Public art project by Cynthia Mulcahy and Robert Hamilton in the form of a highly-visible vacant lot in Dallas, Texas, farmed over five months by a crew of eight.
It all began on a late Friday afternoon with the debris-clearing and mowing of a large empty field in preparation for a second-day of tractor-tilling and prepping of the soil for planting. Finally, in advance of an obliging Texas rainstorm, over seventeen hundred seeds were individually planted by an 8-member crew in traditional farm row crops.
Located in the busy heart of Oak Cliff in southern Dallas off a well-traveled car and pedestrian street, the public art project was on view since field preparation began on March 16th, 2012, offering up a daily tableau of the farmer's life of land tilling and seed planting, weeding and watering, and finally harvesting and sharing.
The activity in the empty lot--a form of artistic intervention or farming as street theater--drew many interested area neighbors, passersby, and local business folk curious about what was going on in their community. "You don't often see a tractor tilling soil in the city," the very first visitor declared. Others shared their knowledge of the history of the land, or memories of flower gardens in their native Mexico. With our crew and visitors in the field, laughs and stories were swapped over as many tacos and beers during months of crop cultivation.
All were part of the process.
