Plainstock 2025
This painting whimsically explores what an Amish Woodstock festival might look like. In my research for this painting, I realized the many parallels between the 1960s counterculture and the peace movement's call to live differently.
Woodstock was a music festival held in August 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in New York. Interestingly, it has some of the characteristics of an Anabaptist’s life and calling as it was billed as "Days of Peace & Music". It consisted of 32 bands, with Creedence Clearwater Revival as the first act to sign on. Organizers anticipated maybe as many as 50,000 attendees. The ultimate attendance exceeded 460,000, making it one of the largest music festivals in history, a peak music event reflecting the 1960s peace counterculture. The logistics of this many people made this profit-based concert free, as organizers were unable to provide adequate fencing and ticket booths. Jimi Hendrix was the last performer to play.
Anabaptists were a radical movement during the Protestant Reformation (1525) that believed in adult baptism, the separation of church and state, and pacifism. Their core beliefs led to severe persecution from both Catholics and other Protestants, as they rejected infant baptism and the idea of a state church. Today, their descendants include the Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites. Their core beliefs and practices include adult baptism, separation of church and state, pacifism and nonviolence, and an emphasis on the New Testament.
“Thunderstruck" is a song by Australian hard rock band AC/DC and was released in 1990. It definitely would have been performed had it been around in 1969. However, I can’t imagine Anna and the Baptists playing this song at all in their concert.
Like Woodstock, I can imagine PlainsStock being held at a farm. With the broad spread of Anabaptists across the United States rural areas, it is fun to speculate which area might be chosen to host this event. The thought of combining PlainStock with Rumspringa is worthy of another painting in itself!