Portland Museum Of Art: Blueberry Rakers

The Visit:On April 24th, my classmates and I visited the Portland Museum of Art. I often visit the museum during Portland's First Friday events and find the variety of art put on display to be quite wonderful. Each floor has a different theme and the one I found to be most interesting was the fourth floors exhibit on Blueberry Rakers by David Brooks Stess. These black and white photographs allow the viewer to step into the intimate lives of a group of Maine blueberry rakers in order to reveal a lifestyle and labor that has been lost to machinery. The exhibit closes on May 19 and I would highly recommend anyone with free time to stop by and allow themselves to momentarily step into the world of the Blueberry Rakers.

Historical Significance:David Brooks Stess spent more then two decades photographing the annual blueberry harvest in northern Maine. In doing so he captured both the labor and the social life of Native American Mainers and migrant field workers. The rawness of these pictures unmasks the realities of manual labor and the people who have dedicated their lives to it. Blueberries have been an important part of Maine's economy as well as a main ingredient in many traditional Maine recipes. In turn, blueberry raking has become a large agricultural business. Originally they were harvested by hand-rakers using aluminum rakes that swept through the low-lying blueberry plants, but that method quickly disappeared when mechanized ways of harvesting proved to be more profitable. Yet some Mainers still value the hard work that goes along with hand-raking and have created communities like the ones seen in David's photos. Some were born into the world of raking while others chose to join into a way of life that represented the values of hard work and tradition. People of all ages and backgrounds make up the communities of blueberry rakers and David's photographs capture the essence of these laborers and their fight in keeping their way of life alive.
Resources: Portland Museum of Art Exhibits: http://www.portlandmuseum.org/exhibitions-collections/current.shtml