Baltimore Free Farm Featured in the Urbanite!

I'm so grateful to Heather Dewar and the Urbanite for running this article about my collective, the Baltimore Free Farm.

"Young and Hungry in Hampden: What's Next for the Baltimore Free Farm?"



There are a few minor corrections I'll make here:
1) Billy's last name is Thomas, not Thompson.
2) Mike's last name is Garbinski.
3) Most of us are past our "early twenties," but this characterization is very flattering!
4) There are more than a dozen of us. There are about twenty core members of the BFF, and we have a rotating cast of a few hundred volunteers.
5) We've been helped out by more than one Americore team, and we definitely couldn't have done it without them. Thanks, Americore!
6) Anna Ewing did indeed grow up nearby, but she's also a member of our core, in addition to being a neighbor.

These murky points illustrate just how little time Heather had to throw this profile together, and we just can't thank her enough.

This is What I've Been Creating All Sememster.

I do a lot, I think, compared to some people. I go to school, I work as an artist and tailor, and I do an apprenticeship. But most of my time, energy, love, and creativity goes to the Baltimore Free Farm. We're all volunteers, attempting to create alternative food systems inside Baltimore City. This year our biggest accomplishments were building a community garden and acquiring a warehouse, but we did a lot of other stuff, too. I consider this project art, even though it has utilitarian elements. Sure, we grow food, but we also make music and blogs and crazy DiY haunted houses, etc. So for my final required list post, here are some links you can follow to learn more about "my baby," the BFF.

1) This is the video we all made together in an effort to raise funds for our Kickstarter campaign. I'm the one with the paint sprayer, and I'm talking about the "hive of activity" and "de-commodifying our lives." The idea is to raise money to repair our warehouse, so that we can continue to provide community support. All the music was recorded by people we work with.



2) This is where you can vote for us to win a living roof in the Cole Roofing Green Roof Giveaway. Just log into facebook first, and then you can vote up to once per day, for the next 12 days. We're not in the lead right now, but the votes are not the only factor in the contest, so we could still win this thing.

3) This is where we were mentioned in Slingshot!, which is sort of a huge honor within the Punk Rock community. Slingshot! has been around for 22 years, and is one of my favorite 'zines of all time. We didn't know that they had acknowledged us, until we started getting letters from all over the country, with the authors saying that they had read about us in Slingshot!

4) This is the coverage of the BFF Halloween party, !!!FARMAGEDDON!!!, from local art e-zine What Weekly. What weekly have very good to us, previously covering one of our music festivals, and our involvement with the 2010 DiY Festival. (I'm the one with glasses in this picture by Brooke Hall.)



From left: Andrew, Don, AG, and JMe of the Baltimore Free Farm

5) This is where you can sign up to recieve the Urbanite E-Zine, in which we will be profiled this coming week. We gave an interview to Heather Dewar, who took this picture below. We're all very curious how it will turn out.



From left: Don, AG, Mike, Billy, and Allison are some of the Baltimore Free Farmers.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. I intend to keep it going!

Best wishes next semester, and beyond,
-AG Sherman, Baltimore Free Farm Event Coordinator.

Cats.

1) Garfield Minus Garfield



2) As the Hotword



3) Lasagna Cat



4) Maneki Neko



5) Simon's Cat

Project 5!!!

As part of this blogging assignment, we are instructed to post the results of all our class projects. I don't know how to post a Google Earth file, so I'm posting this screenshot of the finished dealie. The concept was the result of one too many conversations with Mike G. on the topic of 2012. The floating sculpture is intended to loosely represent the "Sacred Geometry," the way that sound waves hold matter together. Viola!

An Interview with Erin McLaughlin

Erin McLaughlin is many things, but above all, she is an amazing friend. I've known Erin for about ten years now. She's 27. We've been through a lot together, and... separately. I haven't always gotten to see Erin as much as I'd like, but I know that no matter how often I might see her, she'll always leave me wanting more. Erin is SMART.
And funny, fun to be with, incredibly supportive, loving, kind, sweet, beautiful, and bakes a MEAN brownie. She was instrumental in bringing me together with my now-partner, Mastodon, who I've similarly known almost a decade, but fell in love with more recently.
I think one key to our friendship, is that we both have that, "I've been through some stuff in my life, and I can't hide it," vibe going on. Indeed, the very onset of our friendship was beset by a major mutual trauma. Erin's not at all a mean girl, but she is a tough girl. Strong. But also a little shy, and typically very private. Consequently, I'm always learning new things about her.
Even so, I was flat-out shocked to learn that as a child, Erin was not allowed to watch cartoons, or engage in make-believe play. 
The idea of a cartoonless existence straight-up scared me, not to mention, I believe that in order to be emotionally healthy, people NEED make-believe. To children, especially, I feel, having an imaginary world is equal in importance to, if not more important than, having access to food, shelter, or clothing. When I was a kid, and sometimes didn't have adequate food or clothing, make-believe got me through. I asked Erin if I could interview her about the experience, and was even more shocked, and delighted, when she tentatively agreed.

Erin McLaughlin, a Most Excellent Buddy.

-----

Interview: 7:27pm, 12 September 2010, at Monster.

AGS: How old were you when you were forbidden to watch cartoons?

EMcL: It started when I was seven, when my Mom found God. I was allowed to watch a series about a boy and a girl, who went back in time, and explored Old and New Testament Bible stories? It was a cartoon. I watched other ones, but only when my Mom wasn't present. She hated "Tom and Jerry" because they were always fighting with each other, so we couldn't watch that. Hanna Barbera had a Christian line. We'd get those at the Christian bookstore. And Chick-Fil-A is a Christian business. They give out Christian toys, so then we'd go there.
We were allowed to to watch "The Simpsons" on Sunday night. That was family night. We'd always watch "The Simpsons" and "Cops." I don't know why that was OK. It doesn't make sense. Also, only Christian video games. It's amazing what you can find in a Christian bookstore. We tried to convince my Mom about Sega Genesis. My Dad tried, to convince her, too, because "Genesis" is the first book of the Bible, but then she found out, and that didn't work.
"David and Goliath" and "Spiritual Warfare." Those at least were games, so they were fun to play. "Spiritual Warfare" - you had to dress up in a suit of armor and combat the world.
A Beka Books is a Christian based homeschool text from Florida. This guy came to my house and sold the books to my Mom.
I didn't like being homeschooled. Nothing about violence, fantasy, witchcraft, sorcery, make-believe, demons, evil. Examples are "Ferngully,"  "Alice In Wonderland." I wasn't allowed to watch "Ferngully" because pixies are make-believe. And do I feel robbed!!!?! I wish I had watched that years ago, because I would have enjoyed it more, and learned about saving the world.
We watched a lot of live-action stuff like "Jesus of Nazareth," and "The Ten Commandments." Or stuff the was about, or based off, real life, like "Boys n the Hood." She just didn't want us growing up in this make-believe world.
When you're ten years old and you think QVC is a privilege, there's something wrong.
My grandparents took us to see "Edward Scissorhands," and my Mom got REALLY mad about that. G-rated stuff was usually OK, but PG-rated stuff she had to preview first. I wasn't allowed to watch "[Who Framed] Roger Rabbit." I still am religious in some ways, but I think using your imagination is a good thing. It helps in the creative process. I think it's important to show lots of different ways to a child, so that there's not a question about what might have been.
I don't blame the Christian Church for the way I was raised. It's up to the individual how far they want to take limits.

AGS: Were you hurt by these limits?

I was sheltered. I didn't know secular music. Other kids asked me if I liked "New Kids On the Block," an I thought they meant that I was the new kid on the block.  They asked me if I liked Vanilla Ice, and I thought they meant ice cream.
In a social way, I think it set me back a lot. The other kids watched cartoons, and they didn't become evil, or whatever it was they thought would happen if you watched these cartoons.
I went to public school till third grade. Then I went to home and private school for fourth. Back to public for fifth, sixth was homeschool. Public for seventh through tenth, then I got my GED. I tried to go back to school, but my Mom didn't want me to. She saw it as more beneficial to have me out of school. I was supporting her and myself [for awhile.]

[Erin goes on to discuss the specifics of her mother's current financial situation, which she later asked me to strike, for legal reasons.]

...which is fine, because it's less financial pressure for me [now.] It seems like she lives more in a fantasy world than the cartoons.
My Mom was in a Christian Metal band, so we used to go to Christian Metal shows; Stryper, One Bad Pig, DC Talk. They were a DC rap group. Sometimes they would come to our house for parties.

AGS: Did Stryper ever come to your house for a party?

Yeah! They came to a couple parties. Which were food. No drinking. No one ever drank in our house.
My Mom drinks a little now. She's still very active in church music programs. When I was a kid, we went to church three or four times a week. She works with the teenage group, takes them to Metal shows. She teaches not to judge people by their appearances. Metal is not always evil. The kind of world I lived in was more real, no cartoons and stuff. There was always practicing. A lot of people were always in the house all the time, like teenagers, because everyone knew it was a safe place. Even people that weren't Christians. Going to shows and stuff, I thought a lot of people would go to these shows.
Oh, and we didn't celebrate Halloween. Sometimes, I would sneak off to my grandparents', and they'd have a costume waiting for me. Sometimes that worked, but not always.
I went to five different elementary schools, aside from being homeschooled. It was nerve-wracking. I knew I was different from other kids. I was trapped in this Christian bubble. My friends from church were allowed to watch Full House. (Though, when I watch it now, I'm glad I wasn't allowed to watch it. My Mom was probably just annoyed.)
The pastor's daughter gave me a rabbit's foot, for good luck, and my Mom tossed it. Accused me of witchcraft. My Mom had a lot more freedom. Aware of the world. She was a bad child. She knew a lot of the world, and tried to keep me away from those things. You can kind of see her good in it. Anything fantasy she wanted no part of, because she thought it was foolish to put those beliefs off on kids. If I asked if I could watch Tiny Toons, she'd say, "Erin, that's not real. And the way their eyes bug out is disgusting."
She didn't like the Tasmanian Devil, because he had the word "Devil" in his name.
I think cartoons are helpful to interact socially, and to take life light-heartedly. Not take life too seriously. There are different ways to look at different situations. Not everything is the end of the world, as they think of it.I think it's a good outlet for kids, too.

AGS: I wanted to ask you to talk about "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."


We did, as a family, watch the whole thing once. I was about eight or nine. We were not allowed to watch it again after that.
The Snow Queen has little villains working for her. The Lion is good and the Snow Queen is bad. It's like in the Second Testament, they capture the Lion like how they captured Jesus. And as they bring him to where he's going to be crucified, they heckle him and spit on him and stuff like that. Then they nail him to a board or something. My Mom didn't like that because he's supposed to be representing Jesus. My Mom didn't like that because in Exodus, it says, "Thou shalt not have any other God," so she took that a step beyond, no one else but Jesus can represent God, a lion being portrayed as Jesus was sinful and wrong.
As a child, I could see what they were doing, but she couldn't see it. An animal posing as Jesus was not OK, but "Jesus of Nazareth" was OK because it was literal.
I've never understood fantasy love novels. Those are for certain people. I just watched "Clash of the Titans." [Note: Not sure if Erin is referencing the original or the remake.] It got a Razzie, but I really liked it. I had a basic concept of mythology when I was a kid, but I wasn't allowed to watch it.

AGS: Do you watch cartoons now?

Yup. I love it. I like Adult Swim. Nickelodeon has some funny cartoons. I watch cartoons now for the humor, the lightness of it. Characters that have distinct personalities and eccentric behaviors are really fun to watch.

Five cool artists I've encountered online this week

1) Benjamin A. Vierling


2) ickybana5 (This person's first name is "Allie," no last name provided)


3) Jessica Joslin


4) Doug Lefler


5) Ben Prisk

Good News, Everyone!

OMG.

Futurama Writer Created And Proved A Brand New Math Theorem Just For Last Night’s Episode



Full Story Here!

Project 5 Drawings

This is the result of one too many hare-brained apocalypse conversations with Mike G:

Project 4 Video

1) The AACC "Veteran's Day" header bar is ugly. I wish they hadn't killed off that monkey. He always seemed glad to see me. I don't know what happened to him, but his tombstone appeared, tastelessly, on the "Halloween" header bar. Maybe that shark from early October ate him.

2) Here's Project 4.

The Baltimore Free Farm Kickstarter Campaign launched today!

Today is an exciting day for my collective, The Baltimore Free Farm, as we just launched our campaign on Kickstarter.com! Just getting accepted was an honor, as many projects are turned away. We worked very hard on the video, featuring recordings we made ourselves of some of the local bands we work with. Please let me know what you think!

This poster designed by Abid!

Project 2 Results.

It is a requirement for Digital Design class that we post all of our projects in this blog, so here's our first one, which is called Project 2, mysteriously.



The assignment was to draw a small, mechanical, man-made object, with moving parts, in black and white. Next we had to convert the drawings in vector graphics. We specifically had to do it in Illustrator, and we were extremely restricted as to which tools we could use. I am not totally thrilled with my results, but "balance" isn't my best skill, so I feel that I did ok, considering.

No one seemed to notice that I misspelled the last drawing, despite the fact that I drew it from life. How is that even possible?

Coming soon:
My interview with Erin McLaughlin, concerning her cartoon-free childhood, and it's troubling long-term effects.

It's that time of year again.

I'm having a rough couple of weeks. I won't go all into it, but as a result, I haven't slept much lately. I got about an hour last night, and now feel wide awake, and super stressed. I decided that since I'm up anyway, I might as well be doing schoolwork. While I was reading our blogs, I saw this in Mark Skalla's:

Perhaps some day in the future I'll be able to take the creative thoughts in my head and accurately display them for others.

This reminded me of something special. Something that seems appropriate for both this blog, and my current emotional state. Something I've loved for a long time. Things are sometimes safer to love.



The above is a map by Charles Joseph Minard, a civil engineer from France.

This is what it says (translated into English by I-don't-actually-know-who, but I can read just enough French to know that it's accurate):

Map representing the losses over time of French army troops during the Russian campaign, 1812-1813.
Constructed by Charles Joseph Minard,Inspector General of Public Works retired.
Paris, 20 November, 1869.
The number of men present at any given time is represented by the width of the grey line; one mm, represents ten thousand men. Figures are also written besides the lines. Grey designates men moving into Russia; black, for those leaving. Sources for the data are the works of messrs. Thiers, Segur, Fezensac, Chambray and the unpublished diary of Jacob, who became an Army Pharmacist on 28 October. In order to visualize the army's losses more clearly, I have drawn this as if the units under prince Jerome and Marshall Davoust (temporarily separated from the main body to go to Minsk and Mikilow, which then joined up with the main army again,) had stayed with the army throughout.

I know that there are a lot of people who would not consider this art, and I'd like to take this opportunity to scold them. This might be my very favorite creative *thing* that I've ever seen, as far as creative *things* go. I find it heart-stoppingly beautiful. But then, I'm a sucker for tragedy.

Here's what legendary Yale Professor Edward Tufte famously said about this map:

Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. Beginning at the left on the Polish-Russian border near the Niemen River, the thick band shows the size of the army (422,000 men) as it invaded Russian in June 1812. The width of the band indicates the size of the army at each place on the map. In September, the army reached Moscow, which was by then sacked and deserted, with 100,000 men. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow is depicted by the darker, lower band, which is linked to a temperature scale and dates at the bottom of the chart. It was a bitterly cold winter, and many froze on the march out of Russia. As the graphic shows, the crossing of the Berezina River was a disaster, and the army finally struggled back into Poland with only 10,000 men remaining. Also shown are the movements of auxiliary troops, as they sought to protect the rear and the flank of the advancing army. Minard's graphic tells a rich, coherent story with its multivariate data, far more enlightening than just a single number bouncing along over time. Six variables are plotted: the size of the army, its location on a two-dimensional surface, direction of the army's movement, and temperature on various dates during the retreat from Moscow.

BEST?! EVER?! DRAWN?! That's some strong praise, from a strong source. If you're taking this class, and haven't heard of Edward Tufte, I strongly urge you to follow his link, and get to know his work.

Anyway, back to me and my melodrama. (So educational, you could almost forget it's the internet, right? WRONG.) I really wish I was making this up, but what you are about to read is both humiliating and completely true.

A few years back, I had the pleasure of seeing the Map show at the Walters. I almost didn't make it due to my near-constant crazy scheduling problems, and got there on the last day. After waiting in line for over two hours(!) to get in, I trolled the halls hungrily. I saw maps by Leonardo da Vinci and J. R. R. Tolkien, among others. You could actually hear the dice bags jingling on the geeks in attendance, honest to G-d. Nerd heaven. It was all lovely, and an historic time was had by all, blah blah blah.

Then, I saw it from across the room.

There's one in every story.

It wasn't even the original drawing, but it was one of the first edition prints. Like the images here, the "grey" band had been replaced with fragile, hand-burnished gold leaf. The light played on it delicately. It wasn't very large, but my eyes were fixed on it, even from the other side of the expansive gallery. I let out a cry, attracting condemning looks and head-shaking from the other attendees. It was the reason I had come.

I ran, full-tilt ran to it, and began openly and loudly weeping.

Link to a larger image of the map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.png

Abstract Vs. Non-Objective: Inka Essenhigh

One of the first things I've learned in Digital Design Foundation class: I've always mixed up the term "Abstract," with "Non-Representational."

For whatever reason, this reminded me of an artist that I love, Inka Essenhigh. I used to check in on her regularly, but it's been too long.

My favorite of her pieces:



White Rain
2001
oil on enamel on canvas
72 x 74 inches

I don't even know where to start, with reasons why I LOVE this painting. I've always been attracted to surrealism. I can't even remember a time when I didn't know who Salvador Dal í was, and I distinctly remember crying when he died. It was two days before my eleventh birthday. Also, there's the humorous treatment of an iconic product, a cocked and loaded pop-cultural symbol of all my 1980's-flavored, adolescent, pre-feminist turmoil. My older sister WAS White Rain Hairspray, my model of all that was Woman, all that was complicated, all that was unrealistic expectations. The smell filled the house. But it's not all angst: The beautiful Mucha-inspired lines are art to live with, still decorative and soothing as the color scheme, even as the acid rain of chemicals assaults the unicorn figures, melting them.

Crucial Viewing: Lotte Reiniger

An Introduction to my So-Called Life, that shall result in Art.

Hi. I'm AG. I live in a rowhouse in Baltimore City with 2 dogs, 3 cats, and 7 other adults. Honestly.

The house is called Monster.

See, we all work at this garden...

The south-western corner of the Ash Street Garden

And it's very beautiful, and we love it a lot. But we don't make very much money, so we all sort of became a family, in order to survive "the Depression."

People that live in my house include:

Andrew

Jamie

Allison

Billy

Joiya

Kenny

My partner, Mastodon

and me.

That exquisitely radiant creature I'm holding is the love of my life, PNut.

I have six paying jobs, but I'm always laid off from most of them. In order to survive, we all do little things for money, here and there. Sometimes, the things I do are very successful, but even then, they don't usually bring in much money. Recently, a piece of art that I made appeared in a prestigious blog called THERE WERE TEN TIGERS, and even in the Washington Post, but I didn't make any money off of it.

I grew up very poor, and it's hard to miss something, when you never had it in the first place, I guess.

Sometime last month, it occurred to us, we are so poor, the government will pay us to go to college! All of the gardeners decided to go, not just the ones I live with.

There was much rejoicing.

I'd gotten used to thinking I'd never be able to afford to go. This was a real eye-opener for me. We had to figure out what we wanted to take very quickly, as school was starting the following week. Most of us opted to major in Horticulture, but I choose Environmental Science, because the idea of following "Conventional" farming practices, with their heavy petroleum inputs, offended me; and because I've always been interested in ecology, and biology, and Environmental Science seemed like it might somehow blend those two things.

However, this is admittedly a last-minute, and hare-brained, scheme. Art remains important to me. I haven't taken an art class in 22 years, so I opted to take Digital Design Foundation, as a way to get a more formal perspective. This blog is an assignment for that class, which means that future installments will center more around my interest in visual art, in general, and probably cartoons in particular.

I hope you've enjoyed feasting your eyes on my lovely friends, because it's going to be a lot more Masters of the Universe from here on out.