Library Seed bank
THis is no longer active.
This podcast is connected to the Sovereignty Garden campaign. There are four episodes. The campaign is ongoing media experiment, and I might return to podcasts in the future. They are fun and I enjoy editing audio files. I fell down a rabbit hole of research about seed and tomato breeding history in NJ, and local food history. I wrote a manuscript, and that took me away from podcasting.
I may come back to podcasting with my research.
Life got crazy real quick this week with the COVID-1 virus that fueled the pandemic panic that stripped the stores of basic supplies, and had folks fighting over toilet paper.
Now purchases of goods are limited (a forerunner to rationing), and I saw a no return policy on
food at a supermarket tonight for the first time in my life.
Panic is part of the human condition. It happens. In that mindset, survival mode kicks in, and common sense goes out the window. I mean come on now, fighting over toilet paper while so
many people are food insecure.
In 2017 according to Feeding America, 12.5% of the US population was food insecure.
That number will spike with the situation that we’re facing.
Access to culturally appropriate food is a human right
Securing you own culturally appropriate food that’s grown
and produced without the industrial food complex
Think Victory Gardens for Food Sovereignty
In 2017, I launched the Growing Food Sovereignty Revolution Propaganda Series, as a tribute to the Victory Garden Series that the US government used to support the war effort during WWI and WWII. I did a series of propaganda posters. The next step in this series is a Sovereignty Gardens campaign. Victory Gardens for the Sovereignty if you will.
I have a Patreon page to support it, and my patrons give me enough support to pay for the website. That’s coming in April, or sooner if I can get it done.
Sovereignty.Gardens
will be the domain when launched
These are the four tenets of Sovereignty Gardens.
Update 3.19.20
I had a relaxed schedule for this project, however the pandemic has it own schedule.
It’s here, and the right to food and the tools to empower and connect to that are needed now.
They are here.
Launching in 2020, Sovereignty Gardens is the next phase of my homage to the Victory Garden propaganda series from the Unites States government. These gardens will be a tool for people to connect to the four tenets associated with these gardens, seeds, bees, food, and rights. They’re interdependent, and they can stand on their own. They represent the process of growing food. Seeds germinate into plants. Some of these plants need bee pollination to produce the food we eat. Food is human right.
These gardens put the concept of food sovereignty into action. They include protecting bees and other pollinators who can’t represent themselves in the human power structure. They will encourage people to save seeds, and to grow their own food. It’s a natural extension of Jeff’s Growing the Food Sovereignty Revolution propaganda series.
I set up a Patreon page to support this, and all my activism. Please consider supporting me, and or sharing it with your networks. Thank you.
More to come in 2020.
To close out this wild and crazy year, I launched a Patreon page to build up a passive monthly income to support my art and activism. Patreon for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a crowdfunding platform that support creatives who produce individual projects or monthly subscriptions.
From Patreon’s website;
Patreon powers membership businesses for creators by giving them the tools they need to acquire, manage, and energize their paying patrons. With a subscription-style payment model, fans pay their favorite creators a monthly amount of their choice in exchange for exclusive access, extra content, or a closer look into their creative journey.
This model is a win-win; creators retain creative freedom while getting the salary they deserve, and fans get to rest easy knowing that their money goes directly towards creating more of what they love.
I have a large collection of photographs that I’ve never shown, published or sold. My public art has always been crafts, millinery, a brief stint as a storytelling milliner, being a props master and now, my Growing the Food Sovereignty Revolution Propaganda Series (GFSRPS). I thought a Photo of the Month type of a business would be good, and that ended up as the big ask on my Patreon page. There are two smaller levels of support as well.
When I started this earlier this page last year, it was in in the spring this year that I got back to it. Little did I know what would happen since the new first draft of it, and the launch. I was commissioned to write a book by the Stockton Center of Successful Aging, Stockton University, Galloway, NJ. Some great and significant things fell in place with my work with Slow Food USA with seeds and Presidias. Presidias are a community marketing and educational project that supports the Ark of Taste catalogue project I work on with Slow Food USA. There are some great opportunities locally to expand the network of seed libraries I set up here in southern NJ, specifically in Gloucester County and finally, launching in Cape May county. Also for 2020, there’s the Sovereignty Gardens campaign that is the next phase of GFSRPS.
And finally, there’s Tomato Quattrone who was created by necessity, which is often referred to as the mother of invention. The mother definition here though is not the one that’s celebrated the second weekend in May.
You can meet Tomato on my Patreon page. His creation story, while not as dramatic as Greek creation myths, let me just say that necessity was the Mother of his invention, and not the Mother definition celebrated on the second Sunday in May. Think of a two letter acronym.
In the opening credits, you will see that he is presented by the Authentic Jersey Tomato Company. That’s an extension of my Authentic Jersey Tomato Seed Collection, which is a founding seed collection of my Library Seed Bank project. It’s also my NJ LLC, which naturally leads to Tomato Quattone being the unofficial official spokestomato for the iconic Jersey tomato. He will bring an unofficial whole new meaning to the Jersey Fresh marketing campaign for the state agriculture products. As a matter of fact, his official debut as unofficial official Jersey spokestomato will be titled Jersey Fresh.
Please take a look, considering supporting me, and or sharing this with your networks.
Cheers!
I’m a 59 year old gay man, and my rights have been used as parlor game for many who want to deny my dignity as a human being. And now you want to mess with food rights? Have a seat, that ain’t happening.
Read MoreA story about a Gloucester County, NJ farmer and his legacy tomato, the Kille #7, and how Library Seed Bank and seed libraries are bringing this tomato back to its home soil.
Read More
For a propaganda campaign to be successful, information is needed. This is where you will find that.