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Chickens are foraging along the sides of the steep gravel driveway down to Jurassic Farm, Jen Yang’s property in Aspen, just a few miles from Sherbrooke, N.S. There are more chickens, plus other poultry — geese, guinea fowl, ducks, turkeys, even a peacock and his small harem — wandering free around Jen’s spacious yard, the fancy chickens catch my eye. Some of them are familiar from taking pride of place in the farmer and artist’s paintings.

You could call Jen a renaissance woman. She paints, sketches, does graphic design, and paints murals, particularly in restaurants. She plays keyboards and sings. She raises and breeds some 30 varieties of chicken, selling eggs from her layers to locals, and eggs and chicks from the unusual breeds to poultry fanciers around the East Coast. Painting is her first love, with the chickens a close second. Combining them, she has the best of both worlds.

After immigrating from Jinan, in the Chinese province of Shandong, in 2009 to London, Ont., to study accounting, Jen discovered several things. “My parents wanted me to be educated to make a good living, and I wanted to focus on my art,” she says. “So I took the course, graduated from the program and discovered I really hated accounting.”

According to Jen, life in a traditional Chinese family can be quite different from that of a North American artist and farmer. An only child of an engineer father and a doctor mother, both now retired, Jen says she felt pressured to finish her schooling, begin working, and then follow the normal trajectory of work, marriage, and family. “I wanted to follow my dreams, and convinced my parents to let me immigrate,” she says. Once in Canada and finished the accounting courses, she felt the drive to continue working on her art, and finally convinced her mother to let her continue to study, this time pursuing a degree in fine art at NSCAD University in Halifax, N.S.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Jen decided that she and her partner had to move from Halifax, and consulted a realtor, who found them the property in Aspen. About a hectare of land stretches out toward the St. Mary’s River. The hilly range behind the house protects it from some of the elements. A thriving vegetable garden is carefully fenced off from feathery intruders, but during the day the birds roam the rest of the property at will, supplementing their feed with grubs and greens.

Originally, the thought was to have a few laying hens for fresh eggs for herself and to sell to others. Jen looked on social media and sale sites like Kijiji and began learning about fancy poultry, and a passion was born. “We’re kind of poultry-famous, here at Jurassic Farm,” she says, and along with her regular Facebook page, she has a dedicated, private group for hatching and selling eggs (look for “Hatching eggs sale Maritime Bus Canada”). The birds are beautiful, with delicately patterned feathers in a range of colours. The farm’s name comes from Jen’s fondness for fossils, and for the connection of poultry to ancient dinosaurs. Recent studies speculate that some dinosaur species had feathers.

Although she says its hard to pick a favourite from her flocks, Jen really likes bearded Silkies and the distinctive black H’mong chickens from Vietnam, known for their black combs, feet, skin, and even dark-hued bones. The H’mong chicks, along with Laced Orpington birds, have been very popular this year. Next year Jen plans to breed white-crested Polish birds, and if she can find a rooster to go with her two hens, also Appenzeller Spitzhauben, a rare breed from Switzerland.

Jen usually spends mornings on Jurassic Farm feeding the birds and cleaning their coops, and afternoons painting, sketching, and drawing. She works primarily in acrylic paints. “I’m an impatient person,” she says. “And they dry quickly.”

She adds that if she wants to change something on a painting, she can add brush strokes and not have to wait long, like with oil painting. Some of her works are quite large with big strokes, but she sometimes creates delicate pieces, including sketches with ink and watercolour. Her notebooks full of ideas sit nearby while she works.

“There is some Impressionism, some realism, because I like to do a mix of things,” Jen says. “Realism with abstract strokes appeal to me in some works. Because I love flowers and chickens, they appear in a lot of my work. I see them both all day long, and the chickens, every movement or pose catches my eye. Especially their fluffy butts. Their feathers change in the sunshine, to me they are the best media to describe nature, creativity and life. There are no boundaries in art.”

Facebook is an excellent channel for marketing her passions. “I post an original painting on there, and people will ask to buy them,” she explains. “And the shop, it has some of my prints, my cards, and I also have those things in shops around the province.” People also ask her to do commissions, especially at Christmastime. Pet portraits are especially popular. She does what she calls negative drawings, white charcoal on black paper, which are regularly in demand.

Raising fancy poultry for sales is seasonal. When winter comes on, Jen sells everything but her personal flock. These birds are winter hardy here, free ranging during the day, and bedded down with extra shavings at night. Some don’t lay in winter, but she still has eggs for herself.

Jen’s beautifully decorated small giftshop on the farm opened in June of 2023, attracting many visitors. Along with her own art, Jen has items from other local artists, and a few artists back in her homeland. “In China, artists and crafters are less respected in general,” she says. “People are less likely to value handmade arts, and there are not many markets there for crafts. It was such a positive culture shock for me to come to Canada. So now, I support some crafters from China in my shop.”

Because of COVID restrictions, Jen hasn’t seen her parents for five years, except by video chat. “Thankfully, they don’t believe the traditional Chinese thought that the child needs to stay home and look after parents as they grow old,” she says, “They wanted me to go and live life as an individual person. And finally, my parents agree with me and are proud of me and happy for me that I am following my heart.”

See Jen Yang’s work and her chickens at jurassicfarm.ca.

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