On Saturday, February 23, 2013, at 2:00 p.m., Meg Phelps will consider how past cultures have represented agriculture in painting and sculpture in an illustrated talk at the Museum of Ventura County’s Agriculture Museum. Phelps’s presentation, entitled "From Goddess to Gleaners: The Symbolism of Agriculture in Art," coincides with the 5th Annual “Art About Agriculture” exhibit at the museum. Admission to the talk is $10 for the general public, $5 for museum members, and includes light refreshments and entry into all museum exhibits. RSVP to (805) 525-3100.

Phelps, who has taught Art History at Ventura and Moorpark Colleges for seventeen years, received her MA in Art History from UCSB, and is a founding board member and a museum educator for the Santa Paula Art Museum.

When art and agriculture overlap, the resultant artworks reveal a great deal about cultural attitudes. Although landscape and genre scenes that include agriculture are often considered neutral subject matter, they are never without an ideological perspective, according to Phelps. Learn how agriculture can be a culturally-loaded symbolic motif, whether used for political propaganda, philosophical expression, or aesthetic experimentation, in this illustrated presentation.

The Museum of Ventura County’s Agriculture Museum is open 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is $4 adults, $3 seniors, $1 children 6-17, free for Museum of Ventura County members, and for children ages 5 and younger. Paid events include free admission to the galleries, and the first Sundays of every month are free general admission for the public. For more information go to www.venturamuseum.org or call the Agriculture Museum at 805-525-3100.