47: Matt Moore
Matt Moore grew up in Waddell, Ariz. on his family's farm that has been around since the '20s. He started college as a economics major and a Spanish minor in anticipation of running the family business. He couldn't stay awake in his first macro-economics class, and got kicked out of Spanish class for sharing all the bad words he'd learned during childhood. He called his father to tell him the great news, who said, "there is nothing you can learn in school that you can't learn on the farm".
So Matt signed up for an Art History course and loved it so much he changed my major. In 2004, he moved back to Arizona after graduate school in the Bay Area. He admits to tricking his future wife to follow him to the desert and started making art about the loss of his family farm to development.
1. Name five things on your inspiration wall (real or imagined)
Quotations:
- "Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do." -- Wendell Berry
- "Eating is an agricultural act." -- Wendell Berry
- "Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity." -- Damian Hirst
- "Everyone has talent at 25. The difficulty is to have it at 50." -- Edgar Degas
Motivations:
- A thriving and sustainable Phoenix in the year or 2210
- 50 acres of rolling pastures and conifers
- 100 miles from nowhere and a river that runs through it.....with an espresso machine and my wife.
2. What was your last big project?
The Urban Transplanter -- a 100 foot-long conveyor belt which germinates and distributes seeded transplants to a community. Designed to be completely sustainable as it runs off of local effluent water, solar energy and can be placed in any vacant city lot. The seeded pods are germinated and over the course of their two week journey along the conveyor, and reach the delivery slide where passers-by complete the interactive sculpture by planting the transplants in their community. It has been running for the past eight months as a part of an extended exhibition by the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena.
3. What's your next big project?
Imagine walking into the supermarket to buy a head of lettuce, and above the lettuce display is an LCD screen showing the entire life of that plant from seed to harvest in two minutes ... if you knew it took 80 days to grow that lettuce how would it change how you perceive your salad? "Lifecycles" (soon to be named something more official, and hopefully better:), which debuted as a part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, is an ongoing project that is moving into its next stage as I am establishing it as a non-profit. The idea is to collect and share the images from the most important daily process of agriculture, the growth of our produce.
Using time-lapse photography, I have begun the process of filming everything I grow, and inviting other farmers to do the same. The goal is create a database that collects films of the entire life of cultivated plants and trees from all over the world and provide them on the internet, in school curricula, and when possible in grocery stores and restaurants. Accompanying the footage from the plants will be scientific data from the growing period, the stories of the farmers that grew them, further connecting people to the food they eat and the people that grow it. This year we will distribute 20 time-lapse units and weather stations to 10 farmers around the nation, beginning the long exciting process of learning how our food grows in the many, constantly changing environments in the world. (Plus we get to visit the Italian winery where a unit is already running. Bonus!)
4. Why do you do what you do?
I cant help it, it just happens, and if I don't, I get all nervous and guilty feeling.
5. What's something you want Phoenix to know about you (and if you're game, what's something you don't want Phoenix to know about you?
- want you to know: I am a farmer first, then an artist.
- dont want you to know: That I am an artist first, then a farmer....or wait, is it the other way?
The Creatives, so far:
100. Fausto Fernandez
99. Brian Boner
98. Carol Panaro-Smith
97. Jane Reddin
96. Adam Dumper
95. Mayme Kratz
94. Daniel Tantalean
93. Yuri Artibise
92. Lisa Starry
91. Paul Hoeprich
90. Betsy Schneider
89. Mary Shindell
88: Gabriel Utasi
87: Tiffany Egbert
86. Angela Cazel Jahn
85. Dayvid LeMmon
84. Beatrice Moore
83. Michelle J. Martinez
82. Carrie Bloomston
81. Paul Porter
80. Rachel Bess
79. Karolina Sussland
78. Aaron Abbott
77. Mary Lucking
76. Erin Sotak
75. Greg Esser
74. Matthew Mosher
73. Mark Klett
72. Tony Carrillo
71. Paul Morris
70. Joe Pagac
69. Alison King
68. JJ Horner
67. Kim Porter
66. Marco Rosichelli
65. Heather Hales
64. Amy Lamp
63. Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker
62. Lindy Drew
61. Robbie Pfeffer
60. Neil Borowicz
59. Lynn Fisher
58. Tanner Woodford
57. David Tinapple
56. Casebeer
55. Tom Leveen
54. Patti Parsons
53. Tedd McDonah
52. Mike Maas
51. Chris Todd
50. Monica Aissa Martinez
49. Stefan Shepherd
48. Jenny Poon