The collective aestheticization of farming as participatory civic engagement

This chapter is a case study that traces the life of a young artist farmer who developed a community-based educational farm. The case study illuminates networked connections between small-scale farming, a revitalized interest in handmade production, and a burgeoning desire for a living ethics rooted in direct engagements. This chapter reveals the breadth of the handmade revolution, tracing a singular example to investigate the desire to become a small-scale farmer; the network of apprenticing makers, farmers, and artists; the necessary participatory aestheticization of the farm as a marketing strategy and mode of cultural consumption; and the ethical complexity of sustaining the life of a young farmer in the current organic and locally-grown marketplace.