Category: Calendar

Available for Order Now : www.lusciousfarmers.com

I don’t know if the fact that it was a pandemic most of the year helped or hindered my process – maybe a bit of both. But regardless, it has been a challenging year, and I for one am excited to open up a new calendar in 2021. Not that we all didn’t learn a lot this past year. We had our compassion and patience tested and expanded. We had the opportunity to get more politically involved and stand up for justice. We had the chance to connect in new ways with family and friends and the world as a whole. We learned how to sacrifice things we hold dear so as to protect others more vulnerable. But I’m ready for a new chapter, and part of that is putting some positive and creative energy into this strange little project of mine, now in its fifth season, where I go out into the fields of the hard-working farmers of Nevada County, and have them in their natural habitats, as well as au naturel, showing off the beauty of small-scale, sustainable agriculture.

I am, as always, indebted to the farmers, for their enthusiasm for my project, but more so for their dedication to growing and tending to vegetables, grains, flowers, herbs, milk, meat, and honey – despite a world-wide pandemic – and thus literally nourishing us all in a time of uncertainty and need. I have long been involved with the advocacy work of training more farmers, those who will not only work tirelessly to do something important and life-giving with their hands and hearts, but who also work to feed their community’s souls. Photography is part of this. Activism on behalf of marginalized communities is part of this. Mentorship of other farmers is part of this. Educating themselves and others about food access, land ownership, climate change, regenerative practices, indigenous knowledge, seed sovereignty and so much more – is all part of this work. So gratitude to the farmers – may this photo project inspire more folks to take up the digging fork and grow food; to support local, sustainable, and humane agriculture; to fight for justice in our food system, and to spend time outside, with the sunlight on their skin and the soil on their bare feet.

– Maisie

Order your copy now! $20 each! Ordering 3 or more calendars? Only $15 each! If you buy one for yourself, and one for a friend, you might as well buy a third for your uncle’s cousin’s daughter-in-law, cause it’s only an additional $5 for the extra calendar!

I can’t quite believe it myself, but the 2020 Soil Sisters Luscious Farm Calendar is actually here. If creating the 2019 calendar was a minor miracle, than I don’t know what completing this years is. Maybe an astrological anomaly? Saturn just happened to pass into the house of Aquarius and the moon was waxing to almost full and the dog barked at quarter past eleven, just as Venus came into alignment with a small northern California foothills town – and voilà, the calendar became a reality. Even if that’s not what happened, it might as well have been, ’cause that’s how likely it is to successfully put together a creative project with a toddler in the house.

I’m actually proud that it is here. Not because I managed to take 12 photos and edit them and all the other details to transform them into a calendar, but because there were so many moments along the way when I really doubted myself. I held myself to the ridiculously high standards about what kind of photos I needed. I worried that spending too much time making this thing would take me away from being with my daughter. I had moments when I thought, who even cares about art, there are so many other pressing issues to deal with on our planet and in our too-full lives, why make a calendar of a bunch of naked farmers, why even take photos in the first place?

But luckily years of living creatively have clued me in to that particular brand of soul-crushing inner-critic speak, so I just pushed through and made it anyways. This is the fourth year of the calendar, and like a fine wine, I think the project as a whole is maturing with time. I mean, its still naked, local farmers (although I do believe the median age has risen over time). But the 2020 vintage brings some brand new vegetables (Ginger! Stinging Nettle!), new farmers (I never tell), and some novel compositions and subject matter. It’s an earthy almanac, with a full, fleshy body, and a strong floral aroma that hints of shishito peppers, marigolds, and rotting pumpkin. Avant garde to say the least.

I have so many folks to thank for this year’s calendar. Firstly, my fellow farmers. You guys are amazing. I love how you trust me to make you look awesome (it’s not hard), and I really enjoy how much fun we have together in the process. Thank you for your willingness and great spirit, not to mention for growing incredibly healthy, delicious food and flowers for our community. Thank you Josh, for supporting me in doing this while you continue to juggle your own book, our daughter, and life in general. Daily I think about how nothing would be possible without you. And to Willow, my amazing farm partner, who in the past two years has stepped up to not only keep our farm running but has really improved our business and our fields. I’m so grateful to have you in my life and for all your support as I have been navigating motherhood, farming, and living a creative life. Also the brothers over at Grass Valley Printers. I have no idea how they do so many people’s print jobs, with a seemingly endless stack of projects on the counter, plus 4 toddlers thrown in the mix (as in, literally in the office many mornings a week), and still get everything dialed for folks. Thank you for working with me these last few years and executing my vision on to the paper. And lastly, thank you for those people who at varying points this year asked, with hopeful expressions on their faces, “are you going to make a calendar this year?” It really helped inspire me to do it. Putting a creative project out to the world is a vulnerable affair, at least that’s my experience. It feels good to know that there are those of you who really look forward to having my calendar on their wall for the year. You are probably the same people who have actually read this far into this post. So thank you.

And other than that, please visit my website www.lusciousfarmers.com and purchase the calendar (or prints!). Buy it for your friends, your family, and that white elephant gift exchange you have to do at Christmas time and you never can find anything cool for $20 of under. It will be a hit in all of those situations. Buy it for your office, for your mother-in-law, as a gift for someone you are visiting this winter who farms/aspires to farm/aspires to aspire to farm.
Thanks for enjoying, and for your support, and I hope you all have a lovely 2020.
Love,
Maisie

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Real Farmers. Real Food. In the Nude.

Calendar Cover 2019

I am pleased to announce that the 2019 Soil Sisters Luscious Calendar is not only here, it is now available to buy online at www.lusciousfarmers.com. It only took me 2 years (sorry about that 2018) to complete, but it was worth the wait. I managed to convince more than 23 local farmers to show me their fields, get in the buff, and let me photograph them in any number of glorious backdrops, and with the marvelous fruits and flowers of their hard work. I feel particularly proud this year, after giving birth to a human, and taking into account all the trials (and of course delights) of new motherhood, I still managed to make this calendar. I think in years past I have called this project a “labor of love.” Surely, it still is. Though I no longer use the word “labor” lightly, and instead will more aptly deem this a mere “exercise” of love. Let’s just say, I never felt like I was dying while I made this, or that the calendar was stuck at 7 centimeters and was never, ever going to make it out.

I could not have done this without so much help – mainly from my baby, for inspiring me to keep on creating the kind of world I want to leave to her (a world with vulnerability, creativity, joie de vivre, and the freedom to be naked in the mountain air), and to my husband, for taking care of said baby while I did my work, and helped me beyond measure with the trickier parts of editing, layout, and marketing, not to mention creating a website from scratch like the baller that he is. A thousand thank you’s to the farmers who went a little (or a lot) out of their comfort zone to let me find these beautiful images (and to those that were quite comfortable, all the same). I am so grateful to live in a county with such a spirited community of organic farmers. Our farmers are bad-ass – they do the daily work of coaxing food and flowers from the soil, work their butts off, and are passionate about taking care of our planet from the ground up. They do this each and every season, not often turning a large profit, but living a good life while at the same time feeding us all. So thank your local farmer (hey, you can get them one of these calendars as a token of your appreciation!) and enjoy looking at these sexy farmers in the coming year of 2019.

May your holiday season be bright, peaceful, and generous. May your upcoming new year be one of connection, compassion, creativity, and just the right amount of tasteful nudity.

Please visit me at www.lusciousfarmers.com to purchase the calendar as well as order individual prints! Thank you for your support!

With love,
Maisie

 

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