, who engineered the kinetic mechanism and played a significant role in the design and creation of this artwork.