Growing Wind Turbines in the Sugarcane - Ink fusion on aluminum by JimRode

Where

fridaynightart near Sinton, Texas

The Art

For centuries, hurricanes have washed and flattened the land of South Texas leaving fertile soil and flat lands easy to till and plant. Driving the back roads of Texas near these sugarcane fields you may sometimes come upon fields like this one with wind turbines. In years past, farmers didn't have vast fields to look oversee. Weeding out unwanted growth in a land with parcels of a hundred thousand acres is nearly impossible without large crews of workers.

The turbines have sprouted where there are too few people to watch the fields. Their steel stems have got a good foothold in the soil before anyone noticed. Their nacelles have sprouted long fiberglass pistils that swing in the wind. Texas hummingbirds gather to feed from the pistils each evening. To remove the turbines now would damage the crop. Farmers now must let them spin while harvesting the sugarcane.

Trucks that carry the sugarcane away are careful to avoid the steel stems when pulling into the fields where arriving trabajores de campo gather to cut the crop. They sling their machetes before loading the cane, careful to avoid the turbine blades. They will break for lunch and sit together near the path of blades where the breeze from spinning fiberglass cools them through their lunch hour. Only then do they return to swing their machetes and gather the cane for the afternoon shift.

Art Details

This ink fusion art on aluminum involves using a printing of ink to mylar, which is then heated to aluminum infusing the inks into the porous metal. An aluminum wall hanger is applied to the rear so that the art arrives ready to display on your office wall.

Who

Jim Rode’s FridayNightArt is a listed member of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (OVAC)

To see artist Jim Rode’s Artist Statement and Bio at OVAC, go to https://www.ovac-ok.org/art/Jim-Rode