BOTTOM of the DRIFTLESS - Photography by Phil Roeder

Centered on a place called Wayward Farms, Bottom of the Driftless documents the rhythms of a family homestead, the framing of adjacent fields, the character of nearby towns, and the encroaching wildness of surrounding woods and bluffs. It is a meditation on place, weaving together themes of land and belonging.

The Driftless region of the American Midwest was left largely untouched by the glaciers of the last Ice Age.  Along its southern boundary, the landscape begins to shift, from rolling farmland and flat prairie to a terrain of limestone bluffs and undulating hills. Perched here, a limestone farmhouse stands as both a witness to and an artifact of the region’s changing economics, culture, and politics. Constructed as the American Civil War was coming to an end – of materials formed during the Paleozoic era – it has been home to the same family for more than 150 years, built of stones some 400 million years in the making.

In his essay Revolt Against the City, painter Grant Wood — a champion of Midwestern regionalism and a son of Iowa — wrote:  “I believe in the Middle West in spite of abundant knowledge of its faults.” The faults Wood identified nearly a century ago ranged from stereotypes about rural people to the region’s historic prejudices and a conservative nature often at odds with its own self-interest.  And yet, he believed, hidden within was a culture of creativity, enterprise, and resilience. 

Bottom of the Driftless holds to that same belief, embracing the particular beauty of this place: its contradictions, its endurance, and its quiet insistence on being seen.