Sid the bus is buried under a few feet of snow (photos coming soon), but Nourish(meant) is already looking toward Spring.  During Earth Week, about the third week in April, I will be exhibiting work as part of the Nourish(meant) project in my thesis art show, and I’m hard at work preparing.  I’m currently laboring over a Nourish(meant) recipe book, which I felt is a gentler way to grow a movement than a manifesto.  The book will feature images from the summer’s trip, stories, quotes, instructions, diagrams, questions, and of course recipes!  If you have a recipe, or really any of these things, that you’d like to see included, please get in touch.  I’ll be using inkjet prints, different dyeing and lamination techniques, screenprints, and collage.  I’m hoping to make ten copies (an edition of ten, for you printmakers)- which may not sound like much, but it’s a lot of work!  I spent a good two hours today just tearing paper to the right size.

Also in the works are three events that Nourish(meant) will be hosting in the coming month with three different Charlottesville communities.  These food-meal-community-bus events will be documented, and with any luck I’ll make some prints that will go into some handmade frames on the wall.

Lauren and Mia, the two other women showing their work with me, and I are also collaborating on a Nest:  a reading corner, a shared space, among other things.

But first, getting the bus out of the snow.

Thanks to all who came out for our launch party last night!  And a huge thanks to those who helped us prepare.  It was a great, heartwarming success, and it made our imminent departure feel quite real.

The party spread included tons of homemade delicacies: beet risotto, sauteed squash, curried broccoli, a cheese and fruit platter, fresh salsa, kale, *and* peach cobbler!  And lets not forget our forays into fermentation:  lacto-fermented beet ginger relish (YUM), graham’s deliciously refreshing mead varieties, and some pickled green beans.  The food was made almost completely with local gifted, foraged, or dumpstered ingredients.

As the evening wore on, and the home-brewed cider was uncorked, the Ruffin hall courtyard transformed into many things:  a stage with quite theatrical lighting, a magical garden (well, maybe it already was that), a soccer field, a sidewalk mural.  Most of all, it was a place to be- the bus finally felt like a home (our newly-welded grate its back porch)- and we enjoyed giving tours.

Last night, I was up on the rooftop garden, transplanting some lettuce and thinning out the radishes. It had been a somewhat rainy day, and as I poked around our densely packed growing space, lifting the leaves of the eggplant and chard, I came across a few patches of little mushrooms! I’m not sure what kind they are, or if they’re edible, but they’re tiny and gray and adorable. We think the mulch from Panorama Farms we put over the soil had been inoculated with mycelium. It’s just thrilling to see an ecosystem develop up there!

“Beside a creek that tumbles down between two mountains, fingertips are taught to see.” – a 1970 nature camp brochure.

We arrived in the dark on Monday night, but the nighttime forest sounds were enough to tell us of the beauty of this land.  The beauty of the people, however, was revealed as we walked up to a brightly-lit wooden building, its walls vibrating from the singing within.  As we entered the room, our dear friend Hannah, a veteran Nature Camp counselor, welcomed us with a big hug and introduced us to the gathering of high-school age campers.

We talked about the bus, the project, our foodsystem, and its problems.  We talked about gentle graffiti, dumpster diving, and urban foraging.  The enthusiasm of the campers was infectious, and they remained engaged throughout the entire program.  They asked us thoughtful and hard questions, making us reconsider many of our convictions:  How do we not contradict ourselves in what we eat- in talking about these issues and what we think is good for the world, can we really make the right choices all of the time?  How do we reconcile the principles of permaculture with the exponentially-growing human population?  Could biofuels and waste vegetable be a solution?  What kind of quail do you want to raise on your bus?

We learned a lot from these campers.  They gave us new ideas for gentle graffiti- including cleaning public spaces (like subway cars) and drawing imagery in that way.  We learned that dandelion greens can help regulate blood sugar.  Most of all though, we learned that there are so many young people (yeah, I know we’re young, but sometimes we feel quite old) interested in caring for the world and its land.

Thanks to Hannah, Flip, and all of Nature Camp for a wonderful evening!  Stay in touch!

This is the central question of the project.  We’re fascinated by what nourishes people-body, mind, and soul.  We’re going to be asking everyone we meet and compiling a manifesto from their responses.  Here are some we’ve already received:

From Hadley Perona:  “To me, nourishment is at once physical and emotional — it means being fed when I am hungry and have no food, because I only go hungry when I’m not able for one reason or another to feed myself. Whenever I am exhausted, broke, or distracted, someone always makes sure I get something to eat, and being cared for is maybe even nicer than the food.
Right now, I’m thinking of my dad making me a bowl of warm milk with rice and honey late at night. Even sweeter because he thinks he can’t cook, but he made me the Italian comfort food of his childhood. Try it, it’ll set you at ease if you’re not vegan.”

From Ian Meeks:  “Laughter and self reflection. Where time is isnt’ ’spent’ but used or even cherished with others and yourself. Though time to one’s self is needed, especially if you’re a social person. The time with other people is even more important, it’s where you are stretched yet soothed all in one. The stories shared, accomplishments realized, and downright laughter at mistakes that may be sore. Yet it’s all going to be alright.  It’s all going to be alright with friends.”

Check out our facebook page for more responses, and please post or email with your own response!

To sign off, a lovely poem about nourishment by Shaheen Ali:
There is nourishment like bread
that feeds one part of your life,
nourishment like light for another.

There are many rules about restraint
with the former, but only one rule
for the latter: Never be satisfied.

Eat and drink the soul substance
as a wick does with the oil it soaks in.
Give light to the company.

We are excited to share that yesterday, due to a series of unexpected and serendipitous events, we became the proud owners of a 1992 International diesel 14 passenger bus.  She’s a beauty:  that flashy yellow paint job with a fine celery green interior, and I won’t even mention under her hood…

We bought her in Concord, NC from an eighty year-old retired truck driver, his tall stick-thin frame clothed in crisply ironed jeans, suspenders, and a thin plaid button down, a four-inch cigarette dangling from his lips.  Sid has, among other things, the “patience of an oyster”, and we are forever grateful to have met him.  A fine namesake for our new home.

Photos forthcoming!!

It goes against a lot of conventional thinking to conceive of Nourish(meant) as an art project.  I think by now some people are accustomed to the idea of performance art, but that’s just when some crazy artist walks around naked smearing blue paint on people, right?  Art isn’t supposed to do something practical! And it definitely shouldn’t have anything to do with feeding people.

Well, I beg to differ.  In fact, there are a lot of contemporary artists working in this field– you know, the field of art directly helping people.  Check out dominique gw mazeaud or Swoon.  Check out The Swimming Cities of Serenissima.  And definitely check out The Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik.  All of these people are tired of working for hours on an impotent framed image in a gallery.

A few weeks ago, I was at a craft sale in The Garage (www.thegarage-cville.com) in downtown Charlottesville.  An artist (whose name I’ve forgotten, apologies) was giving out these stickers with tiny linocuts on them of a woman, her face totally covered in hair.  At the bottom of the print it said gentle graffiti.  Well, that’s how I conceive of Nourish(meant).  Graffiti is art that wants to be out there, engaged in the world.  It’s a public act of, yes defiance, but also of beauty.  There is a hard edge to it, though, issues of legality.  So gentle graffiti goes beyond that, perhaps even further into the world, directly nourishing people.