Join Us on September 25 for SF Refresh!

On Sunday, September 25, we are thrilled to build on the success of the last four SF Refresh events that brought over 1,000 San Franciscans together in community garden spaces for free whole body care.

Here is a sampling of what you can expect and how you can get involved! (Locations Below).

10:00 AM Open Cathedral (Free Farm)
12:00 PM Sharing a Free Meal (Hayes Valley Farm, Bayview Roots Garden)
12:00 PM Healing Harp (Hayes Valley)
12:00 PM Vespertine Orchestra (Bayview Roots)
12:00 PM Garden skillshares (Growing Home Community Garden)
12:30 PM Container Gardening skillshare (Bayview Roots)
12:30 PM Interplay workshop (Hayes Valley)
12:30 PM Yoga (Growing Home)
1:00 PM Vespertine Orchestra (Bayview Roots)
1:00 PM Garden skillshares (Growing Home)
1:30 PM Yoga (Hayes Valley)
1:30 PM Forgiveness Letters (Bayview Roots)
1:30 PM Worms! Gardening skillshare (Bayview Roots)
2:00 PM Medical Qi Gong (Hayes Valley)
2:00 PM Composting skillshare (Bayview Roots)
2:00 PM Garden skillshares (Growing Home)
2:30 PM Worms! Gardening skillshare (Bayview Roots)
2:30 PM Yoga (Growing Home)
3:00 PM Pocket Gardening skillshare (Bayview Roots)
3:00 PM Garden skillshares (Growing Home)
3:33 PM Meditation (Bayview Roots)
4:00 PM Garden skillshares (Growing Home)

Locations:
Free Farm (Eddy/Gough)
Hayes Valley Farm (Fell/Laguna)
Growing Home Community Garden (Octavia/Lily)
Bayview Roots (3rd/Palou)

To learn more, visit the SF Refresh blog.

Do you have a skill to share? Join us at SF Refresh!

Contact us at SFRefresh@gmail.com to contribute an activity on September 25th!

Save the Date for our final SF Refresh event on Sat., 10/15

Featured Skill Share: Garden Gnomes!

Revel Art Collective member, Rachel Cassandra, will be teaching her class about making Garden Gnomes at the August 20th SF Refresh Event (1pm at the Bayview Opera House). Her class was one of the most talked about activities at the May SF Refresh.


Made from clay, seed and soil these garden gnomes are designed to degrade and plant wild flowers.

An amazing stop motion film was made by the the participants of the who decided to make an impromptu claymation project. The video, made by Revel Art Collective member, Ilyse Magy is below.

DIY: Party Tree - Yarn Succulent Pockets

Today, Ilyse, Lily and Lauren from the Revel Art Collective, stopped by the Hayes Valley Farm to show us how to make Yarn Succulent Pockets. Lily's drawing of a party tree it above. At the April 16th SF Refresh, Lily and Lauren will be teaching a skill share on how to make Yarn Succulent Pockets starting at 11am.

For now, enjoy these DIY (do it yourself) instructions:
Step One: knit, crochet, or use your fingers to make a pocket out of yarn.
Step Two: create an outline of a tree on the fence with yarn.
Step three: attach your yarn pocket to the fence. You can also attach succulant pockets made out of burlap and chicken wire as well. This makes for a good brown tree color.
Step Four: Fill the pocket with dirt and plant a succulent.
Step Five: Repeat until you've filled the outline of your tree. We need help with this step. Come by on Saturday and help us fill it in. Or make a pocket to take home.

Manual Labor for the April 16th Event

Today we built an imagination station out of pallets at the Hayes Valley Farm. We still have some more work to do and to paint it, but check out our progress so far.

The wild flowers next to it will grow to about six feet tall, which will surround the imagination station with growth and life. We hope it will inspire all who sit in it to grow and affirm the things in their life that will enable all their dreams to become reality.

Sitting in it this afternoon, I felt a little bit like Winnie the Pooh in a cozy little nook.

We also prepped a mural that will become interactive on April 16th at the Free Farm. Stay tuned, as we will begin painting the mural on Friday and I'll be posting more pictures that evening.

Green Your Fence: SF's New Gardening Zoning

The San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance (SFUAA), one of the presenters of SF Refresh, has been working with the powers that be at City Hall to create a new zoning code that would make it easier for urban agriculture to flourish in San Francisco. One of the requirements of the new codes, if they are passed, will be decorative fencing (if a garden chooses to have fencing). Though it's certainly more beautiful than cyclone fencing, some gardeners fear that this requirement would be to too expensive for the community gardens that have large sites and cyclone fencing.

At the urging of SFUAA, the new code will likely include language that also allows for cyclone fencing if more than 50% of the fence will be covered by living plants within 3 years. SF Refresh wants you to think about branching out from the old standards like covering your fence with ivy. Learn how to green your fence at our April 16th event where we will teach you two ways to grow drought resistant and hypo-allergenic but pleasantly scented plants on your fences. Here are some samples of what we'll be teaching on April 16th at the Hayes Valley Farm:

Green Your Fence Skill Shares:

• 11:00am Fence Yarn Pocket Art - Lily Laurence and Lauren Gucik of the Revel Art Collective Description: Fence Decoration: Living Pockets in Yarn, Fabric, and Repurposed Materials


• 2:00pm Building Succulant Fence Pockets - Booka (DIY guide)

Leader Profile: Ilyse Magy

My work seeks to encourage the exploration, exploitation, and exhaustion of all of life’s possibilities, no matter how whimsical or perverted. Life itself can be art; the creative process in any mode activates the typically passive nature of daily existence.

In every medium—video, performance, installation—I approach my work with a childlike zeal. Some of the primary qualities of being an artist are those of being a child: the impulse to play, the impulse to make, the openness to engage others without bias, and interacting with the world through an active imagination. Engaging in art is a way to retain the excitement of exploration we have in childhood, yet enhancing it with a critical lens.

My emphasis on play and humor is critical; it questions the given, the habitual, the way things are. I use art as a means of illuminating the arbitrary constructions that govern our daily lives. In the creative act, play can be serious and stimulating, continuously opening new possibilities.

Call For Artists

SF Refresh wants you! That's right, you!

SF Refresh's goal is to create six daylong citywide events that enable San Franciscans to receive free whole body care in community garden settings in 2011. Activities include: gardening classes, yoga, life coaching, meditation, trauma care, nutrition classes, massage, acupuncture, tea and coffee cuppings, movement classes, creative writing, art, art therapy, preventative health care information, and much, much more.

Community gardens are amazing venues for artistic expression of any and all kinds, and we are looking for artists and other creative types to be Volunteer Activity Leaders. These can be activities that are ends in and of themselves, or beautification projects that leave a lasting (and dazzling) mark. We are looking for:

-Muralists

-Sculptors

-Carpenters

-Knitters/Crocheters

-Painters

-Writers

-Weavers

-Musicians

-Fence Decorators

-Yodelers

-Performers

-Actors

-Dancers

-Everyone!

This is an amazing opportunity to connect with the area's community gardens as well as the community at large. It is also an opportunity for some self-healing as well, and after all, who couldn't use a little refreshment?

Dates:

Saturday, April 16th

Saturday, May 21st

Sunday, July 24th

Saturday, August 20th

Sunday, September 25th

Saturday, October 15th

Confirmed Sites:

• Growing Home Community Garden, Octavia/Lily, Hayes Valley
• The Hayes Valley Farm, 450 Laguna Street, Hayes Valley
• Visitation Valley Greenway Community Garden, Arleta between Alpha and Rutland, Visitation Valley
• Alemany Farm, 700 Alemany Boulevard, Bernal Heights
• The Free Farm, Eddy/Gough, Richmond District
• Garden for the Environment, 7th Avenue/Lawton, Sunset

If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, let us know by filling out the online sign-up sheet! And please pass this along to anyone you think would be interested!

If you have any questions about leading an artistic activity, contact Ilyse at iimagy [at] gmail [dot] com.

Be Well!

Ilyse Magy

Lead Art Coordinator, SF Refresh

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