#diningdiscourse

Hunter-Gatherer Dinner and Podcast

On March 23, HCCC hosted a dinner inside the Hunter-Gatherer dining room vignette. This dinner brought together a small group of local food producers, artists, and museum professionals to discuss the ties between craft and the locavore movement. Seated around Clark Kellogg’s white oak picnic table, attendees shared a seven course locally-sourced menu prepared by Chef Casey Guhl of Greenhouse Catering Company.

Each course served on the artisan wares in this dining room allowed guests to reflect on the relationships among the furniture, vessels, utensils, and food placed in front of them.

Dinner Menu

Starters: Vermont beehive cheddar cheese with rind wrapped in tea leaves, Blue cheese from Auvergne, France, Waco Cheese Company’s raw cow’s milk brie, green olives, and jam

Vegetables: Veggie King Farm’s heirloom tomato bruschetta; Veggie King Farm’s broccoli, steamed with garlic in local goat stock from Harrison Hog Farm

Entrées: Pickled Swiss chard and arugula with Shrimp Boat Projects’ gulf shrimp; Curried Harrison Hog Farm’s Yorkshire Hampshire pork on buckwheat; The Grateful Bread Brisket with local jalapeños and onion 

Dessert: Jicama, lightly cooked in coconut milk and brown sugar

Joining Chef Guhl and HCCC staff, the list of attendees included six other guests who all contributed unique perspectives on the handmade and locavore movements as well as our consumer responsibility to sustainable practice.  

Guest List

Henri Gadbois, Faux Food Artist and MFAH Bayou Bend Docent  

Robbie Lobell, Potter and Cook on Clay Co-founder 

Zach Moser, Shrimp Boat Projects Founder

Al Marcus, The Grateful Bread Founder

Rev. David and Melissa Hill, Restoration Community Church Garden

HCCC Staff: Executive Director Julie Farr, Curator Elizabeth Kozlowski, Curatorial Fellow Kathryn Hall

The individual wares of the Hunter-Gatherer theme inspired Guhl’s menu, setting the stage for lively conversation. Henri Gadbois, who made the exhibition’s faux food, shared his historical knowledge of food preparation while Robbie Lobell, Cook on Clay co-founder and potter discussed the interplay between her pots and slow food practice. Sourcing the shrimp for the event, artist and Shrimp Boat Projects founder Zach Moser discussed the challenges that the local shrimping community faces in Galveston, TX. Providing the brisket, The Grateful Bread owner, Al Marcus interjected his opinion of the locavore movement based on his experience as a farmer’s market vendor. Restoration Community Church Senior Pastor David Hill and his wife Melissa discussed their community garden in the third ward as well as the challenges of making organic food affordable for underserved populations. 

Listen to the conversation here by clicking on the following links:

Part I (Duration: 00:53:43)

Part II (Duration: 01:24:34)

Matthew Tabor is an artist and designer living in Houston,Texas. As a native of Louisiana, Tabor started his career at a design and printfirm in Lake Charles, Louisiana, before eventually owning his own freelance business, The Bow and the Quiver. In the five years that he has lived in Houston, Tabor has helped many small businesses develop their graphic design and branding.

Recently, Tabor launched a new enterprise with his wife, Leslie Slade, called Letterset. Given Tabor’s art and design background and Slade’s marketing and business experience, Letterset leaves no stone unturned when it comes to helping businesses create a visual presence in the marketplace. Together, they offer services in graphic design, screen printing, hand lettering and chalking, marketing, and branding.

In preparation for the current exhibition, HCCC had the pleasure of working with Tabor to create the chalkboard graphics featured inside the Dining and Discourse exhibition space. Stretching 12 feet high and 16 feet wide, the exhibition’s title wall is the largest chalk drawing that Matthew has worked on to date. In a mash-up of modern design meets Rococo, Matthew captures the essence of all three dining-room vignettes into one singular graphic. Once the walls were completed, we had the opportunity to ask Matthew about his professional practice as well as his experience working with chalk.

Who is Matthew ‘America’ Tabor? Could you tell me a little about your professional practice and what you hope to accomplish as a graphic designer?

A good friend of mine, Patrick Dougherty, who worked here in the restaurant industry, gave me that nickname, and it stuck.  I think it fits my aesthetic well. I try to employ more hands-on and historically rooted techniques in my projects. What's more American than handmade goods?  So I've just gone with it, and a good majority of my clients simply refer to me as “America.” 

My hope as a graphic designer and artist is to make a visual impact on my surroundings, and I believe Houston is the perfect place for that.  There is plenty of room for visual growth throughout the city, and I look forward to being a part of changing Houston's visual landscape.  Whether via a well-executed print piece, a huge chalk menu, or a stellar poster design, I really just want to incorporate beauty into the daily life of the city. 

You have worked closely with many notable restaurants in town to create chalk art for their businesses. Paulie’s, Blacksmith, and Pastry War are just a few places that come to mind. How long have you been working with chalk? What has been the most memorable chalk design that you have worked on and why?

Paulie's actually marked the start of my work with chalk typography, back in 2012.  Paul Petronella needed a new menu pretty badly—even though the old menu conveyed the information clearly, the large digital print-out lacked any sort of real visual impact.  A renewed interest in all things “made by hand” was beginning to take hold here in Houston, and Paul wanted to revive the blackboard aesthetic.  It was a great choice and really fit the space well.  Since that first board, I've been doing typographic chalk work steadily around town for somewhere between 15-20 businesses.  I can't pinpoint a most memorable chalk piece due to the nature of the work. Each new client and board becomes extremely individual.  With different needs, fonts, content, and atmospheres, the creation experience is always changing.  The process overall is what becomes most memorable, and I can letter better today than I've ever been able to, because of the constant demand of chalk typography in Houston.

Both the DIY movement and businesses that specialize in artisan, handmade goods have adopted chalkboard graphics as part of their brand. What is it about chalk as a material that is appealing to you as well as to these businesses?

Both the DIY and artisan movement harken back to a time of hand involvement in the creation of goods, as opposed to the uniformity of industrialism.  We are not the first generation to question the value of mass-produced goods, and it is refreshing to re-acknowledge the inherent value of creating something by hand.  One meal, leather belt, or chalk letter at a time, our society is beginning to appreciate the uniqueness of craftsmanship, yet again.  Chalk fits squarely into this movement. At times it can seem archaic, time consuming, and a bit impractical, but it demonstrates how a unique human touch can transform a simple message from information into art.  Most of my clients lean towards the use of chalk out of practicality, utilizing chalk's temporary quality to allow them the freedom to change and control their businesses' atmosphere or offerings.  I have personally gravitated towards chalk because of the tactile nature of the process. It allows me to hand letter and illustrate in a unique way around town.

Follow Matthew’s latest work at

www.lettersethouston.com

In these step-by-step photos, we can see how Chris starts with a spiral to trim his plates. This process gives each plate a nice foot ring.

What traditions revolve around your dining room? Do you have a favorite piece of silverware, tableware, or dining-room furniture? What is it about this object or group of objects that makes it special to you?

When growing up in the Chicago area, I had no idea about the wondrous missions (except for the Alamo of course) that the Spanish had built in Texas.  Little did I know that many years later, I would not only have developed a deep appreciation for these historic missions, but that I’d be living in Houston, and the plates on which my grandmother served tuna fish sandwiches to me and my brother in the 1960s would today be collector’s items. 

Over the years my cherished set of San Jose Mission “calla lily” plates, cups, bowls and saucers (even a tiny creamer) has traveled from San Antonio to Chicago, Florida, and then back home to Texas.  I look at them and I remember my grandmother, her kitchen and back porch, and the nook in which the three of us sat to have lunch so many years ago.

-Kimberly Bjork Lykins, Executive Director, Texas Foundation for the Arts

Shown:  San Jose Mission plates passed down to me from my grandmother.

Further info:  San Jose Mission, San Antonio, Texas (1920s-1950s)

Click here to read HCCC Curatorial Fellow Kathryn Hall's article on Robbie Lobell's lineage as a studio potter, featured in the latest issue of The Studio Potter (Volume 43, Number 1,Winter/Spring 2014-2015; Article courtesy of The Studio Potter).

For more information about The Studio Potter and the current issue, please visit, www.studiopotter.org.