LB2017.19.5790

LB2017.19.5790

A barn looms in the dark night behind a figure with a lantern and a pail on the Ruohomaa family farm on Dodge Mountain. The light from the lantern shines off the ice-slicked snow. The barn, built by Kosti's father Selim, is dark with large white doors. Kosti took many photos of this barn with Selim working nearby, however, in this photo, Kosti himself re-enacts his father's work. This photo was published in the Feb 26, 1951 Life Magazine on p 55. Kosti’s father, Selim Ruohomaa (1891-1963), emigrated to the United States from Finland in 1911 following his sister, Amanda Lofman. A large, athletic man, Selim was skilled in wrestling, as well as carpentry and farming, and his dream was to build a large farm that his son would continue to work on. Although Kosti did help on the farm, he was different from his father. “He began to distance himself from his father's fixed ideas and ongoing message that the most important thing in life was to ‘work with one's hands close to the land.’” (38) In 1924, when Kosti Ruohomaa was a child, his family moved to Dodge Mountain in Rockland, Maine and purchased a hillside farm near Kosti's Aunt, Amanda Lofman. Kosti’s father, Selim, built a small two-room dwelling at first, then built a larger home on the old Dodge foundation, and the small home became a camp. Kosti moved back home to live in the little two-room dwelling in 1948. “Placed just below the mountain crest, the original granite foundation of the Dodge homestead was situated upon 241 acres of spring-fed hillside land facing east, toward the splendor of Penobscot Bay, providing a spectacular view from the dooryard... Witnessing the views, the labors of farm life, and the seasonal weather patterns from dawn into night, this site of his youth became a place from which Kosti Ruohomaa could never fully depart, and would play a strong role in his mature photographic imagery. More than mere records, his views dramatically portray the seasonal work that takes place in the blueberry fields, the haying, burning, and harvest.” (33) “Kosti Ruohomaa’s photographs would later express a deep attachment to this land.” (35) Deanna Bonner-Ganter, The Photographer Poet (2016)