Craig Childs

Hardwick: Preservation of a Way of Life

Moving from rural Texas to Boston in the summer of 2020I was searching for a link to home, having been away from city life for over 20 years. I found it at a local outdoor farmer’s market, leading to friendships with several of the farmers from the village of Hardwick, Massachusetts.

Hardwick, a township in central Massachusetts was established in 1739 and consists predominantly of the village of Hardwick, and Gilbertville, which began as a mill town in the 1860s. At first, the visitor sees a New England common of colonial era homes, buildings and churches, begging to be on a Christmas card. The surrounding small family farms, pastures, and greenhouses stand in contrast to the larger scale industrial farms of the Midwest. The village of Gilbertville, with its depression era mills, evoke memories of long departed New England textile manufacturing.

Hardwick has become dear to this Texan’s heart. It’s a place where the residents tell the stories of local villagers who founded the town in the aftermath of King Philip’s War that opened central Massachusetts to European settlement. Stories of those who fought in the “French War”, of those who were the patriots and who were the Tories at the out break of the “Rev War”-all of which inform the conversations after a day of planting, or harvesting, or rebuilding a rock wall or repairing a tractor. Shay’s rebellion is discussed with respect. A place where the local farmers sell their produce in farmer’s markets, preserving a way of life inherited from colonial days.

This ongoing photo project begins with what it means to love where you live and what you do. Yet, along side the resilience of the farmers, Gilbertville struggles yet with the poverty, crime, and joblessness left behind by the departure of manufacturing. Understanding this community requires an appreciation of these tensions, without which the narrative of the small farming community would be incomplete.

Artist Bio

Craig Childs (b.1951) is a retired pathologist who was introduced to biomedical photography during his residency in New York City in the 1980s. This led to street photography in New York City and landscape and wildlife photography in West Texas.

The photographic subjects that Childs is passionate about include wildlife, landscape, and still life. His preferred medium is large format film and alternative processes but turns to digital when necessary. Other than the occasional workshop, Craig is self-taught. As a remedy, Childs enrolled in the Atelier program taught by Emily Belz at the Griffin Museum ofPhotography.

His current project, Hardwick, MA: Preservation of a Way of Life, is informed by the 10 years he was immersed in the natural world as a volunteer for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and asthe land manager for an 1100 acre ranch in central Texas. A native Texan, Childs is now Boston based since 2020, having moved here to be close to family.