LisaRuth Creates

On Wednesday, December 12, 2012, after successfully completing a Kickstarter Campaign to fund its completion and my involvement in events like these, the Breadmobile and I got on the road to take part in Interdependence Day, a San Francisco citywide event put on by 49 Farms.

Conceived as a follow-up to 350.org’s 10/10/10 Global Day of Climate Action* when the local urban agriculture movement helped start 350 “kitchen gardens,” Interdependence Day events celebrated the growing urban agriculture movement. My (pretty) regular urban ag gig is across town at Alemany Farm, where I did an Ecological Horticulture Apprenticeship a few years ago, so I was excited to spend the day with friends at Hayes Valley Farm where I don’t get to visit very often. Hayes Valley Farm has a cob oven, my destination. My breadmobile—though yet to be completed—carried all my breadmaking supplies, and a supply of kindling and almond wood.

Ian and I started a fire at 11 AM in the beehive cob oven which had been created by Living Earth Structures last May. The farm’s Seed Library volunteers set up next to the Outdoor Kitchen. Volunteers planted wheat in the bed closest to the oven. Others did yoga in a clearing. Riyana Sang, representing herself as a healer and the Ohlone Herbal Center, brought medicinal honey which she shared near the entrance. A steady stream of curious folks touring the farm for the first time came past my smoky setting and tasted samples of bread I had baked at home earlier. I also served honey from the Free Farm, given to me by my friend Pam Deluco, the beekeeper there.

I started my breadmaking demo at 1 PM for a dozen people, most of whom had never made bread before. We had to wait a while to put the loaf in the oven as the oven was nowhere close to 450 degrees by 1 PM. (I have found that the temperature of the outdoor ovens is the hardest variable to work with in the outdoor settings.) It was such a great day!! I answered lots of questions, and by the end of the afternoon people were circling back to the oven to sample one of the three loaves baked at the farm that afternoon.

Enjoy the photos, most were taken by Marty Castleberg, some by me, and some by Jay Rosenberg of Hayes Valley Farm.

Here’s a video that was taken by a local journalism student.

Here are also some lovely shots of the day, on The Daily Plan-It.

* I co-organized a bicycle action on 10/10/10, where we invited folks to Ride the Future Shoreline. Check us out.

On December 1, 2012, I successfully completed a Kickstarter campaign for the next stage in my breadmaking endeavor, Lisaruth’s Lovin’ From the Oven! I’m building a bicycle trailer, a “Breadmobile,” and some infrastructure to get my breadmaking on the road. I’ve been baking and giving breadmaking instruction for over four years and with this campaign I signal moving beyond my cozy kitchen (I am still giving demos for small groups) and into the community to reach larger groups, taking my breadmaking to those sites in San Francisco where there are cob ovens, community kitchens, and even to other homes for small demos. I surpassed my goal, and am excited to continue to imagine where I can go from here.

Learn more about Lisaruth’s Lovin’ From the Oven.

I’ve been crazy about shibori, a resist dye technique, since I bought a piece of fabric in 1996 with the small tie dye geometric patterning. My romanticized idea of the process was that the cloth was tied around pieces of rice then submerged in a dye bath. It was only later I found out what the technique was called and how it worked (and I haven’t seen any substantiation for this idea I had earlier). I’ve since brought several other shibori  fabrics–from India, from Japan–into my “collection.”

In October 2012, I received an email from the Museum of Craft and Folk Art* in San Francisco that they were offering a workshop in collaboration with Etsy Labs and Fibershed on shibori, a very accessible way for me to finally get some experience in this centuries-old technique.

This was the blurb about the workshop:

Create your own natural dye with one of the world’s most ancient dye flowers – coreopsis tinctorium. Fiber artist Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed will lead a workshop where each participant will participate in making a fresh vat of dye from locally grown organic coreopsis flowers, and will create beautiful surface designs using simple shibori techniques on silk fabric.

Here’s a pictoral journey through this very informal, evening workshop.

* The Museum of Craft and Folk Art is closing at the end of 2012, after 30 years of operation. I am both saddened and impressed that they are closing. I can’t tell you the quality of the curated shows I’ve seen here over the past decade. I’m saddened to lose such a well-curated window into the textile and folk art world. Personally, the effect that weaving in the museum space had on me is reflected in the fact that I bought my own backstrap loom soon after and have really enjoyed experimenting with it. It’s impossible to say where the electric charge of inspiration I had looking at new works there will have on my own creations—from paper art, to lace work, to bojagi, to weavings, to all sorts of textile designs. But I’m also impressed that 1) they aren’t dragging out financial difficulties, and 2) they recognize they have probably fulfilled their mission sufficiently, as now you see craft work included in many exhibitions in the museum setting.

i desire to live in a world where we all move from being breadWINNERS to breadMAKERS! i have shared how to make delicious, everyday bread with hundreds of people through my breadmaking instruction endeavor, Lisaruth’s Lovin’ From the Oven.

i started with kitchen experimentation using a no-knead bread recipe in San Francisco in 2008.  i began keeping my household in bread, giving some away by bicycle delivery, and bartering loaves for goods and services.  inspired by the SF Diggers‘ notion of FREE, in 2009 i began to host no-cost, informal workshops that have brought dozens of friends, family, and strangers alike around my kitchen table for breadmaking instruction together with food and conversation. Lisaruth’s Lovin’ From the Oven breadmaking demos help connect people to a primordial skill that i believe to be the gateway to other means of self-empowerment and the participation in creating one’s own reality. one gains ownership over one’s food sources, and the possibility for human connection arises. one slows down.

in 2013, following a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign, i began taking my breadmaking instruction to larger audiences at outdoor ovens or community kitchens through a custom-built Breadmobile, a bicycle trailer doubling as a bread preparation station.

Lisaruth presents Lovin’ From the Oven to TEDX – Constitution Drive in Menlo Park, CA in May 2015

in 2015 i featured my breadmaking project, origin, and philosophy in a TEDX talk. watch the 16 minute presentation!

my bread demos have been part of many community events: the South San Francisco Public Library’s Lovin’ at the Library Month in February 2015, the Mission District’s Clinica Martin Baró‘s Healthy Saturdays program in April and May 2013, and Roots to Fruits: Tasting our Shared Fruiture in July 2011. my bread was featured at San Francisco’s Tenderloin National Forest twice as part of the Harvest Moon Buffet Flats: Queering Slow Food in September 2011 and as part of the Luggage Store Gallery’s exhibition Streetopia in June 2012. i baked at Hayes Valley Farm in their cob beehive oven for Interdependence Day on 12/12/12. and my bread was showcased at SF Food Wars’ Yeast Affliction! in January 2010.

learn about my successful Kickstarter campaign to build a bicycle trailer, the Breadmobile!

find out what people are saying about my bread and demos.

check out some photos of Lisaruth’s Lovin’ From the Oven.

Creation of “River Time!”

a mosaic mural in the Sierra Foothills

Over Labor Day weekend 2012, I co-coordinated the creation of a collaborative mosaic mural at Yuba Libre, a community land project on 22 acres of beautiful, undeveloped land near a wild stretch of the South Yuba River. I have been part of this inspiring community of Northern California artists, activists, and ecologists since 2011. I also have several years under my belt assisting in and project managing the creation of public murals in San Francisco with the magnificent muralist and illustrator Mona Caron.

None of this mosaic project would have happened without the vision and organization of Ross Holzman, my co-coordinator, and Matt Berry and his team, natural builders extraordinaires who guided us along the way with their expertise and skill!

This summer, Yuba Libre has been enhanced by the construction of a strawbale and cob bathhouse with stone foundation and a french drain system.  Over several months, many of us who spend some of our holiday weekends in the mountains and on the Yuba River participated in creating the walls to the bathhouse on many levels: harvesting the beautiful rich red clay just yards from the structure, mixing the straw with wet clay, tamping the straw down within form boards to create the walls, placing bottles and mason jars in the walls for design and function, and more. We learned a bunch (a bale??) about this permacultural natural building form, got dirty, and had tons of fun doing it!

While they were finishing up the largest wall one weekend, Ross had the idea of putting a mosaic on the wall. He put the call out to the community via a listserv and, having worked on the wall, loving mosaics, and already inspired by some design, I quickly got myself involved. Here is a look at the process.