CREATIVITY & VISION
Our community of artists and musicians is astounding!
Baking Art Every Day: But is it Art?
We make our bread every day, and for us it's everyday art. Each loaf gets full attention--whether it's a delicate slash, a fine dusting, an image scratched into the flour, or even a stencil or coating of seeds.
We want each loaf to disrupt your day. We want you to see it new, again, each time. But wait! Isn't it a craft? That's not REALLY art! Hard to say. Here's the thing: we don't really have any folk arts left in these parts--some fine banjo picking for sure... and we could use a little more.
We want to make some.
That everyday bread, every day doing it's work of nourishment and surprise, every day shaping the fruit of our grain fields and millstones, every day pushing us to make more beauty and sometimes making it happen--that everyday bread is art becoming. As you eat it and know it, you transform it from craft into art.
For us, bread can instigate transformative exchange.
As bakers, we work for that moment of engagement where we encounter the beauty of the bread, and through it, of each other.
Our community is full of art, and we love that. We do what we can to promote and support local music, painting, graphic design, performance, poetry, circus arts, and more. Our bakery has been transformed into a sculpture installation, our bread distributions into circus performances and collective art projects. We regularly host bands at our bread events, and at farmers markets.
Are you an artist? Would like to work with us? Be in touch and we can talk.
"Some objects suggest that the world is actually banal—kind of perfunctory and ho hum. They invite indifference. Other objects suggest that the world is full of grace, bounty, and beauty. They invite something closer to love. We are interested in making something that invites love as a response.
-David McInnis
MUSIC
More than half of the funding for the bakery came from musicians.
The musicians in our lives, in Trumansburg and farther afield, are very dear to us. Musicians were our core supporters when we first started. Before we had even opened our doors, we brought to dances and gave it away; musicians and dancers were our first audience. In the early years, back when we had more room to spare, we would invite bands to rehearse in the bakery while we worked.
The Bakery as Art
This bakery, it's a business, sure. And it's a bakery, baking bread. But for us, it's more than that. We see the bakery as a way of help us, and our neighbors, thrive. We wonder what unexpected capacities the bakery might have--to make beauty, to transform a life, to improve some soil, to offer something good to eat.
We think of it as "the project." As much art as bread.