I Like Pie, I Like Obama

Thank-a-Farmer Day

Thank-a-Farmer Day at Mission Pie details.
Murale Numero Cuadro will be unveiled at 1:30pm, November 1st.
Come for the pie, stay for the sky.


Turn the car around.
Low sun behind coastal fog.
Equinox darkening the sky already.
Brussel sprout stalks, two dollar honor system.
Biggest pumpkin I can lift, hobbling toward Victoria's trunk.
I thank the farmer, I praise the harvester.
I praise the hands, I praise the gloves.
What Mayan blood moved this pyramid of imagination?
I can barely carry this load.
Victoria laughs and lifts.
I praise. I praise.

Sidewalk Reception May 17, 1-4pm

Sidewalk Reception for Mural #2
Saturday, May 17, 1-4pm
2901 Mission at 25th Street
Outside Mission Pie Bakery

Have a piece of Shaker Booty Lemon Pie while you're at it.

Mural Numero Dos

After four graffiti-free months, numero uno finally got tagged. Oh well, it was time for a fresh mural anyway.

Numero dos asks the question, "Where is the farm in your family?" and in talking with the people at 25th and Mission streets, we discovered some had family farms in places as far-flung as Korea, Senegal, El Salvador, Slovakia, Morocco, Ireland, and York County, Nebraska.

Even if global mobility is vast and fast, most of us have a settled farmstead in our past. I want one now.

Thanks to Bill Cleary for the installation balancing act, Christie Rixford for the design hours, and Chris Hawkins for the print job. Couldn't have done it without y'all.

SF Arts Commission Grant Awarded

I received a 2007 Cultural Equity Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to create the Sky in the Pie Mural Series outside San Francisco's Mission Pie Bakery and Cafe. Cafe owner Karen Heisler and her partners at Pie Ranch connect urban and rural communities through their work/study programs and they serve some of the best pie this side of my Grandma Alice's basement.

Since the fall equinox, I've been a slave to the fleeting light of autumn. My crew Javier, Ammo, JJ and I have been taking pictures and asking questions about food and farming of people we meet around 25th and Mission Streets. From this raw data, I'll create a book and five murals between now and the 2008 summer solstice. We are up to 75 portraits and are aiming for 100 before daylight savings time kicks in on November 4th. Stay tuned.

Her favorite kind of pie? "Any type of pie."

Neelam's Daughter/ Mark's Pie

To combat my despair when George Bush was re-elected, I dug deeper into food and farming projects, finding solace and wisdom in the simple fact that we all must eat. Neelam's Daughter is one of my favorite outtakes from the Produce to the People feature for Sierra Magazine. I was trying to keep up with former Black Panther Neelam Sharma and her crew as they lay irrigation pipe for the apple tree saplings they had planted in a schoolyard in South Central LA.

Mark's Pie came out of a Sierra Club Building Bridges to the Outdoors commission. I taught photography to a group of high school students who were learning about their food system by planting, growing, harvesting, baking, serving, and eating their way through pie.