Anya is 25 years old and a BFA graduate of Carnegie Mellon, where she studied painting, sculpture and installation. Her love for the “outside world” developed while she was working in New Mexico for the artist Charles Ross on a large outdoor installation, and while volunteering at Blue Range Ranch in Saguache, CO.
“There’s artistry involved in anything that is done well. Much of what makes up agriculture’s infrastructure overlapped with my artistic skills. There’s the same intuition for knowing when to make decisions and how to deal with nature, which is unpredictable.”
Prior to Glynwood, Anya completed a vegetable apprenticeship at One Woman Farm, an 18-acre vegetable farm and CSA outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Her interest in sustainable farming in this particular geographic region drew her to our comprehensive training program. The opportunity to be exposed to livestock was also a deciding factor because there are some processes in which both teams are invested in the outcome; apprentices can learn the shared benefits of each other’s work.
Anya doesn’t have a lot of down time but when she does, she continues to practice her art. She tries to get enough exercise to stay limber (yoga) and maintain stamina (running) to counter hard field work that is often repetitive and exhausting.
“Sometimes I have so many thoughts that the only way to quiet my mind is working in the field. It’s meditative. It's therapeutic because it’s hard and you have to put away all of the crazy thoughts and just focus on doing a really good job at something precise like...picking weeds out of the ground. It’s a test of my own mental strength on a daily basis.”
