Photos provided by CAMPS

Grantee Spotlight: Farmworkers Express Creativity & Culture

$6,000 Grant Supports Rural Art Workshops

Through last year’s Arts & Culture grant cycle, Genesee Valley Council on the Arts was awarded $6,000 to support its Creative Artists Migrant Program Services (CAMPS). This program provides art workshops for Hispanic and Haitian farmworkers across eight counties and professionally showcases their work.

Participating adults and children produce colorful, expressive, and oftentimes, poignant artwork that shares their culture and moves those who see it. The Community Foundation grant helped cover expenses that made it possible for more people to participate, including interpreter fees, materials, virtual workshops, and small group instruction on farms and in homes. 

“Without these [Community Foundation] grants, we wouldn’t be able to serve as many people,” says Julia Stewart-Bittle, CAMPS program director. “We wouldn’t be able to focus one-on-one with farmworkers who are also artists, helping them to hone their skills.” 

Connection, Skill-Building, and Mental Health

Julia has been sharing the power of creative expression through CAMPS for more than 25 years. She has seen people light up once they have colored pencils in their hands or first see pure colors bloom on their canvas. She’s witnessed how a room can start to bubble with laughter, or quiet with concentration to the point you can hear a pin drop. “Whether its ceramics, photography, painting, or felted wool — it helps people unwind and relax,” says Julia. “There’s a level of anxiety [in everyday life]… this helps them.” 

Migrant farmworkers often live in geographic and cultural isolation, invisible to most who benefit from agricultural labor. Long hours, language barriers, limited access to cars, and anxiety can all make it difficult to engage in fulfilling and connected experiences outside of the workday. As an antidote to isolation, CAMPS workshops offer a safe and fun environment to learn new creative skills. 

Art as a Bridge: Sharing Culture, Spreading Understanding

A traveling exhibit of CAMPS artwork entitled “All in the Family: Farmworkers’ Artistic Inheritance” was displayed first at the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts gallery, then on the road at the Arts Council for Wyoming County, Fillmore Library, and Hipocampo Children’s Books in Rochester. The title was inspired by farmworker artists who told Julia about their artistic heritage: a mother who embroidered ornate flowers or a father who painted the Virgin of Guadalupe at home in Mexico. Several farmworkers and their children who had artwork in the show saw their work framed on pristine gallery walls for the first time — something they described as a deeply meaningful experience.

If the CAMPS program did not exist to offer arts opportunities in these rural areas, Julia imagines that many of our communities “would not have any idea that farmworkers enjoy expressing themselves creatively and eloquently when given the chance.” These exhibits are a showcase not just of farmworkers’ creative talents and rich cultures, but of their humanity.