Each year, NCFH commissions an artist to create an original image for its commemorative artwork series. Talented, established artists from around the country have created vibrant oils to gentle watercolors, from exciting acrylics to soothing pastels. Sales of commemorative artwork fine art prints, posters, and notecards support the NCFH Scholarship program.
An immigrant from a small village in Mexico, Efrain Sandoval has a liberal studies degree from Grand Valley State University and studied fine art and theory at Kingston University in England. He is a recipient of numerous scholarships and awards.
His family came to the states when he was eight, first residing in Texas then moving to West Michigan as migratory agricultural workers, eventually settling in the latter. His artistic practice includes illustration, printmaking, and painting.
“The process of art making is like forging a path, an identity. I draw from my sociocultural experiences and material condition: childhood memories that have left an indelible mark, community celebrations, religious expressions, culinary traditions, and the artistic and archeological legacy of Mesoamerica. Being an immigrant is challenging, particularly at a young age, but one learns to take a dialectical approach, re-contextualize and reimagine otherwise dissimilar languages, social values, and customs.”
In his most recent work, “Metamorfosis Campesina”, Efrain states:
“I wanted to capture a moment in the life of migratory agricultural workers through the monarch butterfly, a powerful and apt symbol evoking transformation, migration across “borders,” and hope.
Migration is arduous and demands adaptability. For certain monarch populations, the journey can take four or five generations to complete a full cycle from central Mexico to Canada back south again for the winter. The migratory agricultural worker leaves family and loved ones behind to go navigate hard work and unfamiliar social, cultural, and linguistic environments, among other challenges.
The overarching theme of this painting is beauty, natural beauty and how that reflects on migratory agricultural workers ever-dignified work: providing humanity the very substance of life.
The foreground is dominated by a natural scenery not uncommon in late summer and early fall during apple picking season: monarch butterflies feeding on asters and golden rods, perennial wildflowers often growing together that provide crucial energy source for the long fall migration.
With the apple pickers on the background, the symbol of hope and future aspirations is further accentuated by the rays of sun and ladders pointing upwards.