Until recently, I've been sort of at a loss as to what to do with my love of food and my investment in making and eating food more mindfully. I love to cook, but don't want to go to culinary school, I like the idea of gardening but I don't know how - in large part because I have the world's blackest thumb. Seriously. Once my friend Monica, permaculturalist extraordinaire, brought me some plants for my apartment. "Don't worry," she said. "These are my hardiest plants. It's impossible to kill them." Guess what? Uh-huh. I've also been reading about different peoples' adventures in urban farming, which has been a lot of fun but when it comes to personal application, well, let's just wait until I have a backyard and can grow a tomato before we start thinking about chickens.
Enter a project that somehow combines all these wonderful things and more that I believe are the most important things in the world: local food, sustainable growth, and a focus on art, culture, and community. Farm & Table restaurant, opening March 1st.
I happened to see Farm & Table's ad the Tricklock Revolutions program while I was enjoying the festival last month. I needed a job and - as we all know - I have the experience, so I decided to call them up and see if they still needed waitstaff. They did, and Cherie, the owner, asked me to come down and talk to her about the restaurant and the possibility of working there.
I have to admit, when I traveled out to the North Valley to meet with Cherie for the first time, I was on the fence about the possibility of working there. On one hand, I had been unemployed for a while and this seemed like a business that was in line with my interests. On the other, I didn't want to wait tables. I left New York with the hope that I would never have to wait tables again - that I would finally have the chance to do something that I could see a future in.
I wasn't sure what I would say to Cherie, but after she finished talking about what Farm & Table was about, how it had originated, and where she saw the business going, all I had to say was, "Yes! YES YES YES. I am IN."
Farm and Table sits on a 10-acre piece of land with a farm from which as much of the restaurant's food as possible will come. Everything that doesn't come from the farm itself will come from sources so local, you'll know exactly how it got to your plate. Greens from the South Valley. Grass-fed beef from Las Cruces. And there's an atmosphere of education: the staff will know exactly where everything on the menu is from and so will the guests.
And what excites me most: a huge focus on community art and culture. There are already community events in the works for March and the restaurant is hung with works by a local painter. There are plans for arts outreach and on-site workshops for things like cheese-making or composting. If I were to create or become involved in a business that brought together all the things that I feel most passionately about, I have to admit it would look a lot like this. I'm looking forward to immersing myself in it, observing and learning as much as possible. I want to work in the garden, in the kitchen, on the floor, everywhere.
I'm especially interested in being involved with the community-outreach arm of this spectacular project. I hope to get involved with creating and coordinating events for the restaurant, and assist with the drive to reach out and connect with other individuals and organizations in Albuquerque devoted to arts and culture. And, as usual, I'm especially interested in using digital media to connect with the community in innovative ways. The website already has a blog and a Facebook page - hopefully at some point I'll have a chance to grow and evolve our online network. Ultimately, I want to help make Farm & Table the mainstay for the community and culture that I think it wants to and will be. I'm not sure what my role here is meant to be, but I'm excited to discover it and be a part of it in whatever way I can be.
About Me
- Leigh Hile
- I'm an NYC-based director, and this is an outlet for my various musings about theater and about the city of New York. Sometimes the subjects run together, sometimes they are entirely separate, but between the two they comprise the most fitful, most intense, most trying love affair of my few years. They fill my head, my heart, my mouth every hour of every day; they could fill a book.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, August 8, 2011
Cowboys and Aliens
I saw Cowboys and Aliens last week at the drive-in movies in New Jersey. It was my first drive-in movie experience, and despite the beautiful immensity of the movie projected in front of dark shadows of trees from the encroaching forest, the fireflies jumping in the field beneath the screen, the soft underscore of crickets and cicadas, the cool air smelling like the mountains and summer, and the thrilling novelty of hearing the movie through our radio in the privacy of our own car -
I have to say I was disappointed.
I'm sorry, but Cowboys and Aliens just did not hold up to the awesomeness of the title. During the climactic action sequence, my companion turned to me and said, "How are you not in total suspense right now? A kid just stabbed an alien! And you're texting?" (Um, I was tweeting, thankyouverymuch.)
But no, I was not particularly invested, even at the penultimate moment. Despite being called COWBOYS and ALIENS, a name that just screamed of imagination, there was not much original about this movie. The characters were stock characters and (the worser sin, in my opinion) the aliens were stock aliens. Nothing unique or inventive or dimensional or developed about any of them. And the sad thing is, I don't think you even need both to have a good movie. You can have stock characters and interesting, original aliens, OR you can have rich, highly developed characters and standard, run-of-the-mill aliens, and the movie would still work. You would simply get, respectively, an alien movie with cowboys or a Western with aliens. (I wanted the latter, which why I mourn the loss of the good aliens more.)
Sadly, Cowboys and Aliens had neither. And you know what the REALLY sad thing is? This movie, this unoriginal, formulaic waste of a great idea, was written by five - count 'em, FIVE - people.
Which makes me wonder: is this the Hollywood equivalent of a a play that's overdeveloped until it has no teeth? It kind of smacks of another face of the same beast. At the same time, I really, really want to believe that had this been a play, at SOME POINT in the development process (as flawed as it may be) somebody would have said, your characters are all stock characters, there is nothing about them that makes me understand or identify with them as individuals at all, and your aliens are equally by-the-numbers and uncompelling. Right?
I have to say I was disappointed.
I'm sorry, but Cowboys and Aliens just did not hold up to the awesomeness of the title. During the climactic action sequence, my companion turned to me and said, "How are you not in total suspense right now? A kid just stabbed an alien! And you're texting?" (Um, I was tweeting, thankyouverymuch.)
But no, I was not particularly invested, even at the penultimate moment. Despite being called COWBOYS and ALIENS, a name that just screamed of imagination, there was not much original about this movie. The characters were stock characters and (the worser sin, in my opinion) the aliens were stock aliens. Nothing unique or inventive or dimensional or developed about any of them. And the sad thing is, I don't think you even need both to have a good movie. You can have stock characters and interesting, original aliens, OR you can have rich, highly developed characters and standard, run-of-the-mill aliens, and the movie would still work. You would simply get, respectively, an alien movie with cowboys or a Western with aliens. (I wanted the latter, which why I mourn the loss of the good aliens more.)
Sadly, Cowboys and Aliens had neither. And you know what the REALLY sad thing is? This movie, this unoriginal, formulaic waste of a great idea, was written by five - count 'em, FIVE - people.
Which makes me wonder: is this the Hollywood equivalent of a a play that's overdeveloped until it has no teeth? It kind of smacks of another face of the same beast. At the same time, I really, really want to believe that had this been a play, at SOME POINT in the development process (as flawed as it may be) somebody would have said, your characters are all stock characters, there is nothing about them that makes me understand or identify with them as individuals at all, and your aliens are equally by-the-numbers and uncompelling. Right?
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
That's Art For You (Richard Avedon, and Failure)
On Sunday afternoon a friend and I traveled out on a whim to the Nassau County Museum of Art. The museum is currently displaying the work of photographer Richard Avedon, much of which quite lovely and striking.
One particularly lovely and striking piece was this photograph:
Which, I think you'll agree, is pretty awesome.
Except that there was also a video presentation that provided information on Avedon's life and work. My friend and I happened to catch a portion of the video in which Avedon was recorded talking about this photograph:
"Every time I look at the photo," he said (I'm paraphrasing), "I don't know why I didn't pull the sash all the way out to the left to complete the line.
Because of that sash, to me, this photo will always be a failure."
To me, this photo will always be a failure. That's art for you, isn't it? You can create something as distinctive and beautiful as this picture is, and yet every time you look at it, to you, it's a failure.
***
(Oh, and, parenthetically -- the museum also featured a sculpture and photography exhibit by Robert Hite called "Imagined Histories," which had me completely capitivated - so creepy and haunting, like a memory from a childhood dream.)
One particularly lovely and striking piece was this photograph:
Which, I think you'll agree, is pretty awesome.
Except that there was also a video presentation that provided information on Avedon's life and work. My friend and I happened to catch a portion of the video in which Avedon was recorded talking about this photograph:
"Every time I look at the photo," he said (I'm paraphrasing), "I don't know why I didn't pull the sash all the way out to the left to complete the line.
Because of that sash, to me, this photo will always be a failure."
To me, this photo will always be a failure. That's art for you, isn't it? You can create something as distinctive and beautiful as this picture is, and yet every time you look at it, to you, it's a failure.
(Oh, and, parenthetically -- the museum also featured a sculpture and photography exhibit by Robert Hite called "Imagined Histories," which had me completely capitivated - so creepy and haunting, like a memory from a childhood dream.)
Friday, July 22, 2011
"I'm Really Into Curation Lately."
I once heard this spoken by one of the members of the Women's Project labs (forgive me, I can't remember who). I was just out of college at that time, and happened to be lucky enough to briefly be in the same room with these people, these talented women on the rise within the profession, sharing some incredible ideas about theater. And when whoever it was that said, "I'm really into curation lately," I thought, Like a museum? What on earth does that have to do with theater? I don't get it. Hilariouly, five years later (I guess I have a slow learning curve), I am finding myself more and more compelled to say the exact same thing.
Not to belabor a play that I saw, at this point, almost a month ago, but I realized there's something else I wanted to say about The Shaggs. Something happened during the intermission which caught my attention: one of the women in the group seated in the row in front of me looked up The Shaggs on her iPhone, and managed to find a YouTube video which see then passed around to her friends. They all took turns listening to the band through her headphones saying, "Oh yes, they're pretty awful."
I actually tweeted about this when I saw it (YES, I tweeted at intermission, another phenomenon that's somewhat relevant within the context of this conversation); it struck me as interesting for a number of reasons.
The first is this: I was acutely aware of the lack of historical context provided by the theater about the band. No dramaturgical note, no time-line, nothing whatsoever printed about the family, the actual facts of their story, or any information about what happened before or after the events we saw on stage. There was such a dearth of contextual support, I HAD to assume it was a deliberate choice.
But was it a wise one? Or, more importantly, a feasible one? Look at me, for example: the only reason I was SEEING the show at all was because I had heard about the "true story" and my interest was piqued. And program note or no program note, nothing could stop me from returning home and Googling "The Shaggs" until my curiosity was sated. But, I'll grant you, there is a big difference between finding out the true story after you leave the theater and having the information while you watch. Happily for the creative team of The Shaggs (if this was indeed their desire), I don't own a smartphone. Unhappily for them, I'm in a dwindling minority. Now look at the group in front of me that night: you couldn't have stopped them from accessing that information, and what's more, these people were on the departing side of middle-age, not a particulary hip or cutting-edge demographic. Which is to say, you can't stop MOST of your audience from accessing information about your show, right in the middle of it. This is especially true for historical fiction and "based on a true-story"-style tales, but continues to be relevant for any kind of story. You audience can now be looking up information about the play, the playwright, the theater, previous productions, reviews, you name it, at any given moment. And if we can't stop our audience from accessing this information, shouldn't we embrace it? What if we tried to curate their experience and incorporate it into the larger experience of seeing the play?
That notion becomes Interesting Idea Number Two, and that's what really excites me. How fun would it be to sift through your program as you restlessly wait for the play to begin and instead of useless reviews of nearby restaurants, there were QR Codes or links to articles, pictures, videos or even music that relates to the show you're about to see?
And what if we could use this new technology to link the production to other related art? Paintings, songs, poems, short films, photographs, all somehow inspired by or related to the show itself, transforming it into a multidisciplinary experience.
I had a similar idea a few years back, although without the technological bent. I wanted to do a production of The Little Foxes and - well, I never quite worked out why and for whom I wanted to do the show, which is why it was never fully realized so I'll withhold the details, as they don't quite make sense. But, sufficed to say, I wanted to do The Little Foxes in a site-specific location, by and for members of a specific community. I wanted to involve the community in the show itself as actors, designers and collaborators, but I also wanted to extend beyond the play itself, encouraging the community to respond to the play through writing, pictures and other various multimedia which would be available for the audience to experience on-site both during the show, and on its own later.
And even though I couldn't figure out how to make it work for The Little Foxes, I'm still keen on this sort of curated community experience. Now I'm thinking of it in relationship to another, well, let's not call it an idea, but an inkling of an idea I'm excited to explore with another director I met in the LCT Lab this month. I'm very drawn to the possibility of using that kind of curated experience to bring a community together, and, through various disciplines, bring texture and dimension to an issue or idea that affects that community in a measurable way.
So that's what I'm thinking about right now. Is all of that cryptic enough for you? Unfortunately, I can't really elaborate, as beyond that the details are hazy even for myself. Anyway, after seeing The Shaggs, it makes me wonder if this idea that I've already been tossing around in my head could move to a whole new level with the inclusion of smartphone technology.
Or the technology it could totally detract from it, I don't know. What do you think?
Not to belabor a play that I saw, at this point, almost a month ago, but I realized there's something else I wanted to say about The Shaggs. Something happened during the intermission which caught my attention: one of the women in the group seated in the row in front of me looked up The Shaggs on her iPhone, and managed to find a YouTube video which see then passed around to her friends. They all took turns listening to the band through her headphones saying, "Oh yes, they're pretty awful."
I actually tweeted about this when I saw it (YES, I tweeted at intermission, another phenomenon that's somewhat relevant within the context of this conversation); it struck me as interesting for a number of reasons.
The first is this: I was acutely aware of the lack of historical context provided by the theater about the band. No dramaturgical note, no time-line, nothing whatsoever printed about the family, the actual facts of their story, or any information about what happened before or after the events we saw on stage. There was such a dearth of contextual support, I HAD to assume it was a deliberate choice.
But was it a wise one? Or, more importantly, a feasible one? Look at me, for example: the only reason I was SEEING the show at all was because I had heard about the "true story" and my interest was piqued. And program note or no program note, nothing could stop me from returning home and Googling "The Shaggs" until my curiosity was sated. But, I'll grant you, there is a big difference between finding out the true story after you leave the theater and having the information while you watch. Happily for the creative team of The Shaggs (if this was indeed their desire), I don't own a smartphone. Unhappily for them, I'm in a dwindling minority. Now look at the group in front of me that night: you couldn't have stopped them from accessing that information, and what's more, these people were on the departing side of middle-age, not a particulary hip or cutting-edge demographic. Which is to say, you can't stop MOST of your audience from accessing information about your show, right in the middle of it. This is especially true for historical fiction and "based on a true-story"-style tales, but continues to be relevant for any kind of story. You audience can now be looking up information about the play, the playwright, the theater, previous productions, reviews, you name it, at any given moment. And if we can't stop our audience from accessing this information, shouldn't we embrace it? What if we tried to curate their experience and incorporate it into the larger experience of seeing the play?
That notion becomes Interesting Idea Number Two, and that's what really excites me. How fun would it be to sift through your program as you restlessly wait for the play to begin and instead of useless reviews of nearby restaurants, there were QR Codes or links to articles, pictures, videos or even music that relates to the show you're about to see?
And what if we could use this new technology to link the production to other related art? Paintings, songs, poems, short films, photographs, all somehow inspired by or related to the show itself, transforming it into a multidisciplinary experience.
I had a similar idea a few years back, although without the technological bent. I wanted to do a production of The Little Foxes and - well, I never quite worked out why and for whom I wanted to do the show, which is why it was never fully realized so I'll withhold the details, as they don't quite make sense. But, sufficed to say, I wanted to do The Little Foxes in a site-specific location, by and for members of a specific community. I wanted to involve the community in the show itself as actors, designers and collaborators, but I also wanted to extend beyond the play itself, encouraging the community to respond to the play through writing, pictures and other various multimedia which would be available for the audience to experience on-site both during the show, and on its own later.
And even though I couldn't figure out how to make it work for The Little Foxes, I'm still keen on this sort of curated community experience. Now I'm thinking of it in relationship to another, well, let's not call it an idea, but an inkling of an idea I'm excited to explore with another director I met in the LCT Lab this month. I'm very drawn to the possibility of using that kind of curated experience to bring a community together, and, through various disciplines, bring texture and dimension to an issue or idea that affects that community in a measurable way.
So that's what I'm thinking about right now. Is all of that cryptic enough for you? Unfortunately, I can't really elaborate, as beyond that the details are hazy even for myself. Anyway, after seeing The Shaggs, it makes me wonder if this idea that I've already been tossing around in my head could move to a whole new level with the inclusion of smartphone technology.
Or the technology it could totally detract from it, I don't know. What do you think?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Most Amazing Subway Graffiti
So, I happen to love subway posters. Chalk it up to my alternate life in advertising; I'm totally fascinated by them. I scrutinize them in painstaking detail, get unreasonably angry at the ones that are lazy, slapdash, or lacking in craftsmanship, and get really really excited about the ones that have been artfully and carefully constructed.
For example these:
These posters were out a couple summers ago and I loved them. So much so that I clearly had to document them for posterity. They were somehow entirely aware of their own ridiculousness, and yet still entirely sincere about it. It was genius.
Anyway. I saw another instance of genius a few days ago (although didn't think fast enough to get a picture). This one was not marketing genius, though, but inspiration from a civilian:
This particular poster was for some reality show or another, and featured a bunch of people standing around looking at the camera. There is a poster currently on the subway lines advertising an exhibit about Houdini at (I believe) the Brooklyn Museum. It features a big picture of Houdini with his name and some information about the exhibit underneath.
This graffiti artist had cut out the figure of Houdini and inserted him along with his name in the reality-series posters. The effect was that Houdini had somehow escaped from his own poster and materialized in this one. His name (the final touch), pasted next to him, seemed to announce, "Ta da! The great Houdini!"
It was kind of brilliant.
For example these:
These posters were out a couple summers ago and I loved them. So much so that I clearly had to document them for posterity. They were somehow entirely aware of their own ridiculousness, and yet still entirely sincere about it. It was genius.
Anyway. I saw another instance of genius a few days ago (although didn't think fast enough to get a picture). This one was not marketing genius, though, but inspiration from a civilian:
This particular poster was for some reality show or another, and featured a bunch of people standing around looking at the camera. There is a poster currently on the subway lines advertising an exhibit about Houdini at (I believe) the Brooklyn Museum. It features a big picture of Houdini with his name and some information about the exhibit underneath.
This graffiti artist had cut out the figure of Houdini and inserted him along with his name in the reality-series posters. The effect was that Houdini had somehow escaped from his own poster and materialized in this one. His name (the final touch), pasted next to him, seemed to announce, "Ta da! The great Houdini!"
It was kind of brilliant.
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