from riches to rags and at home in both.

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Here is the latest news on my two-location show in Barnstedt, Lower Saxony, at the beginning of July, when the cold wet weather did not dampen the warm atmosphere and spirits of all the visitors. The original plan to show the paintings in the barn as part of the von Estorff family’s celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the  Barnstedt Music Association was changed due to the rain. I had made a concept for the barn so had to have a quick rethink due to not being able to knock nails into the precious walls of the old family von Estorff home. The only nail in the wall was used to hang the horse portrait I did for a stables in Upper Austria. The owners had framed it, unbeknown to me, in this great golden frame which not only fitted perfectly in the atmosphere of the stately home with it’s candelabras but also when the minuet dancers in their period costumes performed there too. Almost surreal! The whole day was a buzz with the most talented musicians , the philharmonic quartet Novosibirsk from Caucasia moved me to tears in the little chapel with their performance of Borodin’s 2. String quartet in D-major and Mozart’s piano quartet in G-minor, a young trio of woodwind players, and as mentioned, the group of minuet dancers in period costume performed in the entrance hall to the manor enjoyed by an enthusiastic audience and under the watchful eyes of my portraits. The puppeteer group “Fette Schnecke” (Fat Snail) with Pamela Fleck and Jörg were enjoyed by young and old as was the sing song outside during a slightly less wet interlude, arranged and orchestrated by Annette Brun.

The wonderful wet day was crowned by a freer performance in the 16th Century Chapel  by the visiting musicians from Caucasia, a day of colour for all our senses!

Then it was back to the barn – one of my favourite places in Barnstedt!

I took all the paintings and hung them at one end of the 30 metre long barn and really got an overview of my work in Barnstedt so far. The portraits all gazed down at me from the wooden walls where I could hammer in nails to my heart’s content! Most of the animals and person depicted live across the way from the barn! We had a lot of fun and it was very important for me feel my work, which I started in 2009, as one big piece. I am enjoying working on a larger scale with the animals at the moment but intend to carry on with the small portraits until I have captured all 39 sheep, 4 goats and other creatures on canvas and then the next part of the journey will begin. Many thanks to the von Estorff family for their  kind invitation to exhibit and warmest of welcomes in Barnstedt , to Regine Kirsten for her great support and wonderful photography and to all other friends who helped me out with both exhibitions!

Next exhibition end of August in the old Schwarzenberger brewery in the Mühlviertel!  The “Lieblinge” are already on the road!

update of helen’s flickr gallery

click here

for 2011 update of my latest animal paintings and other portraits.

self portrait with jonkl

Back in Barnstedt – and back to the barn

So great to be back visiting Hilal and the “lieblinge” (“darlings” which means all the animals here) and continuing with some of the local animal portraits. Some are quite keen to get into the picture.
The sheep have all been shorn and look like a gang of teenagers frolicking on the fields and sunning themselves on the new grass (the bits they have not eaten yet!

Once a free-range hen – now simply free to do as she chooses

Portrait of Nessy – with Fave-like waiting

Can you paint me with a comb like this one

Watching the Lieblinge at work

Fave in bed

A Grain of Grace for High-tech Hens

For the grace of Spatz

A Grain of Grace for High-tech Hens
Hilal Sezgin
translation
Helen Macfarlane

Many of those who visit me encounter hens for the first time in their lives. Hens who zealously scratch around under the great elm tree next to my terrace, who contentedly spread their wings in the sun and yet avidly look forward  to the rain as it makes the worms leave their earthy retreats. Hens are delightful creatures, who constantly bustle about until they are overcome by a kind of collective midday sleep.  They all nestle down in their leafy glade and croon in a way which is homey and soothing, especially to the human ear.

Nothing was provided for the life of these animals from the side of those who ”produced“ them. For the lives of all my hens started in a high-tech company and if you look at their website you will find out that hens are merely products. ”The right hen for every type of farm, the right egg for every market. All products – distinguished through excellent  laying peformance, endurance and standards of health“. This is even illustrated with figures: Eggs per beginner hen in 12 laying months 295 – 305. Average weight of egg 63.5 – 64.5g.  Shell fracture strength > 35 Newton. Feed conversion 2,1 – 2,2 kg/kg egg mass. Survival during the laying period 94 – 96 Percent.”

These hens are designed for use during a certain period of time when as many eggs as possible should be laid. They are no longer seen as creatures with any mentionable genetic differences but owe their existence to an extreme economic imperative, oriented by (in)breeding. Tests are made concerning how much light and what feed the hens should have in which week of life to guarantee top egg-laying performance. Company owned laboratories produce vaccinations for “typical supply agents“  and immediately sell these world wide. The Lohmann company, from where my chickens originate,  is actually the daughter company of the Erich Wesjohann Group – the world market leaders of laying hens.

After a year, the egg-laying performance drops under a certain percent and the high performance hens then have to take the path this time laid by the farming industy board. There are teams of workers who are specialized to go from farm to farm and to capture the hens to take to the slaughter house in the middle of the night when they are sleeping. Recently this job was advertized as ”chicken catchers“. During the panic and hunt of the night, some of the hens manage to hide themselves and, every year,  I collect these hens from such an egg farm.

That’s when they don’t look like real hens anymore. Their feathers are sparse, their combs and faces are pale; they suffer from diverse organ damage and often have chronic inflammation of the fallopian tubes. There is nothing healthy about these animals. I have driven several times with individual cases to the Veterinary University of Hannover and the doctor on duty stood there shaking her head, completely horror-stricken. These animals were bred by their ”producers“ in such a way that they (or 94 or 96 % of them) manage to survive a year. Hens from old laying breeds can live to a good age but the new high-tech hens do not stand any chance of a healthy life, at all.

Spatz: After - a life worth...

Lohmann’s laying hens are sold worldwide, from Mexiko, Libya and Japan. That means that the hens which scratch under my elm tree are related to hens all over the world. That means ultimately, that

small farmers everywhere are being forced into factory farming, and laboratory bred hens replace old and sturdy breeds of chickens.

Spatz before: the price of a cheap egg.

And with it the consumer gets so used to buying a cheap egg for breakfast and forgets the true price the hen pays for this.

Click here for Original German text in the Berliner Zeitung

all eyes and all ears

family members

Barninale – Barnstedt

Niedersachsen 2010

Bilder, Worter, Wolle

Artwork, Words and Wool

Artwork: Helen Macfarlane

Words: Hilal Sezgin

Wool: Resident Sheep

The place is called Barnstedt, the event, the Barninale, the exhibition location, a barn, of course…

I exhibited 16 months of work which started when I visited Hilal and her sheep in March 2009 and we were discussing the sheeps’ genealogy. We wanted to make a family tree and Hilal thought it would be a good idea to photograph the sheep to put names to faces. I started digitally cropping their portraits and made a sheet of the 39 members of the family. The images were so beautiful, the individuality of the sheep so striking I could not get them out of my mind or my i-Photo collection when I got back to Austria and decided they just had to be translated onto canvas. Thus, before we even realised it,  the project was well underway.

First came Joylein, who still accompanies me as my screen saver on a daily basis as well as driving the sheeps’ bus to the nearby “Kneipe” (German pub and sheep watering hole) and running a website jewellry shop with pieces he designs and borrows from the locals. I was so mesmerized I carried on and the effort culminated in a colourful collection of 25 of the 43 plus characters, including chickens, geese, cats and dogs oh and people were present somewhere too, on the generous walls of the barn in Barnstedt.

hilal reading under hilal reading in the triptych "All Ears"

My work is still  cut out for the coming months and there is always plenty to write about too, when it comes to animals! Hilal read some of her animal ethics texts (see below)  as well as from her upcoming book “Life in the Country”  I think we could be heading for ”The Town Muse and the Country Muse” a nice idea à Graeme Rawles, with the vowel (rather than the consonant) being cleverly lost by Hilal.

Our woolly words and artworks were enjoyed by three hundred people over two days and have been taken away to be processed by curious minds and searching eyes.

See images of the exhibition at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25869915@N05/sets/72157624790031731/

Newsflash: And finally <a href=”“>LANDLEBEN by Hilal Sezgin – the book to the show of the book! Now available!

Josh, Emil, Julchen

by Hilal Sezgin

translated
by Helen Macfarlane

Josh

The birth of my keeping sheep was like the manifold blessing of an immaculate conception. From out of the blue  39 children were delivered on my grassy meadow. Several dainty Cameroon sheep who scurry around when they are pressed for time; one Merino sheep with a face as soft as a Madonna; one Jacob’s or four-horned sheep, a breed which is almost extinct, whose devilish four-horned appearance poses quite a contrast to his need for love and affection, and a myriad of mongrels.

A few of them were living here already when, a few years ago, I decided to move my own backyard to the Lüneburger Heide. I came from the city and was only familiar with the types of shy sheep found on postcards or in the sub-category of a cloud. All of a sudden, there we were together; me and the sheep next door. I had hardly had time to settle in when I had to bury a new born lamb. This was my first encounter with death for a very long time. When the flock began to limp due to a hoof inflammation, after a long, wet winter, I learned how to use a hoof shears and a syringe. When a mother did not have enough milk for her triplets, I thought back to the adventures of Astrid Lingren’s Lisa from “The Bullerby Children” and started to rear them by bottle. And when it looked as if there might be a threat of more little sheep hooves trotting round the meadow, I asked the then owner for his consent to have the rams castrated.

Emil

There were already so many lambs it was like having a pets corner at the zoo.

The locals carted buggies full of kids squealing with delight to the doors of the barn. The most trusting lambs let themselves be held and stroked. And in the midst of this happy scene many an adult asked me, ”And do you slaughter them at Easter?“ You mean my bottle-fed babies, Josh, Emil und Julchen? Or Jamina Roo, the lamb who learned to hop and skip before she had learned the basics of walking or perhaps the nameless black lamb who dropped off under a beech tree and was forgotten by their mother who had then simply returned to the barn with the other children? It was a damp day in March and I was waiting for some friends to arrive from Berlin. When they did arrive, I immediately tossed them some wellies and off we went looking for the lost lamb…

Julchen

Forget slaughter. Do I make cheese at least? No. I do not do that either. But what do you do with them then? Nothing! I don’t do anything with ”them.“ Well apart from enjoying the lovely vision of them out on the meadows when I look up from my desk. Now and again I have to chase them as we have slightly different opinions as to the function of fences. In the evening after work, I sit down in the barn; they grind their teeth as they chomp their hay, some of them let out great sighs when they have finally managed to stretch their limbs into a comfortable position, and others trot over and nudge me to knead and scratch the back of their necks. When I get out of the car after a long journey, two or three heads stretch out of the barn door and I am greeted by the low, warm, bass tones of the soft Merana sheep, Jana…

The idea of keeping animals for no real reasons seems to take a bit of getting used to for some. Especially if they are what are known as farm animals or livestock. Whereby I am not even sure if I ”keep“ sheep. They are. I am. We are friends. I do not feel it is my job or my right to exploit a certain ”use“ out of them. After all, I am not here for any special use either. Must life be given a special use? An Easter lamb is just two or three months old when it is slaughtered, a healthy sheep can live to be fifteen years old. But then…

I will never forget the appalled look on a woman’s face who found it almost barbarous to forgo using the sheep as a product. Yet, she gradually realised the brutal end this eventually means: ”But if they do not slaughter the sheep,” she blurted, “they have to get old…and die!“ Exactly. And until then, they live, just as we do.

By Hilal Sezgin

My friend Jonas

Click here for original German version

For the grace of Spatz

A Grain of Grace for High-tech Hens

Hilal Sezgin

translated by Helen Macfarlane

Many of those who visit me encounter hens for the first time in their lives. Hens who zealously scratch around under the great elm tree next to my terrace, who contentedly spread their wings in the sun and yet avidly look forward  to the rain as it makes the worms leave their earthy retreats. Hens are delightful creatures, who constantly bustle about until they are overcome by a kind of collective midday sleep.  Then nestle down in their leafy glade and croon in a way which is homey and soothing, especially to the human ear.

Nothing was provided for the life of these animals from the side of those who ”produced“ them. For the lives of all my hens started in a high-tech company and if you look at their website you will find out that hens are merely products. ”The right hen for every type of farm, the right egg for every market. All products – distinguished through excellent  laying peformance, endurance and standards of health“. This is even illustrated with figures: Eggs per beginner hen in 12 laying months 295 – 305. Average weight of egg 63.5 – 64.5g.  Shell fracture strength > 35 Newton. Feed conversion 2,1 – 2,2 kg/kg egg mass. Survival during the laying period 94 – 96 Percent.”

These hens are designed for use during a certain period of time when as many eggs as possible should be laid. They are no longer seen as creatures with any mentionable genetic differences but owe their existence to an extreme economic imperative, oriented by (in)breeding. Tests are made concerning how much light and what feed the hens should have in which week of life to guarantee top egg-laying performance. Company owned laboratories produce vaccinations for “typical supply agents“  and immediately sell these world wide. The Lohmann company, from where my chickens originate,  is actually the daughter company of the Erich Wesjohann Group – the world market leaders of laying hens.

After a year, the egg-laying performance drops under a certain percent and the high performance hens then have to take the path this time laid by the farming industy board. There are teams of workers who are specialized to go from farm to farm and to capture the hens to take to the slaughter house in the middle of the night when they are sleeping. Recently this job was advertized as ”chicken catchers“. During the panic and hunt of the night, some of the hens manage to hide themselves and, every year,  I collect these hens from such an egg farm.

That’s when they don’t look like real hens anymore. Their feathers are sparse, their combs and faces are pale; they suffer from diverse organ damage and often have chronic inflammation of the fallopian tubes. There is nothing healthy about these animals. I have driven several times with individual cases to the Veterinary University of Hannover and the doctor on duty stood there shaking her head, completely horror-stricken. These animals were bred by their ”producers“ in such a way that they (or 94 or 96 % of them) manage to survive a year. Hens from old laying breeds can live to a good age but the new high-tech hens do not stand any chance of a healthy life, at all.

Spatz After: a life worth living...

Lohmann’s laying hens are sold worldwide, from Mexiko, Libya and Japan. That means that the hens which scratch under my elm tree are related to hens all over the world. That means ultimately, that small farmers everywhere are being forced into factory farming, and laboratory bred hens replace old and sturdy breeds of chickens.

Spatz before: the price of a cheap egg.

And with it the consumer gets so used to buying a cheap egg for breakfast andforgets the true price the hen pays for this.

Click here for Hilal Sezgin’s  Original German text in the Berliner Zeitung