On the Cover | June 26, 2019
learn more about Volume One's cover art from Joe Maurer
Volume One finds its cover art in a number of ways, from local art shows to random emails to knowing someone who knows someone who knows a great artist. The art always originates from a current or former Chippewa Valley resident. If you'd like to submit cover art, send us a message.
“Smit Family Farm” by Joe Maurer
2019, oil, wax, and collage on wood panel
19.5” x 19.5”
Joe Maurer is starting to believe that revision of things he says or writes is ... feel free to remind him. Does he need to revise that?
“This painting was made on pages of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. I found the book in very poor condition so I decided to give it new life. Whitman was my first exposure to poetry and it is also his 200th anniversary. I enjoyed Leaves of Grass for its celebration of the ‘underdogs’ in life. Today small farmers are the new underdogs. The Smits pasture 100% grassfed Icelandic sheep in Colfax. The landscape they call home is beautiful and their lambs are happy. Historian Jerry Apps pointed out that historically small dairy farmers ‘saved the soils of the Midwest.’ Today industrial-scale farms are washing away century-old soils. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a billion small farmers?” – The Artist
