Back in May, at SOUP STOCK 03, our winners, Kelly and Marty, met a young entrepreneur by the name of Karl Rosaen.  This meeting lead to a collaboration and a commercial for Karl’s new venture, Real Time Farms.  His site allows users to set up a free account and upload pictures they’ve taken at their own farmers’ markets, giving visitors a rich set of visual and other data regarding local produce.  Very cool!

P.S.  Last night, at 6:32pm AKST, Marty and Kelly reached Alaska!  Congratulations!

Kelly and Marty

Hey all!  The dream is being realized everyday and things are getting crazy!  But in a good way!

Things happened/happening since we received the Soup Stock #3 grant:

1.  Kelly graduated from Art School @ UofM!

2. Marty did an animation workshop for A Day of Alternative Education in Detroit Public Schools

3. A member from the Palmer Arts Council in Alaska has reached out through this blog to offer her place for us to stay and offer support in organizing a youth film workshop!

4. We did a photo shoot for Cara @ Sweet Plum Vintage after meeting her + Karl @ Soup Stock.  We’ll also be shooting a video for Real Time Farms, a network for finding fresh local food, started by Karl with Cara’s support!

5. Kelly and I were invited on a 6 day white-water rafting trip through Desolation Canyon, Utah.  We’ll be adventuring with 2 river guides, an archaeologist, a geologist, and some friends!  This trip from June 13-24th will prepare us for traveling up to the Great North!

6. We shot a music video for local artist Charlie Slick- still editing…

7. Marty finished his job teaching film to high school students through a grant at Eastern Michigan University.  Jacqueline Wood (Soup Stock #2 Winner) will be taking over Marty’s position for the summer and next school year.

8. We bought a TON of backpacking gear at the REI Memorial Day Weekend Sale

9. We’ve raised $2090 towards our $6000 goal through Kickstarter.  We only have 13 days until our deadline on June 14th to reach our goal.  We also offer rewards for pledges!  If we don’t reach our goal, we get zero- it’s all or nothing funding.

10. We’ve created our online media which we’ll update with the progress of our dream.  Please check out our Blog, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter.

Whew!  So there it is!  Soup Stock has really sparked the energy and motivation of our Pan-American Dream!  Aside from providing the first grant/money we received, we’ve been able to make friends, network, get jobs, and help realize our dream.

We thank you Love Factory Collective and Soup Stock for making this happen!

If readers would like to help keep our momentum going, please consider a donation to our Kickstarter project.  If you cannot make a donation at this time, you can still help us a great deal by simply believing in us and sharing our project with friends!

Peace,

-Marty + Kelly

Kelly Gallagher and Marty Stano

If you’ve been following along, you already know that last month’s Soup Stock winners were Marty Stano & Kelly Gallagher for their Pan-American Dream project.  They plan to travel from Ann Arbor, MI to Alaska to Argentina documenting, learning, and teaching along the way.  Although the money we’ve contributed may just be a drop in the bucket, information on this site did help them get connected with locals in Palmer, AK before they even left the driveway!

We’d like to continue to help them out by directing you all to Marty and Kelly’s Kickstarter page.  If you’ve never been to kickstarter.com, it is basically a fundraising page where you describe your project, set a target fundraising goal, and then ask for monetary pledges before a self-imposed deadline.  If you reach your fundraising goal, then credit cards are charged and funds are raised.  If you don’t reach your goal, then there is nothing gained and nothing lost.  Marty and Kelly have 18 days left before their deadline and still need to raise about $4K, so if you feel so inclined please contribute a few more dollars towards their dream.

Mobile Press is happening this weekend in Bloomington, Indiana at the Farmer’s Market! Below is one of the prints we will be giving away totally free of charge:

We’ve got several artists from the collective making unique prints just for this event. Around 10 a.m. we’ll be setting up around the Farmer’s Market with our Kelsey 6×10 letterpress, demonstrating the printing process as we give away free art!

Our goals are to connect directly with the public, demystify the printing process and to make original artwork available to people of any means. Thanks to the grant from Love Factory, we’re able to make this a reality! Look for us on Saturday, but if you can’t make it we’ll have plenty of photos from the event.

Tickets, tickets, tickets!

Hey!  Check out the SOUP STOCK 03 photos!

Marty Stano and Kelly Gallagher with their winnings.

SOUP STOCK 03 is all wrapped up and we’re proud to announce the winners are Marty Stano and Kelly Gallagher.  They received a $117 grant towards their upcoming road trip from Ann Arbor, MI to Alaska to Argentina.  They will be documenting the project along the way, as well as looking for opportunities to share their knowledge of filmmaking with children across the Western Hemisphere.

Today’s SOUP STOCK was a very close race, with Jeff Tenza’s local farmer film project being edged out by a single vote.  Jeff, we hope that you’ll resubmit your project next month since we think it’s an excellent idea.

Special thanks to Bad Fairy, Wonder Woman, and Anita LeBlanc for the amazing soups you made for us today.  Big ups to Friday Mornings @ SELMA for the use of bowls, spoons and napkins. To everyone who came out to support the project, we couldn’t have done it without you.  We hope to see you again next month!

U of M Graduate Studios, 1631 S. State St.

In case you’re planning to join us for SOUP STOCK 03 this weekend here is all the info you need to make it happen:

SOUP STOCK 03
Sunday, April 18th
12 – 2pm
U of M Graduate Studios
1631 S. State St.

Remember, you still have until tomorrow at 5pm to get your proposals in if you are planning to apply.   We hope to hear from you soon!

Recently, I was interviewed by Amy Whitehall for an article on the underground dining movement in Washtenaw County.  Follow the link to read her article titled, “Underground Eats” featuring SELMA, Bona Sera Supper Club, Yellow Door, and Soup Stock.

Last time we spoke, the press was still located in Nicole’s storage unit. Happily, we lugged it over to Art Hospital where it is now sitting in our temporary print shop, ready to roll. We need one little part for the press, some gripper bars, which we can procure in Indianapolis, and then the press is ready to go.

Luke purchased 5 linoleum blocks and after keeping one for himself gave one to Nicole, Sally, Dani and Jamie. Right now we’re all busy designing our images for the prints we will soon distribute all over Bloomington!

We’ll return with some pictures from our trip to the letterpress warehouse and blocks in progress very soon!