Cultivating Creativity: From Farm, to Table, to Gallery

Part pop-up gallery, part progressive beer dinner, "Cultivating Creativity" celebrated the intersection of art, food and beer. Guests rotated through five gallery spaces at Forequarter and a converted apartment across the street, learning from local chefs, farmers, Goose Island Brewers and community artists over the course of the event. Guests also contributed their creativity to a first-of-its-kind community installation called The Garden of Ideas. In this gallery space participants decorated seed packets with ways to nourish and grow the local food economy in Madison. Immediately following the event local artist Lesley Numbers "harvested" the Garden of Ideas and created Grow Together, a new custom piece inspired by the ideas represented in the seed packets. The print is now being sold in Madison to raise money and awareness for FairShare CSA, an organization committed to improving the quality and accessibility of CSA shares in Southern Wisconsin. The print will also be available online on The Apartment Project's site.

A MENU OF COLLABORATION

FEAST YOUR EYES ON THE EVENT RECAP BELOW:   

In the Garden of Ideas guests lounged on freshly laid sod, swung on a handmade swing, drew on walls and collaborated (with help from community arts organizer Mallory Shotwell) to plant the seeds ideas of ideas to support Madison's local food economy.  This screen print is now complete and called Grow Together, a phrase pulled from the Garden. The print is a hand-drawn, two-color screen print (11"x 14") made by Lesley Anne Numbers. The colors were inspired by the walls of the apartment, and the geese and hops imagery was inspired by Goose Island, the event partner who made this collaboration possible. The best part? This print is free to everyone who participated in the event and will be sold at The Underground Butcher and online at the Apartment Project. Proceeds from sales of this print will benefit FairShare CSA to support access to fresh, healthy locally grown foods in Wisconsin. 

Nestled in the cozy bar at Forequarter guests learned about the origins of brewing and culinary innovation. Di Rodriguez, brewer for Goose Island, deconstructed Sophie, one of Goose Island’s most complex beers. Jacob Wolf, a chef from Underground Food Collective, created a dish inspired by its flavor profile specifically for this pairing. Guests honed their tastebuds, and opened their mind to new paths to creativity. 

Are you sure you know what a tomato tastes like? We invited local farmer Tommy Stauffer, co-owner of Virtruvian Farms, to teach guests to articulate the artistry and importance of locally-sourced raw ingredients.  The session closed the “culinary gap” by allowing guests to meet face-to-face with both a chef (Underground Chef Miles Borghaef) and a farmer to experience familiar food in a new way. Miles created a dish inspired by the ingredients in Tommy's raw vegetable flight. 

Inspired by ordering coffee “with room”, this gallery space used art to kickstart a discussion about the challenges of sourcing local ingredients. Guests dined while a projector streamed coffee pouring in milk on the table surface. Here Jonny Hunter, founder of Underground Food Collective, led a conversation to define opportunities to support Madison’s local food economy on an individual and community level, and explore the role of technology in the process. Jon Churan, Underground Food Collective chef, used coffee as a main ingredient in his dish, which was paired with Goose Island's Bourbon County Coffee Stout. 

This gallery space invited guests to explore the cross-pollination of ideas, art, and food in Madison, and join a discussion about what it takes to create a supportive creative and culinary environment. Artist Jeremy Wineberg created a custom beeswax installation for this gallery space, and led a conversation while guests were served a dish prepared by Jon Churran that featured vegetables, fruits, flowers and honey that were all made possible by local bees.