Conversations at 'The Barn'

A curator, an artist, a lawyer, and a farmer. Each will offer a short presentation of their concerns about sustainability in their professional worlds. Guy Jones, Amy Lipton, Caroline G. Harris and Simon Draper create the dialogue.

There will be potato leek soup, hot cider, and beer. Please bring something if you would like, but it is not expected/required/mandatory.

The invited speakers are:

Guy Jones, Blooming Hill Farm In the early eighties, soon after Guy
Jones gave up his storefront law office to become a farmer, he was
asked by David Bouley to grow rare mesclun greens and patience-
testing haricots verts. He now sells 200 varieties of produce
(including 30 types of tomatoes) directly to 50 restaurants, mostly
in New York City. Finicky vegan spots like Angelica Kitchen love
him because he's politically conscious, and chefs find him
extremely responsive-lately, for example, he's been using seeds
from Italy to grow nettle, radicchio, and agretti.

Amy Lipton, co founder of ecoartspace, an international non profit
organization in a growing community of artists, scientists,
curators, writers, nonprofits, and businesses who are developing
creative and innovative strategies to address our global
environmental issues. ecoartspace promotes a diverse range of
artworks that are participatory, collaborative, interdisciplinary,
and uniquely educational. Amy will discuss the works of several
contemporary artists who have addressed food, agriculture and
farming in their work.

Caroline G. Harris is a lawyer and artist. She practices in
various areas of land use law, emphasizing zoning and historic
preservation, and sustainability. She was recently quoted in an
article in Crain's about rooftop gardens. She recently wrote a
piece on "Green Zoning" for The Sallan Foundation. Ms. Harris
appears before many state and city agencies in New York City. She
represents real estate developers, landowners, institutional
clients, not-for-profit organizations, and other public entities in
a variety of land use and real estate development issues.

Simon Draper is an artist living and working in the Hudson Valley.
Habitat for Artists is a collective project created by Mr. Draper.
Draper and a changing collective of artists have built over 20 six
by six foot studios up and down the Hudson Valley, in Philadelphia,
and most recently in New York City. Some of these Habitats have
been installed and used by CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture
groups) in the Hudson Valley. Artists and the community at large
use these small studios. Each habitat is made largely of reclaimed
and recycled materials, and its design seeks to minimize its carbon
footprint. Simon will speak about creating a space in which to
create, and the thought process behind his Habitats.