Harvesting Beauty

In 2004, photographer Ken Abbott signed up to chaperone his daughter’s preschool field trip to Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview, North Carolina. Little did Abbott know how deeply the fifth-generation family farm would get under his skin. 

Over the subsequent decade, he returned again and again, filling some 250 rolls of film with his interpretations of this special place and its people. More than 80 of Abbott’s photos appear in his new book, Useful Work, with about half as many appearing alongside historic photos and artifacts in a coinciding exhibition put on by the Asheville Art Museum (through October 11). Here, Abbott shares a few of his photos and reflections of Hickory Nut Gap Farm:

On my first visit to the farm, one of the first things I noticed was the boxwoods, or more the smell of the boxwoods, which reminded me of my grandparents’ house and the boxwoods there. So I immediately felt as if there was something special for me about the place—it connected with me personally. Since then, I realized that I share this feeling with many others in Asheville and the surrounding area. As a matter of fact, almost everyone I mention my project to around here knows the place and family, and feels a connection there—frequently, judging by reactions, one that’s deep and strong. Maybe their child went to camp there, or they simply buy meats or vegetables at the farm, but it’s amazing how many people say they grew up with the family or spent their summers there, and that it was a special part of their lives. 

Hickory Nut Gap Farm has built a community that doesn’t stop. That sense of connection and community, layered on the history and beauty of the house, was something I felt I wanted to photograph. The truth is, there were pictures everywhere I looked. I felt like a kid in a candy store. It truly has been a gift in my life.

The thing I learned over the years was that Hickory Nut Gap Farm is a place built on intention and conviction. As followers of the Social Gospel, Jim and Elizabeth McClure were driven by the principle that through hard work they could create an improved world—even that the fallen world could be made perfect again, or at least more perfect. This is a kind of faith that is pretty hard to maintain these days, though it seems to have carried on through to the current generations of the family. 

Elizabeth believed that creating beauty for others to enjoy was a part of that work, an effective tool to improve the world. It was, in other words, useful work. As you can imagine, this is an inspiring idea for an artist like me. 

The family continues to exhibit that same conviction, which can be observed, for example, in the reverence for flowers of Annie Louise Perkinson, Elizabeth’s great granddaughter. Indeed some of her blooms at Flying Cloud Farm grow from seeds Elizabeth once planted in her gardens. When Annie Louise creates wedding arrangements, she sometimes stands out in the fields with the flowers and thinks about the bride.

In that same faith, I wanted to create photographs that were effective in their beauty, as Elizabeth's work had been. In that sense my photographs are an interpretation more than they are an illustration of the farm and family history.

Learn more at kenabbottphoto.com.

A Short History of Hickory Nut Gap Farm 

Perched near the top of the Eastern Continental Divide, Hickory Nut Gap Farm sits where the old Sherrill’s Inn welcomed stagecoach travelers and cattle drivers in the 19th century. In 1916, newlyweds Jim and Elizabeth McClure fell for the shuttered inn and transformed the grounds into a family farm. Jim, a prominent minister, formed the Farmers Federation agricultural cooperative, while Elizabeth, a Paris-trained painter, set to work beautifying the home and gardens.

Today the farm is protected as a conservation easement with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. Run by the fourth generation of the McClure family, Hickory Nut Gap remains a working farm that’s open to visitors daily for its farm store, children’s summer day camp, seasonal you-pick fields, and picnic area along a creek. Fall festivities include a corn maze, hay rides, and other activities. Learn more at hickorynutgapfarm.com.