"Los Campesinos" (2005) – charcoal pencil
In the late 1960s and ‘70s, the short-handled hoe was one of the most potent symbols of all that was wrong with farm work in California. Known as "el cortito" ("the short one"), this tool came to symbolize the exploitation, oppression, and cruelty of the back-breaking work conditions that farmworkers had suffered for decades.
"El cortito" was used for weeding and thinning a wide variety of crops; including bell peppers, lettuce, squash, strawberries, and sugar beets. Only twenty-four inches in length, it forced those who used it to bend and stoop all day long – a position that caused great physical agony and often led to lifelong, debilitating back injuries. After ten or twelve hours of holding this position, many people were unable to stand up straight.
The field bosses liked the short-handled hoe because they could tell at a glance whether their farm laborers were bent-over working or upright resting. Anyone standing was not working and was easily disposed. After a seven-year battle by the United Farm Workers and others to outlaw the most insidious tool ever used by California agriculture, "el cortito" was finally banned from the fields in 1975.
In Los Campesinos, my intention was not in capturing the details, but in evoking a mood associated with the hardships and struggles of those who work in the fields. I was inspired by an old photograph of farm laborers from a book I was reading about César Chávez and the farmworker movement. With a charcoal pencil, I sketched this scene using a variation of dark shades and layered silhouettes to create the illusion of spatial depth between the large farmworker in the foreground, the smaller workers in the middle ground, and the mountain range in the background. The result is a simple drawing that conveys a strong feeling of emotion.
"El cortito" was used for weeding and thinning a wide variety of crops; including bell peppers, lettuce, squash, strawberries, and sugar beets. Only twenty-four inches in length, it forced those who used it to bend and stoop all day long – a position that caused great physical agony and often led to lifelong, debilitating back injuries. After ten or twelve hours of holding this position, many people were unable to stand up straight.
The field bosses liked the short-handled hoe because they could tell at a glance whether their farm laborers were bent-over working or upright resting. Anyone standing was not working and was easily disposed. After a seven-year battle by the United Farm Workers and others to outlaw the most insidious tool ever used by California agriculture, "el cortito" was finally banned from the fields in 1975.
In Los Campesinos, my intention was not in capturing the details, but in evoking a mood associated with the hardships and struggles of those who work in the fields. I was inspired by an old photograph of farm laborers from a book I was reading about César Chávez and the farmworker movement. With a charcoal pencil, I sketched this scene using a variation of dark shades and layered silhouettes to create the illusion of spatial depth between the large farmworker in the foreground, the smaller workers in the middle ground, and the mountain range in the background. The result is a simple drawing that conveys a strong feeling of emotion.