He sees hope in the transformation of the abandoned collective farm into a state-of-the-art pig farm, underwritten by Dutch and British venture capital.

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His childhood dream to be an illustrator was realised in 1951 when he was commissioned to do the art for Wonderful Farm by Marcel Ayme and by 1957 he was writing his own books.

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Movements like "Ant Farm" combined art, architecture and graphics in cultural send-ups that included half-buried old Cadillacs, rear-ends protruding jauntily from a parking lot.

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The large, spare rooms of the brick warehouses and concrete silos, where contemporary art and unusual antiques mix with farm tables and oversize slipcovered sofas, encapsulate his vision in its most elevated form.

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These include the restoration of a Stour Lighter river barge, landscape art and research into historic houses and farm buildings.

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Until the mid-1980s, when the oil bust hit and jobs began drying up, Premont was a thriving oil and ranching town with state-of-the-art schools, including a 30-acre agricultural farm and a roping arena.

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There are 12 guest rooms for artists and scholars, with a dormitory for Shanghai art students under way, and even a working organic farm.

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He points to downtown Binghamton, which has theaters, art galleries and a baseball stadium, home of the Double-A farm team for the Mets.

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