The Cache Valley Gardeners' Market Board of Directors this year requested a poster that would focus on the "gardener". The goals being a visual tribute to the organic produce gardener—the backbone of the Market—and also to stress the labors of love of providing produce that go into making this gardeners' market such a success. They wanted the poster to also be "eye-catching, easy to read and to reflect the local landscape.

My approach was to draw on gardening influences from past acquaintances to try to give a true feel of the vegetable gardener, harvesting a crop for the market the next day. The hat on the gardener depicted, came from a memory of my old friend Kay Sorenson, the last person to farm with horses in the village I once lived in. The pants and shirt and basket came from the daily outfit of Daniel, a brilliant country man who graduated from Oxford magna cum laude and returned back to his hometown, never to leave again. Old timers in town said he got "too much education" and his brain got confused with too much thinking...he became the town character or shaman, depending on your point of view. He would wander the streets in the Spring, pausing under one of the two suspended street lights, and sing from operas in a booming bass voice—always in the pouring rain. The garden and stakes were from the description of Mrs. Larsen's garden—her husband would cut them from maples up on their property outside of town. An old woman when I knew her, she had a photo of herself as a baby sitting on a pioneer's lap. The mountains depicted were a back drop for the village, and her and her husband's fields. Drawing on these influences, I tried to present a sincere local gardening scene. To make it "eye-catching" I ringed the poster with a vegetable version of the borders in the painting "The Visitation" from the Book of Hours. The Monarch butterfly was to symbolize sustainable organic gardening practices.

The reaction to the poster was surprising to me. For the first time I received an email from not only the market director, but also from a member of the board on how much they thought I had caught the "local gardener", and that they were getting many compliments from vendors on it. The market was well attended, even with the ghost of Covid floating on the breeze.