help education poor communities and support those students? if money is used as the excuse and easily used in declining resources, how do we realistically break through? >> we start growing things on every available lot. >> i wasn't joking. just think of what happened during world war ii. i grew up on my parent's victory garden. they were asked to do this as a part of the war effort. they saved all of their tin cans. they kept their milk cartons. they turned out the lights. it is the way you were brought

up. it is free food when you grow it. every time i see a vacant lot, i think my god, how much food can be grown. there are beautiful people doing research on ecology action with john jevens. how much food can be grown in the least amount of space. he is doing projects all over the world and teaching people intensive gardening. there are amazing farmers who can help us accomplish this. we need to have the mayor. >> need leadership. >> the president of the united states just saying, hey, please help us. help us. help us make this change. >> couple of questions about private funders. has the private and foundations

gravitated beyond your foundation, is this an easy sell? >> what we have to do is make these models and make them really good. that is what has happened with the schoolyard. we put a lot of money into one. we have one in new orleans. it is amazing. this has been an idea, not a berkeley or san francisco idea, something that requires a kind of special fill anthropi and what better way to buy food

than people that need money in that city? so the farmer's market is helping to supply the school. now the kids are going out into the neighborhood and picking up cans and bottles and examing them, recycling them, making them into art work. it is a beautiful project. and it is a universal idea, as i say, it is not something that we dreamed up. this is the way people have been living since the beginning, buying things from local people. eating them together with the family and friends. we are just coming back to our senses. >> we have talked so much about children l. the question is, what is the best way to reach

adults that have fast food ingrained into their system? thoseover those of us that know. >> planting the perfect ripe peach. i thought if he just could taste this. >> president clinton in terms of fast food addiction. [laughter]. >> once you taste you can't go back. it is very, very -- it is not just the taste. it is the care that comes with the taste. see you feel this. it is a lot of non verbal kindsover longings that i think a lot of people have. and then we need to connect up

with that. sitting at a table and eating garlicy foods. it works in some beautiful way. you go to italy and you see that really translated into the culture. that is why that movement is so strong and why they are so successful in combatting the globalization of food. in other countries like france, they are just opening the doors. >> most of the best practice, most what you see happening, that by way of example is happening outside the united states. any other parts of this country

and region? now you are talking about peaches and things. >> we have a good friend up in maine. he has a green house. a very kind of organic and affordable green house situation. he grows them and closes in the summer. he is growing salads. we had to learn to eat differently at different times of the year. when we were doing this project at yale, what are we going to eat for 9 months out of the year? we found all kinds of dried beans, dried fruits.

we found vegetables, all of the beautiful heirloomed potatoes and made syrups. we ate fish. we used to know how to do this. nobody knows how to cook, true? so when we teach this course in school, one of the outcomes is everyone is going to learn how to cook and farm. it is going to be a beautiful outcome of this core curriculum in ego gastronomy. edible education. sounds a little too gastric. it really says what it is. it is a huge, beautiful subject

that we need to be studying. >> are people teaching this stuff? new york university? >> slow food university. >> there is actual slow food university? >> university of the gastroano, ma'amic sciences. they send students around the world to intern. >> is berkeley teaching any of these things? god for bid, stanford? [laughter]. >> all of the forestry programs. i mean, definitely, we have michael pollen at new york university. we have marian nesum.

kelly brown teaching psychology. we have to connect in a way. we sort of imagine this event moving around the country. we'll continue to always have something in san francisco. we want to go to chicago, new york, and new orleans and really bring people to experience different parts of the country to pull us together of a slow food nation. >> because of time, i want to wrap this up. we don't have time to talk about the work you have done in edible schoolyards in new orleans. the slow food nation is going to happen in san francisco this

labor weekend. how can people get involved, not only slow food nation, but with also get involved in this whole movement? i want to learn more, i have to know more. is there a book you recommend? a website? a brochure we can pick up or a phone number? >> we do have a brochure. there are lots of brochures. certainly the website of slow food nation is a way to get connected and understand what is happening in international movement. that is what is most important. this isn't just the united states. this is an international organization in 131 countries. we are having this conversation around the world and that is

what needs to happen. we need to unite in that way. there are all kinds of incredible books. fast food nation is no. 1 homework piece. michael pollen's books bring us into the big picture around food. of course my own books. but we have to really think about what we are eating everyday. really pay attention to this. and thank goodness we have farmer's markets within 15, 20 minutes. >> i live in san francisco. >> i love organization like the people's groceries, taking food

that is left from the farmer's market and taking it down to the poor sections of town and offering it. we need a big wholesale farmer's market in san francisco. >> we need to be able to have a place that gathers food that we can distribute it to the schools and hospitals and institutions around san francisco. so i think that funded by the city. it has to be affordable. >> you didn't hear my budget speech today. [laughter]. if people want to contact you and support the foundation? >> that is how they can, they can look up the website. and send their very big checks.

we are trying to make the models, paying teachers to breathe life into this idea. that is what is going to make it convincing for the powers to be. >> it is dinner time. i hope you are going to think wisely tonight. i want to thank becca proda and thank you all very much, ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause. [applause]. >> thanks, gavin. [applause].

patty: filing for social security online is a lot easier than relearning the watusi! >> welcome to culture wire i'm your host. san francisco's old mint is one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. for the month of july the old mint is being illuminated by the presentation of traveling light. every weekend in july audiences will be able to walk through specially staged scenes in the vault and move upstairs for a series of dances in the

ballrooms and upper courtyards. the director of cultural affairs met with the artistic director during the last rehearsal before opening night. >> 2011 will mark the 25th anniversary of the joe good performance group here in san francisco and this year they were recipients of a cultural equity program grant that allowed them to restage one of their most significant works. and, joe, what prompted you to restage this performance here at the old mint? >> well, i think we made a piece in this beautiful architectural gem about, kind of about the

economy and the fact that everyone is struggling and what would it mean to travel into our future without our wealth, without our security blankets? i really wanted to stage it again so more people could see it. it sold out last year and many wanted to get into see it and couldn't. so we thought we would bring it back. we were on tour and doing other things, so finally we are here and i'm delighted to give it life one more time. >> traveling light, which is the name of your installation, really gives audiences this amazing opportunity to experience like different mini performances throughout the old mint building. is that correct? >> the two floors of the minter very different. the bottom floor is the vaults where they kept the money and it is dark and dungeon like and cement walls and steel vaults. and up here it is like ballrooms

and an opulence and kind of shameful, grandeur really and i thought that was such an interesting contrast and that money and the effect it has on people's lives really goes in both of those dimensions. so, we are telling like little mini stories in each room. it is a really fun house experience for that. they are discovering the architecture and the personality of the building at the same time they are seeing these performances and hopefully some wonderful dancing. >> the title of the performance installation traveling light also alludes to kind of a cooperation that you had in creating this work, right? >> most of the 25 years i have been working in san francisco i have collaborated with jack carpenter, a wonderful lighting designer. and i wanted to set him loose and let him do what he does. he is very interested in

architecture and the effect it has on light and how you can construct light through architecture. then we found this place, which is an amazing architectural mystery. and we can still do that but it also has the resonance of being the place where money was kind of made in the west. it has all of that history. and it is such a san francisco icon and very few have been inside it. >> unlike a conventional theatre which is where most of your dancers and perform eers apply their craft, here you had to prepare them to use this unusual spa space. what special training or effort did that require? >> we spent a lot of time on softening the joints because the surfaces are very hard and we had built some dance floors in certain rooms where there is very athletic dancing that will

happen because we couldn't do it on the marble or cement floors. but there are still many surfaces that are the way the architecture is and they are very hard. so it is really about learning to move through the joints in a very soft way and know that you have got an hour and a half of being on that surface and kind of pacing yourself. >> as the audience moves from one part of the space to another and sees the different performances, there are kind of mini stories that are told. >> yes. >> what role did you have in shaping those stories? >> i had a pretty big role in that. i sat in these rooms and i imagined lives that had been affected by this institution. so, to tell little stories from many different points of view, i thought, was a more interesting way than one single narrative.

each room, the way i fancy is the walls are talking to you, so a character is kind of emerging from that room and speaking the story of that particular chamber. >> we are talking about joe good, the founding director of and artistic director of the joe good performance group here in san francisco. from july 7 to august 1, you can have the opportunity to see "traveling light" here at the old mint. thank you, joe. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> traveling light will be presented through august 1. for show times and tickets visit joe p good.org. thanks for watching >> welcome to culture wire. did you know the city of san francisco has an art collection consisting of 3,500 objects? it ranges from paintings and objects placed in public buildings to w.p.a. era murals

and bronze busts in city hall to site specific sculptures. many of the large sculptural public works are in need of repair and a long-term solution is needed to ensure the treasures will be cared for. the story of the arts commission's new program art care begins with venerable art dealer ruth bronstein. 2010 is her 50th year as an art dealer. at the helm of the bronstein key gallery she has represented some of the most notable bay area artists and continues to look for new talent. >> the artists that i represent and why do i choose them has to do with the background of what

the gallery is about. i love the idea of finding new artist he is and watching them grow. it is the old fashioned way of having a gallery, which is having a stable. so, what you have there is a loyalty to them and the artist is loyal to you. so, the whole philosophy behind th that, my philosophy hasn't changed since i started 49 years a ago. i take care of you and you take care of me. it has been that way ever since. >> she represents the estate of world renowned skuculptor peter vulkus who passed away in 2002. in 1971 he created a beloved untitled public work sited at seventh and brian. like many other public works of art it is in need of repair.

ruth began conversations with the director of cultural affairs and art care was born. >> art care will be responsible to look at all the pieces and decide what pieces need the most repair to bring it back to what it was before. that is what i'm after. so they will take that on the corn of seventh and brian. you can't see it as you ride down seventh street. you can only see it when you are in front of it. >> the skull -- sculpture is one of the tpeufirst pieces commissioned by the arts commission after the advent of the 1969 art enrichment ordinance so it is quite significant that we are planning to treat it as part of the art care program. art care has plans to take care of several other pieces in the collection including man lin

choi's sculpture the monument to the korean community. it has been in the park over 0 years and has become a magnet for vandalism. we are looking at several henry march sculptures. one in front of the symphony building that needs to be treated. we are looking at the yin and yang. a much loved piece but as a resu result. it was launched may 20, 2010. ruth was celebrated with a lifetime achievement award for her contribution to and influence of the bay area community. the award is embarrassing to me like mad but i have to learn to

accept it. and good things are heard about people when they are dead and i'm hearing it while i'm alive. i look upon the award as an opportunity for me to find a place for myself and keeping the art care program going. >> the arts commission director of programs addressed the crowd and asked for each member to consider donating funds to help save some of san francisco's most important neighborhood landmarks. >> as one of san francisco's living treasures, we respect you a and, frankly, we are in awe of your 50 years of tireless efforts as an early art entrepreneur. >> giving is contagious. i would like to be perhaps the first donation to art care and

present you with a check to get the ball rolling. >> because i know the arts commission is very sincere about them i'm going to make a personal commitment of $10,000. >> what is significant about the program is the way it is set up allows us to treat the art works that have the most need, the ones that our conservators are pointing out as most vulnerable as opposed to the most popular or most visible. >> art care is a fantastic opportunity for the public to get involved with these art works that are located in their back yard and ultimately belong to them as citizens of san francisco. >> i want to do something for the community and give back to what the community has done for me. it is a corny phrase but it is true, giving back. it is what it is. i will be able it see more pieces cleaned up. >> cull wire will -- culture

wire will check back and see the fruits of conservation and revitalization efforts. if you would like to find out more or donate go to ff art commission.org. thanks for watching culture