Two Year Anniversary Give-Away!

Today marks two years since Milé and I moved to Small Pond Arts.

Smooch!  Picture taken at the Big Splash

Time is a funny creature.  In some ways two years seems like a long time; we’ve accomplished so much, and I think Milé and I have both been deeply changed by our new life.  But two years isn’t really all that long; after all, it’s a measly 730 days.

Here’s some of the things that I did in the last 730 days:

• Moved from downtown Toronto to a farm

• Bought our first home

• Renovated and furnished this old house

• Started a small business 

• Learned to drive

• Learned to grow abundant glorious food in our garden

• Buried a time capsule

• Produced four community festivals

• Had my puppets in an art show

• Taught shadow puppetry to kids in 5 communities

• Sewed two giant silo banners (with help)

• Met a couple hundred new people, made a lot of new friends

• Wrote/directed/performed four puppet shows

• Helped make jam and pickles

• Traveled to Labrador, Northern Ontario, and drove to Arizona and back

• Was in local newspapers and magazines 24 times

• Started teaching myself to play the concertina.
• Made about 30 puppets

• Hosted a dinner party for 50+ people and threw some killer parties

• Made two mobiles – one of bones and one of sticks

• Led four community workshops
• Facilitated dozens of artists in residence... and fed them all

• Started a blog and wrote 34 posts.

Now I’m not trying to brag, but I feel like that’s a significant amount of stuff.  And honestly, I’ve been working pretty hard, but I haven’t been killing myself.  I could have done more.

Milé did a whole bunch of other stuff, too, like painting tons of paintings, having art shows, stiltwalking around Picton, and becoming one of the most famous mustachioed men in the County. 

A lot of people ask how we did all this. How did we make a life for ourselves that seems to most people like a crazy dream?

Well if you have a crazy dream, guess what?  You can actually do it.  Well, probably. But it’s not for the faint of heart. It takes fearlessness. Courage. Support of your friends and family. Hard work, obviously. And a little bit of foolishness. I've never really felt afraid that Small Pond wouldn’t work. You can't fear failure if you want to succeed.

I could be yours.

***CONTEST DETAILS***

Now it’s your turn.

We want to know what you’ve done in the last two years.  What are your accomplishments?  What are you most proud of?

Tell us in the comments section below by 7 PM March 15, 2012 and you could WIN one of these great prizes:

First Prize: A custom oil portrait of you or someone of your choosing by Milé Murtanovski

Second Prize: Yeti puppet (pictured above) by yours truly, Krista Dalby
Third Prize: Two CD's from our friend, Arlene Bishop: Snarky Girlpop and Begin Again.

One entry per person. We’ll post the winners here on March 15, 2012 by 8 PM, as selected by random.org

It's time to toot your own horn. Good luck!

Corn Field of Dreams

As part of our Cornography event we asked our audience to write down, on corn-shaped pieces of paper, their responses to "My dream for the future of food is..." These dreams were then paraded through the forest, accompanied by a young fiddler, and 'planted' in a field.

We called this The Corn Field of Dreams.  I found the responses that people wrote very moving and occasionally hilarious.  Here they are.

MY DREAM FOR THE FUTURE OF FOOD IS:

•          A food system that respects all life – both human and more than human
•          Stability.  No one goes hungry.
•          That all food will be chemical free and completely organic.
•          Sustainability, less abuse of animals, more nutrition, less cutting corners, food is the basis of everything; we need to solve our food problems to solve all our problems.
•          A whole diet, community supported agriculture system.
•          To grow my own food, all year round, by way of garden and greenhouse.  And to prepare all my own and my family’s food, without need to purchase prepared foods.
•          Millions of small farmers, homesteaders, backyard gardeners.
•          The end of Walmart and the fair compensation for the hard work of farmers.
•          Grow my own.
•          To be able to afford food.
•          Loootsss of Chinese (x 2! I assume they mean Chinese food?)

•          A garden for every home
•          Everyone growing their own goodness!
•          The onion recognized as the true hero it is.
•          ?
•          (little kid scribbles)
•          No chemicals, no preservatives, all natural, only will (?) what you immediately need.
•          Slot machine spitting out delicious wheels of stinky orange cheese.
•          People able to grow enough good food for all.  Real food.  Not no-till genetically modified crops.
•          Sustainability, local organic food, enough for all.
•          One pill that provides all nutrition.

•          That all will have enough to eat their fill and reach their potential.
•          A society where everyone eats wild foods.
•          There will be enough for everyone.
•          Everyone has a garden, every child knows the feel of dirt and seeds and the joy of planting it and watching it grow, eating it and fully enjoying.
•          To have a brand new chocolate bar named after me!
•          To grow communities where no one is hungry and everyone eats healthy.

•          Less processing!
•          Healthy bacon!
•          To have food not fixed by chemicals, great in taste, healthy to eat.
•          Appreciated, happy farmers who are well paid and share their love of good food.  Natural, tasty, wholesome food from the fields because farmers still feed cities.
•          To not have to go to the supermarket because we grow or exchange what we grow for things we don’t need + Monsanto closed down!
•          I want to own a dairy farm, make cheese, raise bacon honey and barley, eat a hot lunch at a long table and sleep and wake with the sun.
•          Make candy healthy.
•          I like to eat corn.  Yellow corn on the cob.

•          Natural land and soil for planting millions of miles.
•          More for everyone at a sustainable rate.  Possible?  Meh, it’s a dream.
•          Natural, unprocessed, tasty, simple to prepare.
•          That multi-national corporations cannot continue to patent food and screw people over
•      No factory farms – only organic family farms.
•          Pay farmers better, shift subsidies to foods that are good for us, especially vegetables and eat less meat.
•          Unprocessed, fat free, natural.
•          To eat less corn and to plant more crops!
•          Local, natural, organic, wholesome, fresh, yummy.
•          Grown in Fiona’s garden.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their dreams.  Let's keep dreaming together!  To read more about Cornography, click HERE.