For the month of January, Good Foods’ Cafe will be featuring the work of Deirdre Scaggs.
Artist Statement
This body of work was taken over the course of two summers in Kentucky gardens all across the state. The gardeners represent a diverse range of ages, races, gardening styles, crops, and regions. These particular images are a close-up view of just a few of their fruits and vegetables.
Growing up in rural Kentucky, gardening wasn’t something that I thought a great deal about, it was just what we did. I never knew that tomatoes could be pale and mealy, because I hadn’t had ones that didn’t come straight off of a vine.
The act of gardening remains important to me. This project was an incredible glimpse into the diversity of Kentuckians and their gardens. We have a thriving community of individuals raising their own food and those who will be passing on the tradition to a new generation of gardeners.
This photographic project was the visual element for a Kentucky gardener’s oral history project conceived and conducted by Lexingtonian, Kate Black. Her work, with accompanying photographs, will be published in Row by Row: Kentucky Garden Stories by the Ohio University Press in Fall 2015.
About the Artist
Deirdre A. Scaggs is Associate Dean of the Special Collections Research Center at UK Libraries. She has an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA from The Ohio Statue University. Deirdre is the author of a cookbook, The Historic Kentucky Kitchen: traditional recipes for today’s cook and a pictorial history, Women in Lexington.
For more information please contact deirdre.scaggs@gmail.com.
Framed photographs are $125.
