Franklin County Historical Society and Museum
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Welcome To The Gallery of Rural Life Blog.

The Franklin County Historical Society was extremely pleased to open the museum’s Clement-Hooks Gallery of Rural Life in the summer of 2018.

This permanent exhibit has been made possible through the generous donation of a substantial collection of original paintings and landscape photographs by local artists John Clement and Kathleen Hooks.

The gallery’s creation also marked the genesis of a special new effort by society members and museum staff to promote appreciation for the Mid-Columbia’s prominent agrarian heritage by accepting notable related artworks and providing an educational forum through this Gallery of Rural Life blog. Regular postings will discuss the significance of the entire genre of agrarian art and literature that has emerged here in the Mid-Columbia region and throughout the world. Many of the illustrations featured in this postings are woodcuts, engravings, paintings, and other works of art that have been donated to the museum collection. Please join us in exploring this fascinating and timeless world of history, art, literature, and beauty!

John Clement-Kathleen Hooks Collection (selected works) Gallery of Rural Life, Franklin County Historical Museum
John Clement-Kathleen Hooks Collection (selected works)
Gallery of Rural Life, Franklin County Historical Museum

The color images of “Northwest Drylands” photographer John Clement like Divine Rays and Bringing in the Sheaves show the influence of two prominent American watercolor artists whose works he has closely studied since starting his career in the 1970s—Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth. Early in his career, John studied Wyeth’s watercolors and learned that the drier Pennsylvania prairie environments and underlying abstractions depicted in his paintings held lessons in originality for photography of the arid Columbia Plateau grainlands. The Tri-City native’s unpeopled landscapes, which earned him induction into the Professional Photographers of America International Hall of Fame, typically feature evidence of humanity’s presence—barns and fences, retired farm machinery, and fields of maturing grain. His ideas about the “saturating luminosity” of dawn and dusk suggest affinity with the nineteenth century American Luminists and pioneers of twentieth century color photography whose detailed agrarian views beneath soft, hazy skies engender feelings of tranquility and spiritual appreciation.

John Clement, Sagemoor Overlook Gallery of Rural Life, Franklin County Historical Society
John Clement, Sagemoor Overlook
Gallery of Rural Life, Franklin County Historical Society

Artist Kathleen Hooks of Pasco developed an intuitive Tonalist “art of rural life” style that was inspired by her own agrarian experience and the broad landscapes of Franklin County and the Columbia Plateau. She began painting professionally in the 1990s and created highly detailed watercolors of draft animals and other livestock but shifted to oils at the end of the decade for contemplative en plein air depictions of shadow and graduated color. In the spirit of Hudson River School Tonalists a century ago, Kathleen’s subdued canvases emphasize the formal elements of style using color, line, and shape to impart moods from depictions that exist mysteriously between realism and abstraction. She is drawn to the “mature landscapes of summer” as fulfillment of nature’s metamorphosis. “We are surrounded by harvest where we live—cutting wheat, digging potatoes, picking fruit;” Kathleen observes, “and the isolation of rural life appeals to me.”

Kathleen Hooks, Dryland Wheat (2002)
Kathleen Hooks, Dryland Wheat (2002) Gallery of Rural Life, Franklin County Historical Museum


The Gallery of Rural Life

The Holy Days of Harvest

March 18, 2021 / Franklin County Historical Society and Museum

Centuries of agrarian experience by European peasants and yeoman farmers led to adroit adaptations to the typically harsh conditions of life on the land. They learned to survive during the long continental winters through hard work and carefully arranged field operations suited to local conditions. Changes in the winds, soil textures and available moisture, and […]

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Climate Change—Back in the Day

February 9, 2021 / Franklin County Historical Society and Museum

We’re still trying to figure out the weather here in the Tri-Cities after an unusually hard winter of 2019 that brought record snowfall to our usually balmy part of the world, following by virtually no precipitation this past winter. Back in the day when the fortunes of harvest meant the difference between a local population’s […]

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Folk Tunes and Corn Dollies in Merry Olde England

January 10, 2021 / Franklin County Historical Society and Museum

English folk tunes sung during harvest time and other field labors took various forms including ballads with charming melodies and lively tunes of ribald verse. The final cutting of grain after weeks of arduous work was commonly assigned to the youngest girl present. “O’ tis the merry time,” wrote cavalier poet Matthew Stevenson (c. 1654-1684), […]

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Western European Folklore—Oat Goats and Rye Hounds

December 10, 2020 / Franklin County Historical Society and Museum

Scandinavian farmers customarily saved the last harvest cuttings for the ceremonial “Yule Sheaf” (Norwegian Julenek, Swedish Julkarve) of oats or other grain. The sheaf was suspended from a pole or barn roof during Christmas week as a blessing to the birds and goodwill offering for a favorable growing season in the coming year. This tradition […]

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(c) 2021 Franklin County Historical Society and Museum – Designed by Another Brad Idea

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