The corn was taller than the 11 year old boy. It was summertime and the boy was spending another summer with his grandmother on the farm, but he didn’t mind. His grandmother was a kind woman who always cared for the boy.

Zhu Zhang pulling weeds at ACRE Farms Saturday morning. Zhang enjoys to volunteer at the farm regularly during the summer. (Photo: Sara Davis)

 The summers were hot. Back then, no machinery was used on the farm. Grandmother taught the boy how to work on the farm. The boy learned to fertilize the corn by using a small spoon to place fertilizer close to the root of the corn and bury it.

 After working in the field for a while, the grandmother would check on the boy. The boy, being from a city, was not used to working on a farm. The boy said Grandmother made sure he was alright. Grandmother would make sure he was drinking water and he was allowed to stop helping on the farm whenever he tired.

 As the years went by, Grandmother got older and she no longer works on the farm. However, the boy still farms because it reminds him of his grandmother and his home far away.

 The boy is now grown up and a PhD Geophysics student at the University of Wyoming. The boy, Zhu Zhang, grew up half-way across the world, in the city Xi’an, but Zhang’s grandmother’s farm was located near the town of Chang’an in China. Zhang has not been home since 2006 yet he has found a way to feel at home in Laramie by volunteering at ACRE farms.

Gallery 234, located in the Union, is currently displaying photographs by John Fink, Jr. and F. R. Olveda. 

John Fink Jr.’s “Images of Conscience” cover a wide range of topics including: religion, politics, racism, birth and death. 

“Circles” is F. R. Olveda’s interpretation of Dante’s nine circles of hell. 

“Circles” can be viewed as dark and disturbing, but Olveda’s goal was to provide a primitive approach to the original illustrations for “Inferno” that are easier to understand.