Dan Anderson Completes “Barbara’s Farm” Photography Project

“Migrant Sheds in Snow” by Daniel Anderson.

The new year of exhibitions at the Miller Art Museum in Sturgeon Bay begins January 16 with “Barbara’s Farm: A Color Photography Memoir” by Daniel Anderson. The exhibit will open with a reception for the public on Saturday, January 16 from 3 – 4:30 pm, where Anderson will be present.

More than 30 large-scale color photographs of the grounds of the Logerquist family farm in Door County, property known today as “Barbara’s Farm,” make up the exhibit. Anderson grew up in Door County across the road from the Logerquist family farm, the boyhood friend of Duane Logerquist. The large Logerquist family included Duane’s three sisters, Barbara, Sheila, and Rose.

While the farm once included dairy cattle, draft horses, chickens and general farming, all of which required many farm workers and lots of equipment, the farm’s cherry orchard was the inspiration behind the project. Anderson has personal experience picking cherries in the orchard in the 1940s and 1950s alongside the wide variety of migrant farm workers who came for the harvest and stayed in the four Logerquist sheds built to house them. These four migrant worker sheds on the Logerquist farm were what first attracted Anderson to photograph the property.

The cherry orchard is long gone – today that land is a cornfield – as are the dairy cattle. But as Anderson explains, “the bones of my memories, the buildings and trees, are still here seemingly in much the same condition as they were then.”

“Pear Tree in Fog” by Daniel Anderson.

These days Dan Anderson lives again in Door County, within a few miles of the farm. He sees it through adult eyes, with boyhood memories filtering the way he thinks about and composes images.

“There are iconic structures and trees that appeal to me as a photographer,” says Anderson, “and after spending some time just walking around the farm I quickly realized that this was a photographic project that was going to occupy me for some time. Now after almost three years and many visits to Barbara’s Farm this project does feel finished to me.”

On Thursday, February 11 the artist will present a program to the Miller Art Museum volunteers shortly after 10:30 am; this program is open to the public, with the gallery opening at 10 am for coffee and to view the exhibition. This exhibition continues through March 2.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by Keith & Claudia Kasen and Gretchen & John Maring.

The Miller Art Museum is located at 107 S. 4th Ave. in Sturgeon Bay within the Door County Public Library. Admission is free; hours are Monday 10 am – 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday 10 am – 5 pm.