Running head: CONCEPTS IN ART: WINTER’S PROVENDER AND PRESERVATION 1

Concepts in Art: Winter’s Provender and Preservation

Sherri White
King University
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Concepts in Art: Winter’s Provender and Preservation

Images arouse all our sensory and often evoke a pleasant memory, a familiar smell, taste,

or sound and often how something may have felt. Some images remind us of a friend or loved

one and some images may remind us of something sad. The visual sensory observes and

processes images continually throughout one’s life. Some images are full of detail, some are full

of color, some images tell a story and some images although processed by our brain may go

visually unnoticed. Nonetheless, images are influential and having the gift of eyesight is a

blessing from God who gives us the ability to view all his wonderous creation.

Dorothea Lange’s “Winter’s Provender” is a black and white photographic image

portraying what appears to be a young, Caucasian woman holding four, quart size jars of home

preserved green beans. The photographer’s perspective is looking upward from the ground with

the focus primarily on the hands of the young woman holding the jars; her face is not shown. On

her left she is clutching two jars between her forearm and her waist and one jar is held in the left

hand. The right hand is clutching one individual jar from the top around the jar neck. The young

lady appears in the foreground, standing outside with a tree farther in the background. The

photograph must have been taken on a warm day because the young female is wearing a casual,

open collared dress with a cap sleeve.

The title of the work, “Winter’s Provender” suggests this is food preparation as provision

for winter. One can only speculate if this young lady is the one who has preserved the bounty for

her family, if she is giving this as a gift to someone, or if she has been given the jars as a gift

from someone. The young lady’s hands appear well manicured and because she appears to be

carrying the jars outside, it gives an impression she has been given these jars as a gift from

someone for her family’s provision. The beans appear hastily placed in the jars and not carefully
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placed. Beans canned for a fair competition would have been more neatly placed and more

uniformly broken, which is more reason to believe these are for the family provision.

The young lady’s hands are the most prominent feature in my opinion. Her hands and

her arm are securing the preserved beans. With the work of her hands, she has prepared the

beans, to provide nourishment to her family. This is an analogy to the healing hands of a nurse.

The strength we have at our fingertips to engage our patients and nourish them back to health.

The beans are representative of our patients, not everyone the same or uniform, but all similar in

their circumstance. Nurses help preserve the future for their patients by their care and their

thoughtful teaching.

This photograph reminds me of a time in my youth when I helped plant the beans in the

family garden, cultivate and work the ground to prune the bean vines. We harvested the beans

and prepared them as a family to prepare for winter. This helped to create a desire in me to have

a work ethic still today that perpetuates those lessons from my youth. As an adult, I still grow a

garden, and preserve the beans and continue to abide by an old mantra from my grandfather,

“man lives by his sweat, and if we are not sweating, we are not living”.

The words that come to mind about this photograph are future preservation, future

preparedness, perpetuating the future. Beans are sustenance, they are seeds, they can be

preserved to regrow, and they can be preserved to feed families and the future. It is an

astounding phenomenon that man can plant a seed, place it in the ground with his hands,

cultivate and water with his hands and God provides sunshine that makes a vine grow that gives

more beans and more seeds. These thoughts compare to the concepts of resilience, motivation,

empowerment, health promotion, confidence, work engagement, overcoming, job satisfaction

and one not listed I feel needs to be considered is preservation.

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The concept of preservation is pertinent to life, to nursing, and to future discovery.

Preservation is protecting, conserving, continuing, preparing, educating, learning, perpetuating,

securing and ensuring. All types of elements are preserved: food, fossils, media, information,

knowledge, history, sanctity of life, land, water, buildings. There are also many types of

mediums used for preservation: salt, vinegar, canning, photographs, graphic arts, motion

picture/film, museums, data bases, mummification, teaching, writing. Preservation ensures the

future of society, the future of mankind, the future of research, the future of anything.

This photograph although visually simplistic is astounding, stimulating and deeply

thought provoking. This image reminds us to prepare for today, by learning from the past and

preserving our future. Life is sustainable when nourished and preserved. Our future is protected

and sustainable and we hold it securely in our hands.