Really Late Reflections on Look & See: Wendell Berry's Kentucky

Back in April 2018, I was invited to watch a screening of Look & See:  Wendell Berry's Kentucky.  I had recently started reading some of Berry's work and was captivated by a simultaneous sense of religious nostalgia and desire for a different, rural way of life.  PBS hosted a discussion after the screening, and it was mostly farmers and some community members participating in the discussion.  A facilitator threw out a few questions, which started some discussion.

It's been a while, but I recall something like these two questions were asked:

Which visual images were the most striking or memorable?
What does agriculture mean to the U.S.?

There were so many thoughts circling in my head while watching the film and reflection on it during the discussion.  I'm a slow thinker, so I couldn't quite formulate my thoughts into a coherent answer at the time.  So... I said nothing.  If someone asked me those questions now, here's what I'd say.

The visual images I remember the most, because they were so curious, were actually in the final credits.  There were clips of a letterpress.  Now that I think about it, it's quite odd that no one mentioned it because it seems so misplaced in a film about a farmer and rural America that was full of footage of mostly agrarian life.  This got me thinking about why those images were even in this film, and what I realized is that letterpress, just like small family farming, is increasingly becoming a thing of the past.

I suppose I am drawn to old-fashioned ways of doing things.  I started out in film photography before catching up with everyone else in digital photography.  I love the feeling that I know what it is to do something the long, hard way because it is often reliable, more intimate, and less reliant on inputs that are ultimately impacting the environment.  I dabbled in print making a few years ago using a silk screening process, but I had learned of this thing called letterpress and also thought that was really interesting.  I even went so far as to look up letterpresses to buy here in Hawaii!  I realized that letterpress was another symbol of the mindset of rural America -- doing things the harder way but becoming an artisan in your craft or line of work, whether it be printmaking or farming.  It's a mindset and lifestyle very similar to the Japanese shokunin concept, which I feel called to in many ways.

These thoughts led to my answer to the second question -- what does agriculture mean to the U.S.?  I'll tell you what it means to me, which I'm going to assume, perhaps incorrectly, applies to many other Americans.  To me, agriculture is an alternative way of life to the American dream.  It is a life of manual labor, community, self-sufficiency, and close connection with the Earth.  This is the lifestyle I want.  When I realized it and that perhaps this was the reason I loved farming, I told my husband I wanted to move somewhere rural.  I had always wanted to live in a small town.  But he, being a city boy, wouldn't go for it.  It would mean leaving behind our families and friends, jobs, and urban way of living.  I accepted that and tried to make do with my lifestyle.  Still, something inside knows that this isn't really the lifestyle that resonates most with me.  My goal now is to find a way to life that lifestyle while still having a bridge to the urban one.  As long as we work in urban Honolulu, I'm sure we'll have that connection.   At home, though, I want my life to be an agricultural/rural way of life.  I want family and friends to be able to visit and for our home to be a sanctuary and example of another way of life.