The Runnymede Project and the Great Bay Wilderness and Music Camp, both of which have upcoming benefit concerts, are pioneering artistic uses for local farmland.

The three founders of the Runnymede Project met while studying art at Bennington College in Vermont. Asher Woodworth is a dancer and choreographer. Emma Moorehouse is a dancer, choreographer and sculptor. Trevor Wilson is a composer. While at school, they also worked on organic farms around the campus.

The three now work at Runnymede Farm in North Hampton, where they tend to four goats, five chickens and a large vegetable garden. They’re also still pursuing art, and their processes of farming and art-making have become increasingly intertwined.  

“I found that my work became more and more about the body as an instrument of labor,” Woodworth said on a recent morning, sitting in an old barn by a refrigerator stocked with goat’s milk. “I’m dancing when I’m weeding and I’m dancing when I’m in the studio, and there’s a sort of continuum between doing the things that are supposedly mundane and also the things that are artistic or expressive.”

Running with that concept, the three friends have made a conscious effort to erase the boundary between art and living. Rather than separating their “work time” from their “art time,” they incorporate both into everything they do.

“It’s sort of the question of, does art mimic life or is your life also art? Can they go to the next level of being really one and the same all the time?” Moorehouse said.

Many people consider their vocation a form of art, but this is a little different. These farmers see art in every act, even taking out the trash. 

“It’s not a new idea to say, for example, there is an art of carpentry or there is an art of cooking. But I think that can go so much further,” Wilson said. “You can say there’s just an art of being.”

The trio plans to turn the centuries-old, 10-acre farm into an arts haven, filling the old barn buildings with functional studio spaces for a range of disciplines including dance, music, painting and sculpting. They’re holding a benefit concert for the Runnymede Project, as they call it, at The Dance Hall in Kittery on Saturday, Aug. 20 at 6 p.m. The lineup includes Mountain Man, Brown Bird, Ducktails, Mmoss, Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, and—a late addition—Real Estate. 

In a way, their plans reflect an emerging trend at farm properties across the state. It has become increasingly difficult for farmers to make their operations financially viable, and yet the need to preserve land and generate food is as strong as ever. Some farmers, therefore, are using their property for more than just agriculture.

“It would be very difficult for us to survive as just a farm, and so this other dimension, the nonprofit of the Runnymede Project, is another way for us to bring farming into this and for it to be more diversified,” Woodworth said.

Another example is Back River Farm, an 80-acre property in Dover, where Robert Huggins plans to launch the Great Bay Wilderness and Music Camp. He’ll host the fourth annual Great Bay Music Festival on the farm from Thursday to Sunday, Aug. 18 to 21, as a fundraiser for the camp. The festival will feature 26 bands on three stages, including headliners John Brown’s Body, Zach Deputy and Sam Kininger Band. 

The camp, Huggins said, will teach participants about outdoor activities like sea kayaking and rock climbing, as well as gardening and composting. There will also be a music component, with live performances on a small stage in the woods.

“Music and camping in the woods are really important. I think there’s not enough of that. It’s not offered in school anymore,” Huggins said.

The camp is also a way to make use of the ample habitat at Back River Farm, which is now conserved by the Strafford Rivers Conservancy. Only about five of the farm’s 80 acres are not conserved, and that’s where Huggins and his sister live. Property taxes on those five acres amount to nearly $20,000 per year, Huggins said, and he hopes the camp will help cover that expense. Prohibitive costs like that have contributed to a drastic reduction in the number of large-scale farm operations in New Hampshire. A growing number of historic farm properties in the state are threatened (as evidenced by the Tuttle Farm in Dover, the oldest continually operating family farm in the United States, going up for sale). Gail McWilliam Jellie, director of the Division of Agricultural Development at the N.H. Department of Agriculture, said it’s increasingly challenging for area farmers to make a living. 

“It’s not just preserving the land, it’s making sure the business is viable,” Jellie said. “Preserving the land is one thing, and certainly that’s beneficial, but making sure someone can carry on a productive, viable business on that land is equally important.” 

Part of the problem is that there are only a couple of major dairy wholesalers in the country, limiting the marketing options for dairy farmers. Plus, as Huggins can attest, property taxes have skyrocketed, and many farmers simply can’t afford the land.

These complications have inspired some farmers to get creative about revenue sources and supplement their food production with other business ventures.

“There are people that are doing things with educational opportunities, inviting school groups and things to come, and maybe they’ll have a little museum of antique farm equipment,” Jellie said. “Some people have dabbled with bed and breakfast type operations, so they have people come and stay on the farm and maybe they do some farm work while they’re there.”

Most of the farms taking that approach are located in the Monadnock region or northern parts of the state, she said. But some local farms have expanded their offerings, too. DeMeritt Hill Farm in Lee, for example, features recreational trails for hiking and cross-country skiing, as well as haunted hayrides in October.

The concept of incorporating art into a farm operation is less common, but it’s not entirely unheard of. A current exhibit at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, titled “Shifting Terrain: Landscape Video,” includes a video installation by artist and farmer Louisa Conrad, who co-owns Big Picture Farm in Vermont. Conrad shot footage as she and her husband tended to the goats and sheep on their farm and edited the results into a short film, literally turning their daily chores into a piece of art.  

That’s not too far removed from the Runnymede team’s vision. They plan to invite artists of various disciplines to stay at the farm and work the fields, then incorporate the experience into their artwork.

That doesn’t mean painting idyllic landscapes of the farm property (although its sunny green fields and weathered wood fences might inspire such work). Moorehouse said the project is more about the process than the finished product. 

“What we would like is to cultivate people being cognizant of their processes, both in labor and in their (art), and that those two things are often incredibly similar,” she said.

The original farmhouse at 19 Maple Road dates back to the 1760s and other structures were added over the years. Woodworth, Moorehouse and Wilson are in the process of renovating the barn buildings, transforming old horse stalls into artist studios. They’re also building a back porch where they originally hoped to hold outdoor concerts. Those plans changed after an anonymous neighbor circulated a petition raising concerns about noise levels, and the town declined to permit their upcoming concert event. 

Instead, the Runnymede Project’s first concert will take place at The Dance Hall in collaboration with 3S Artspace, a nonprofit scheduled to open in Portsmouth in 2012 with a concert hall, gallery and restaurant. 

Another Runnymede show will take place at The Dance Hall on Friday, Aug. 26. Daytrotter’s annual Barnstormer Tour will bring White Rabbits, Deer Tick, We Are Augustines, Guard and Doug Paisley to the venue at 6:30 p.m.

The Runnymede organizers were disappointed not to host music at the farm, but they are eager to cooperate with their neighbors.

“It’s not sustainable to be making events that the town’s not comfortable with. That’s not our agenda,” Wilson said.

Huggins, too, has had some trouble convincing his community that a concert and camp are appropriate uses for Back River Farm. His father turned the land over to conservation more than a decade ago, but the easement stipulates that his son be allowed to use the property for certain purposes, including the camp. It also allows him to mine clay at the site so that campers can learn to make pottery. It’s another artistic use of the farmland, where people once mined clay to make bricks.

“Doing something with the natural resources like that would be kind of cool, so we got permission for all that before we conserved it,” Huggins said.  

But the Strafford Rivers Conservancy only reluctantly allowed the concert, fearing it could have an environmental impact on the land. Huggins invited a wetlands specialist to the property, who made some parking recommendations but said the concert would not harm nearby wetlands. He’s also taking measures to keep the volume of the concert reasonable for neighbors. 

Last year’s Great Bay Music Festival was scaled down and only drew about 300 guests, less than half the number that turned out in 2009, Huggins said. This year, he hopes to draw between 1,500 and 2,000 people, all of whom will be invited to camp on the property throughout the weekend.

In addition to the music, the festival will feature campfires, ultimate Frisbee, volleyball games, food vendors, drum circles, kite demonstrations, and daily drop-in visits from staff members at Skydive New England.

With the camp, Huggins hopes to keep people of all ages connected to the outdoors and to music. He’s already acquired non-profit status for the project.

“We wrote in our non-profit that we want to do people of all ages, basically, because I’ve found that people my age need music and campfires almost more than the kids do. Get them away from the rat race and stuff,” he said.

It’s also a way to continue using the vast property, which once hosted UNH cow herds and at one time was home to Michael Wadleigh, director of the “Woodstock” movie. The land is currently hayed once or twice a year but is not farmed otherwise.

The folks at Runnymede are seeking non-profit status, as well. They’re experimenting with a new use for the farm property in North Hampton, one that they hope will alter people’s perspective on both farming and art. 

“It can really provide an opportunity to try out different ways of being alive,” Woodworth said. 

For more information on the Runnymede Project and its upcoming concerts, visit www.therunnymedeproject.org. For more on the Great Bay Wilderness and Music Camp and the upcoming festival, visit www.greatbaymusicfestival.org.