Michael Swaine and Arcangelo Wessells return to
Temescal Amity Works on Saturday December 9th
to lead another Weed Walk.

Joseph McHenry brought his kitchen to amityworks
to make persimmon pudding on December 8th during
the Amity Radio broadcast. Check out his recipe below.
It was delicious even though it cooked too fast in our
portable toaster oven!

Persimmon Pudding

Pulp from enough halved ripe persimmons to make 2 cups (about 5 hachiyas)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs beaten
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch salt
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 tbsp. melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 350. Put pulp and sugar into a large bowl. Mix well. Beat in eggs. Put buttermilk and baking soda into a small bowl, and stir. Add pulp and mix well.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into a medium bowl. Gradually add to pulp, stirring until well combined. Add heavy cream and mix well.

3. grease a 9"x13" baking dish with some of the butter. Stir remaining butter into batter.

4. Pour batter into dish. Bake until dark brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about an hour. Set aside to cool. Serve with whipped cream, if you like.

Temescal Amity Works is hosting Jon Brumit and Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR) this month on Friday evenings December 8th, 15th and 22nd from 5-7pm. During the residency at Amity Works, Jon will gather stories and sounds from the Temescal neighborhood. NPR is interested in getting neighbors and passersby to join in the production of live broadcast events, making programs and content by neighbors for neighbors and beyond! Tune in and drop by to contribute ideas, stories, or anything else you might want to hear on your new neighbor, amity radio! Neighborhood Public Radio is an independent, artist-run radio project committed to providing an alternative media platform for artists, activists, musicians, and community members. Their motto: If it's in the neighborhood and makes noise ... we hope to put it on the air.

Please stop in and listen live. If you want to participate with a story, interview or song please email us so we can put you in the schedule.

On the 28th of October, Temescal artist Sarah Klein baked naturally leavened sourdough bread for 8 hours at the Amity Works space. The event was open to the public, and throughout the day, people came by to help knead, shape, taste or simply talk and observe. Sarah gave away sourdough starter, and Amity works provided a trio of preserves made from local fruit (pear preserves, tangerine marmalade and fig conserve).

We are back from our East Coast trip and the Creative Capital Conference, and are starting early on our fall programming:

Thursday, August 10, 2006
7:30 PM
Camp Campaign
at Temescal Amity Works
482 49th Street, Oakland, CA 94609
T: 510-428-1210
http://www.amityworks.org/ alt.html

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For over a month, artists Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri have been traveling to different cities and camp sites across the country holding public discussions, conducting interviews, filming, and documenting in places such as interment camps, detentions camps, relief camps, and other camping areas. This is part of their Camp Campaign, a cross-country drive that begins, at New York City, with the question, "How is it that a camp like Guantanamo Bay can exist in our time?"

On Thursday, Camp Campaign arrives to San Francisco's Bay Area. Join artists Ayreen and Rene in a discussion at the Temescal Amity Works, co-organized with Trevor Paglen. As part of this program, the artists will show videos of two cities, East Baltimore and Lod. Through the narration of a resident/local organizer, each video outlines how planning is used to dispossess targeted communities and groups from their property, rights, and way of life. Following the screening, the discussion will center on the difficult task of connecting these situations to one another and to those faced by the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. In the past, one possible link was posited: the relation of abandonment each of these groups may have with respect to the law.

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Camp Campaign
A new project by Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, commissioned by Art in General

In Camp Campaign, Ayreen and Rene take as a conceptual starting point the intolerable conditions confronting the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, and travel through selected locations in the USA recording interviews and holding public discussions on the subject. For the artists, Guantanamo Bay is a site from where to develop a public discussion about various timely themes in art and politics today, including security and terror, citizenship and statelessness, human rights vs. political and legal
rights, and more.

For more information on Camp Campaign, or to find out ways in which you can get involved in this program, through assistance, suggestions, or other forms of participation, check out: www.campcampaign.info

We hope to see you this Thursday!

Upcoming Spring Films are:

Saturday, March 11th 3:30 - 5:00pm - Selected episodes from the Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc. Classic Video Collection: Aiviaq (Walrus Hunt), Qulangisi (Seal Pups), and Tugaliaq (Ice Blocks) episodes from the NUNAVUT (Our Land) series.
Internationally acclaimed, Igloolik Isuma Production Inc. is Canada's first Inuit independent production company. These beautiful and fascinating films are a result of the commitment of Inuit artists and filmakers to preserve their life, language, and culture.

Reading Room News:

We have added new books to our Reading Room! Our latest additions include:
Ground Work: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art, published by the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University
Foodculture: Tasting Identities and Geographies in Art, edited by Barbara Fischer
The Shape of a Pocket, by John Berger
Culture in Action, with essays by Mary Jane Jacob, Micheal Brenson, and Eva M. Olson
To Be Continued: Artists' Interventions into the Public Realm, edited by Deborah Smith and Kate Fowle (smith +fowle) with texts by Will Bradley, Kate Fowle (smith +fowle) Peter Jenkinson, Alan Read, and Deborah Smith

These books are good resources for learning about the social implications of artists and activists working in areas such as food, agriculture, social sculpture and public interventions. Please feel free to come by and browse through the library.

This winter we are also sponsoring a Saturday afternoon film series. Our first screening took place on December 10th and featured The Gleaners and I (directed by Agnes Varda). Film Screenings take place from 3:30 to 5:oo pm at our storefront and are free.

Upcoming films are:
Saturday, January 7th -If Only I Were an Indian, directed by John Paskievich, a documentary about a group of Czechs and Slovaks disenchanted with both communism and its aftermath and get in touch with the North American aboriginal way of life and live it.
Saturday, February 5-Rodrigo D: No Future, directed by Victor Manuel Gaviria, "almost a documentary" about children of the streets in Mendellin, who are poor and have little to do but rob for a living, take drugs and fight for sport. Gaviria employs actual street children in the film.

Happy Holidays from Temescal Amity Works.
We will be closed from December 23rd through January 3. We will be back open on January 6t.
We hope to see you in the New Year. Our Winter 2006 hours will continue to be 1-3 pm on fridays and 12-5 pm on saturdays.

The Temescal Amity Works Storefront is closed as of January 2007. We are still maintaining the website and the network, and are continuing the project in a more nomadic fashion. The cart is parked in a garage on Shafter Avenue and still roams the neighborhood, the deep freeze of Dec. 2006 did not kill the local oranges, and there is still hoards of citrus to be picked and shared, fresh or preserved..

Our new nomadic nature makes electronic communication all the more neccessary, so please get in contact with us to get on our email list. We can keep you informed of harvest activities, upcoming walks and other programs.

Thanks to all who visited us on 49th st. over the last 2.5 years. We miss the space but still hope to see you in the neighborhood.

If you would like to participate in the produce sharing or have any other questions about the project, flag us down when you see our cart rolling through the neighborhood. Alternatively, you can email us at bigbackyard@amityworks.org