Painting to Benefit Lancaster Farmland Trust | Farm and Rural Family Life

LANCASTER, Pa . — On a recent Sunday afternoon, I was one of 36 would-be Rembrandts gathered in the large studio of the Painting with a Twist store on Centerville Road, just outside Lancaster.

Each of us sat before a blank canvas mounted on a tabletop easel. We had three brushes each, plus paper plates with dots of acrylic paint, and a big cup of water, which we used to wash our brushes between colors.

Painting with a Twist is a “paint and sip” franchise with more than 320 stores throughout the U.S. The idea is you paint while you party as you sip from a cup containing a beverage — any beverage — of your choice. My choice was a 20-ounce Yeti cup filled with chocolate milk made from 97% fat-free whole milk, produced by real cows rather than white stuff originating from almond trees or fields of oats. (In case you were wondering.)

The thing that attracted me to this particular party was the fact that it was a fundraiser for the Lancaster Farmland Trust. As a believer in preservation, conservation and farm-friendly legislation — since that day in 1972 when my first byline appeared in this newspaper — I knew I wanted to be a part of this 2024 project. (Plus, I might end the afternoon with a masterpiece I could hang on my office wall.)

Each of the 36 student painters paid $40 for materials, a light snack and the take-home canvas produced during their 90-minute guided session with brushes, paints, water cups and sippy cups. At the end of the session, Painting with a Twist owner Gary Groff, presented a check for $360 to Jeff Swinehart, president and CEO of Lancaster Farmland Trust.

Tasked with raising $7 million a year to cover acquisition costs of farmland preservation easements, conservation BMPs (best management practices), outreach and administration, that $360 check — $10 per painter — might not seem like a big deal. But it wasn’t just about the money, or even mostly about the money, Swinehart explained afterwards during a brief interview in the Painting with a Twist parking lot.

Swinehart — who has been with the Trust since 2000, and in his current position since January 1, 2022 — said the Painting with a Twist outing was part of a wider approach to building awareness of the Trust and its mission.

“We are trying to be more intentional at reaching out to the broader community,” Swinehart said. “We are partnering with local entities like Painting with a Twist and the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. This afternoon we connected with members of the community that might not otherwise have ever heard about us.”

To that point, before the start of the session, Rachel Parison asked for a show of hands from the farmers in the group. Parison is a Painting with a Twist artist who, with the help of a couple of assistants and a giant TV monitor at the front of the room, teaches the class.

She walks painters through the process of applying brushes to canvases. In response to her question, “Who’s a farmer?” two hands went up — one that belonged to Peg Dearolf, one of the owners of Blueberry Hill Farm, in Strasburg, Lancaster County.

The Dearolf family is a solid supporter of the Lancaster Farmland Trust. On April 13, they sponsored a public tour of their fruit and vegetable farm where they grow seasonal produce for sale mostly at the West Chester Growers Market in Chester County. The Dearolfs — along with Lancaster Farming Trust staff and Penn State educators — walked visitors through the science and practice of farming from seed to harvest.

Certainly, every one of the student artists at the Painting with a Twist event went home with renewed appreciation of the county’s farmland resource, plus an actual canvas of an actual Lancaster County farm scene copied from an original work by Lancaster County artist Amy Groff.

Groff’s painting, titled “Country Road,” is a plein-air vision of a stretch of country road in Manor Township. “Plein-air” is a French term that means Groff set up her easel in the open air — in plein English — and painted what she saw before her at that moment in time.

It’s pretty certain that some of the “Country Road” copies will live on walls where they will be a constant reminder of the homeowner’s day in the studio. And the works might catch the eyes of visitors, who might engage the painter in a conversation about Lancaster County farmland. Which could lead to a conversation about the beneficiary of the Painting with a Twist event, which would be Lancaster Farmland Trust. Which is one way outreach works.

Meanwhile, back to my easel that I had abandoned for a walk around the room to check out what the other folks were doing. I could tell that for some, this was not their first encounter with a brush. For others, it maybe was their first encounter, but I could tell everyone was trying.

For me, it wasn’t my first encounter with an easel. I took a drawing class as a student at Penn State, many, many decades ago. I actually did OK in that class, but I had never tried to paint before. Part of my problem is that I’m color blind, but not completely.

That paper plate I got at the beginning of my Painting with a Twist adventure served as a throw-away palette with different colored dots of fresh acrylic paint. I could tell the yellow dot was yellow because I see yellow pretty much the way everybody sees yellow.

The blue dot looked blue to me, but it could have been purple. The orange dot (to me), I was told, was the color of mustard. White looked white, black looked black. My guess that the red dot was red was spot on. I didn’t have to guess at the white and black dots.

So then there were the brown dot and the green dot, next to each other. No clue which was which.

The kind lady at the easel next to mine helped me label the dots on my paper plate palette. So it wasn’t a real struggle for me, because I know grass is supposed to be green and dead stuff is supposed to be brown and the sky is supposed to be blue. So I knew where to dip my brush even if I couldn’t have told you if I was dipping into green or brown unless each color was clearly labeled.

I knew if something looked kind of like grass, it should be green, and that if something looked like a dead plant it should be brown. So I painted accordingly. I tried. As I was trying, one of the Painting with a Twist helpers came to my easel, to see if I needed any more dots of color. “I could use more white,” I said.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“It looks terrible,” I said. “I’m embarrassed.”

“Oh, no!” he said, looking at my canvas. It’s … it’s ….”

He gave me more white.

As the class came to an end, we were reminded that we HAD to take our canvases along home with us.

Which I did, but it will never hang on a wall.

We were also reminded to sign our work.

Which I did.

“Anon.”