By Jessica Hudgins
SDUN Reporter

For most San Diegans, September means a new school year and a new football season—not much of a weather shift as in other parts of the country. But this year, North Park residents are welcoming fall by bringing in the harvest.

On Saturday, Sept. 11, the community will gather at the new Art Produce Garden and Community Space to learn how to harvest and process wheat into flour at artist David Krimmel’s Wheat Harvest. The event marks the grand opening of Art Produce Gallery’s Garden and Community Space, which is located at 3139 University Ave. behind Art Produce Gallery.

An art exhibition space considered to be a public piece of art itself, Art Produce Gallery is designed to get people engaged in art due to its 24-hour visual accessibility to the community. The new Garden and Community Space behind the gallery is an expansion of that same mission into the outdoors.

“It’s my experiment to engage the public in arts and culture,” said gallery owner Lynn Susholtz. “The intent was to engage the conversation of public space, and David’s project is perfect for that.”

David Krimmel is the gallery artist of the month and the first artist to use the Art Produce Garden and Community Space. As an artist, museum exhibit designer and a Mid-City farmer, Krimmel created the Wheat Harvest project to teach the public what it takes to grow, harvest and process your own wheat into flour.

“[Wheat Harvest] fits the mission of the gallery very well,” Susholtz said. “It will really help us expand into the new outdoor space. It’s just what the gallery was designed for.”

Krimmel’s project started over a year ago when he began recruiting residents throughout the neighborhood to grow their own wheat on the property of their homes or businesses. He also jumpstarted the transformation of an empty lot near Jefferson Elementary School into a 45-by-60-foot community wheat field. All of this wheat will be harvested on the Saturday of the event.

“It’s a community-based project that’s about urban farming, but it’s also an educational tool to help people understand food production and basically what it takes to make one loaf of bread,” Susholtz said.

The harvesting begins at 4 p.m. at the community wheat field on the corner of Gunn and 28th streets. After the participants collect all the grain, the streets of North Park will come alive as Eveoke Dance Theatre leads a procession to transport the grain from the field to Art Produce Gallery on University.

Back at Art Produce, harvesters will use threshing tables, winnowing baskets and a bicycle powered grain mill to hand-process the wheat into flour.

“I think it’s important for people to understand how much work it takes to process your own wheat,” Krimmel said. “[At Wheat Harvest] everyone will be able to do everything from pulling the wheat out of the ground to riding the bicycle-powered grain mill.”

Krimmel started the project over his concern that certain wheat production companies will genetically modify wheat.

“People need to be aware of the direction wheat production is going,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s a sustainable way to farm.”

That concern sparked his curiosity into what it meant to grow his own wheat and produce his own flour.

“I wanted to know what it takes to grow my own wheat and use it to make my own bread. I wanted to understand that, so I did it,” Krimmel said. “[Wheat Harvest] is a way to engage people in that dialogue.”

Wheat Harvest will include performances by the band Brother Gundersons and will also feature the Vegetable Monologues, a group of rapping vegetables. A wheat inspired installation, documentation and other artist-designed grain processing equipment will be on display at the Art Produce Gallery.

Every Thursday after Wheat Harvest, the Art Produce Garden and Community Space will be open from 3 to 7 p.m. in conjunction with the North Park Farmers Market with art workshops, food production lessons, film screenings and dance performances. For more information, go to artproducegallery.com or call 584-4448.