The Vegetable Seller

This video work is based on a 16th-century Flemish painting known by the same name “The Vegetable Seller.” In 2019, painting conservators discovered that the original painting had been altered in previous restoration efforts during the 18th century—restorers had covered the seller’s mouth with canvas and painted a smile over her pensive expression. *

I was inspired by the story and its parallels with how we think of agriculture and food production today. The obscured struggle of farm laborers who are on the front lines of environmental crisis contrasts starkly with happy market vegetable sellers who smile gladly when asked where the lettuce is in August—it is bolted, dry, and wilting. Why must they smile when they too are wilting from heat exhaustion?

The romantic realism perspective of the 1800s that may have spurred restorationists to paint a smile onto the woman in the painting reminds me of Laura U Marks’ observation that as the medium of film became less haptic and more “real” cinema also moved further away from reality.**

The video was made with produce from farmers who sell vegetables at the Boise Farmers Market, including Whistlepig Farm and Black Fox Farm, which are located in the rapidly developing Dry Creek Valley, north of Boise, and where the video was filmed. Farmer Lyndsey Mulherin posed for the video and often discusses heat exhaustion and climate change in her farm communications, difficult conditions that she faces more and more each year.

* "This 'Vegetable Seller' is much older -- and grumpier -- than we realized," by Amy Woodyatt, CNN, https://tinyurl.com/37w6ddzc
**Marks, Laura U. Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. NED-New edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2002