repair work

pie + conversation

work table with pie and yellow fabric

Blueberry pie on a Monday morning in an art studio overlooking NE Minneapolis might be the best way to begin a week. We had the pleasure of engaging in a long conversation recently with visual artist Rachel Breen, as part of our ongoing activity, The Pie Project. As with much of our work, these things take time and attention.  Rachel waited months for the pie as we tended other projects in our collaborative; projects that are deceptively obsessive, riddled with quiet details and always, always involve baking.  In one year we had baked an enormous amount of pies and did a series of art actions-our own weird brand of slow, unscripted performance.  So we needed a rest from pies for a bit.  Finally, this autumn The Pie Project came to Rachel’s studio and, true to form, the topics were vast and deep: how to navigate creative collaborations, artistic processes (stalling out, dead ends, redirections), projects that never end, raising teens and repair work, physical and otherwise.

Much of Rachel’s art relates to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam, or ‘repairing the world’ through human actions. You can see it in her ongoing series of sewn stencil drawings and in her sculptural work of mending fabric around rubble.  And you can see it on her sewing table, a huge pile of fabric scraps hauled back from garment factories in Bangladesh. Last spring Rachel and writer Alison Morse collaborated on “The Price Of Our Clothes,” a research and travel project about the ways in which American consumers are tied to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the garment workers in Bangladesh.  Rachel interviewed workers in the garment district, getting to know this vital community of mostly women, hearing their voices, recording their experiences and taking small, powerful steps to repair the world, one conversation at a time.

Patterns from a garment factory

Rachel Breen, blueberry pie, paintings and drawings

jeans mending rubble

 

 

 

 

 

Benign neglect yields decent results

 

October sunflowers

In May, our duo threw some sunflower seeds into a couple neglected concrete planters on Dale & University in St. Paul.  After a summer filled with good intentions and no follow through we figured the plants had withered and died without proper care.  But not so.  On a windy day in mid-October, there they stood at the busy intersection, bright and cheerful, windblown and a little past bloom, but hanging on.  While I was loitering around the planters, trimming bent stalks here and there, a man waiting for the bus came over to make sure I wasn’t stealing the flowers that he’d been enjoying all summer.  I said no, explained that our duo, low tech/high joy collaborative had planted them, like it says on the sign. I also admitted that I hadn’t been a very good steward to the sunflowers, but in spite of that they still bloomed.  Then he asked me if I was active in my neighborhood ‘because that’s the only way anything gets done’. I started to say yes but he had moved on to the glories of the light rail and how living in downtown St. Paul is so easy for senior citizens such as himself and that next year I should take better care of his sunflowers. I promised that I would but he didn’t hear it, his bus was coming.

Test Plot #4 Sunflower Revolution 2015 stewardship hosted by low tech/high joy collaborative

Sunflowers facing south down Dale St.

Between Two Poles

It’s as simple as that.  Send us images of your sunflowers and we’ll post them and thank you for being part of this season’s Sunflower Revolution.  These two lovelies have been saved from mowers, weed whackers, squirrels and the like to bloom for everyone’s pleasure.  Gratitude for being hopeful enough to plant a few seeds between two poles. Carry on!

revolution in SE Mpls

Ephemera

Here’s a few remnants of last week’s Pie Project Fargo, where we served pie and conversation to visitors at The Plains Art Museum.

We stenciled the sidewalks of downtown Fargo with a washable spray paint, leading folks from the local art fair to us.  The stencils will fade away after a few good rainfalls.

We served ten pies over the course of an afternoon, inviting people to sit together at a large round table and have leisurely conversations. We met artists, educators, researchers, thrift shoppers,two chefs and one rancher.  We discussed pemmican, pie dough recipes and techniques, doilies, local theatre for teens, mincemeat, the dissolution of community meals at cattle brandings, and the ephemeral nature of our collaborative’s artistic practice.

Gratitude for everyone who took a seat with us and carved out some time to talk over pie.  We love you, Fargo.

downtown Fargo stenciling

ready for spraying

no questions, no cops, no problem

Next up is a nectarine coconut crunch pie

conversing with pre-teens

pie remnants in the staging area

going, going, gone

Road Trip!

tart cherry pits

serviceberry, rhubarb, cherry, blueberry, strawberry, apricot…these are some of the fruits we’ve been busy transforming into pies for our High Plains friends up in Fargo, North Dakota.

Next Thursday, July 16th from 1-5p we’ll be serving pie at The Plains Art Museum, coinciding with a celebration of the Pollinator Garden’s growing season outside The Center for Creativity.

Here’s the details so come join us!

Pie Project Fargo
The Pollinator Party includes a social engagement project by the art duo low tech/high joy collaborative, who use their homemade pies as a centerpiece for conviviality and conversation. Marlaine Cox and Karen Kasel from the Twin Cities were charmed by the pie culture of Fargo-Moorhead and proposed linking pies to the Museum’s Fargo Street Fair events and the Pollinator Garden (fruit for pies need pollinators!). Stop in to see their “pie diorama” in the Steven Berrell Memorial Commons at the Center for Creativity, and (while supplies last) have a free slice of pie and cup of coffee and get to know others who stop in for this afternoon of hospitality and fun.

______________________________________________________________

More reasons to head to Fargo:

The Fargo Street Fair will be happening Thursday, July 16 through Saturday, July 18

Thursday night karaoke at Sons of Norway Kringen Lodge #25

When we aren’t serving pie or singing karaoke we’ll be holding court in the Roof Top Hot Tub at the Hotel Donaldson.

 

real and ideal pies

Strawberry Peach Pie with the crumbly top crust looming above

The no-butter crust: beyond the help of tools.

When the dairy-free Peach Pie recipe from a high-80’s American hippie cookbook instructs to ‘roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper to prevent crumbling’ you know you’re in trouble.  Add to that a filling recipe with no added sugar and three mealy peaches from the six reserved for the pie and, by executive decision it’s time to improvise.  In goes a scant cup of sugar, a couple handfuls of fresh-picked strawberries replace the lame peaches, the blanched and sliced almonds get 86’d, and cinnamon and lemon zest are added in defiance.  Then easy peasy, the lattice top crust is ready to assemble. Or not. The thing about substituting canola oil & soy milk for butter is that the resulting crust is a shadowy replacement for the thing itself.  Pie dough made with solid fat (butter/shortening/lard) creates a pliable, flaky crust of ideal handling, texture and flavor.

And crumble that crust did, like a saltine cracker. The only thing left to do was slap the whole mess (no loving criss-cross pattern this time) on the fruit filling, peel off the wax paper & throw it in the oven without much confidence.

Then a few hours post-pie delivery, the recipient sends this final pic, all soft-focus pie porn, with tales of its deliciousness. See? Rules are there for breaking.

the sound of happiness

Here’s a short video of our duo taking a break from a meeting at Episcopal Homes Senior Communities to play some ping pong. Another discovery: neither of us plays to win.

Test Plot #1 at Silverwood Park

Silverwood Park is an urban art and nature gem tucked in a quiet neighborhood at the crux of 694 & 35W.  It’s also the home of the Sunflower Revolution’s Test Plot #1.  At the end of the parking lot and up a wooded hill is the sunny Dyer’s Garden where visitors find Cloud Kiss, a steel and mosaic sculpture by Gita Ghei, and a few raised flower beds.

The central bed has about fifty sunflowers planted in it; some Mammoth Greys, a few tiny Teddy Bear sunflowers and some orange Velvet Queens.  There’s a cage around the delicate seedlings now to prevent the park’s deer from feasting on our project. Last summer was our first season at Silverwood Park and we are pleased to be back again, planting, watering, watching and hoping for another bumper crop of beauty.

Volunteers always welcome

Preparing the soil and planting seeds

Watering the newly planted sunflowers

Returning to Silverwood ten days later with tools and chicken wire

Rolls of chicken wire, lots of sprouts and ready to work

The cage is up!…with a chalk drawing for the crew to help visualize the process.

 

 

Seed Hubs along The Green Line! For a limited time only!

Come & get ’em! Free sunflower seeds for you to take and plant in wild urban spaces, rundown places or your own backyard.

Pssst.  We may have surpassed our funding goal! For now, we’re keeping our excitement under wraps until a few checks clear or Mercury is out of retrograde, whichever comes first. Many thanks to everyone who donated cash, time, energy, expertise and sharp wit to our project.  We have quite a few pies of gratitude to bake for all you lovelies out there.

At Fairview & University

At Dale & University

Installing the Hub at Kings Crossing (Dale & University)

SE Como along the tracks

Marcy Holmes Neighborhood Little Free Library

 

30,000 sunflower seeds coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

 

 

Seed Hub & little revolutionary

Mammoth Grey Sunflower

 

We just received 10 pounds of  Mammoth Grey sunflower seeds, this year’s choice for the Sunflower Revolution. The Mammoth Grey is a bright yellow sunflower with a yellow center that grows up to 12 feet tall with heads 12″ across. These sunflowers are huge!

We’ll be dispersing these seeds by Wednesday, May 27th via two Seed Hubs located along The Green Line in St. Paul. One Hub will be at the entrance to Episcopal Homes’ main campus, located on Fairview & University at 1830 University Ave. W. The second Hub will be at Episcopal Homes’ Kings Crossing on Dale & University at 500 Dale St.

Both hubs will be installed and filled with 500 artist-designed seed packets, free for the community.  Take a packet, plant some giant, bossy and beautiful sunflowers in your neighborhood and be a part of the revolution!

This project couldn’t happen without the Community Arts grant we received from Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.  We still need to raise a couple hundred dollars of matching funds to receive all of our funding from MRAC.  Please consider donating today!    

For PayPal donations go here. Send your donation to lowtech.highjoy@gmail.com via the “friends and family” option.

 Any amount is lovely.