Mark Andrew Gravel recently joined the Eat Well team as a consultant to help reach out to the greater community and cultivate partnerships with the many like minded organizations out there doing great work for good food. Mark is the founder of Bouwerie, a freelance creative group that collaborates with clients active in the good food movement, and develops self-propelled projects like the upcoming Table Tea, and the recently launched Good Farm Movement, which features some of the best of the agricultural avant-garde. We’ll be checking in with Good Farm Movement every two weeks or so to feature the art of the agrarian. To kick things off, we did a little interview.
Leslie: Mark, how did you get into promoting good food and sustainable agriculture?
Mark: I grew up eating very fresh food. My mother and grandmother are excellent cooks, and my best memories are waking up to all the local produce they would shop for during the summer months. To that end, I come in at the culinary point of the agricultural process. Good ingredients inspire my cooking, and by good I definitely mean local, sustainably grown—they make you feel like a spring chicken.
Leslie: And how did the art come in?
Mark: Growing up I was very interested in sticker culture and still am. I slap stickers on everything. While in NYC, I always saw a lot of great street art and tons of stickers—everywhere. It was really inspiring walking around my neighborhood everyday seeing something new and thought provoking. The art component really hit home for me when the cosmic convergence that was Wooster on Spring unfolded. Seeing SO many people show up for a public art exhibition really solidified in my mind the potential of art as a catalyst for inspiration and education and community. Subsequently, Good Farm Movement grew from these experiences.
Leslie: What’s your favorite part about being a mover and a shaker in this movement?
Mark: Hula Hooping. Just kidding—sort of. Definitely, the beautiful minds of the agrarian avant-garde—the forward thinking farmers, cooks, eaters, educators, activists, and artists reclaiming our land, our communities, and our health.
Leslie: You’ve been involved in a number of farm/web projects in the past. What’s next?
Mark: Indeed, I feel very fortunate to have collaborated with great projects like Eat Well, The Greenhorns, and Slow Food Nation not to mention the little local businesses that my friends and I endeavor to incubate and hatch. So what is next? I’ll still be running around the World Wide Web, but I’m planning to get a little craftier with Table Tea. Lately, I’ve been brewing and bottling it for some provocative underground dining down here in the Carolina’s, and hopefully I’ll have some in a few locales around here in the fall.
Leslie: Where can I get some of your cool graphics?
Mark: Drop me a line at gravel@bouwerie.com and feel free to help yourself to the I Farm design if you want to make your own stickers, etc.
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