The Society for the Preservation of Wild Culture
Encyclopedia
The Society for the Preservation of Wild Culture or S.P.W.C., was a Toronto arts organization in existence from 1986 to 1991 that explored environmental and ecological issues from an artistic perspective, and in a “quirky and innovative” way. The S.P.W.C. was best known for three programs: an influential literary magazine, The Journal of Wild Culture
; artist-guided walks, "landscape readings"; and a series of cabarets, The Café of Wild Culture.
The organization was a unique hybrid. The oxymoron "wild culture" tweaked the interest of contrasting types: artists, scientists and activists, to name a few. Indeed, the organization was embraced simultaneously as an arts organization by artists and an environmental organization by environmentalists.
"). While calling for new articulations of wild culture through its projects, at its height the Society filled the cultural vacuum in Toronto with an eclectic kind of ‘thinking man’s’ fun and provided a forum for experimentation amongst performance artists. The broader public was encouraged by the S.P.W.C. to engage with questions about nature and art, while frequently congregating in the outdoors. This audience was also attracted to the organization's ability to “soft pedal doom and gloom while partying for the planet.”
During a landscape reading on the aboriginal history of downtown Toronto, poet M.T. Kelly offered a view of how the S.P.W.C. sought to affect its audience: “There is a bridge between history and landscape. To get people to change their view of the environment, you can’t just argue in economic terms. It’s an emotional thing. People act politically when they get emotionally involved.”.
The notion of “wild culture” grew out of multidisciplinary artist Whitney Smith
’s experience of "a spiritual updraft in the art spheres” while foraging wild foods in the Ontario forest that he sold to local chefs. From 1982 to 1985 a series of three performances, “Fern Policy”, explored the possibilities of artistic growth in the nature-culture ecotone. In May 1985 Smith made the first public announcement on the formation of the Society at a Toronto art event, “L’Affaire ‘Pataphysique””, that presented examples of 'pataphysics by local artists parodying theory and methods of modern science. Following this Smith event began recruiting artists to help develop The Journal of Wild Culture.
Before there was Smith’s recent definition of wild culture (“the articulated ecotone
between what humans do and what they can't control in nature”), no single explanation existed around which the S.P.W.C artists’ work was done. Some said that it was the vagueness of the idea, the inability to pin it down, that made it so attractive. In the absence of concrete description, Smith offered a metaphor, which he has recently modified: On the surface of a transparent painting is the human geographic reality that is part of our everyday life, and in the background are elements of nature, seen and unseen, that are very much alive but that people aren’t always aware of, whether out of convenience, ignorance, apathy, or any state of unconsciousness or self-centeredness that contributes to the disconnection from our primal history and our present psychic hold on the home terrain. Wild Culture is the two planes, foreground and background, seen together.
being a platform for artists to express themselves through the lens, or mirror, of the natural world. Smith said that “one of the things wild culture is, is a tolerance for ambiguity and an acceptance that things cannot be defined.”. The “quirky and innovative” magazine carried on its discourse in a way that influenced the way more serious themes could be delivered with a sense of play and timeliness.
, and to the Utne Reader
’s use of other published materials. The S.P.W.C. was in production in Toronto from 1986 to 1991. Graphic designer Bernard Stockl became the art director and quickly established the look of the magazine, including the characteristic contents page. Smith and Lowry assembled a photocopied “Journal of Wild Culture” Preview Issue that was circulated in the arts community, and a donation of $5000 “from an anonymous angel” followed, just enough to pay for the printing of the first issue.
, Brian Fawcett
, Gary Michael Dault, David Cayley
, Marni Jackson, with Chris Lowry as senior editor and Smith’s closest associate in the first years. Writers and artists included William Irwin Thompson
, Paul Shepherd
, Merlin Stone
, B.P. Nichol, Sarah Sheard
, Thomas King
, David Young
, Carol Off
photographers Ed Burtynsky, John Reeves
, Raphael Goldchain, Debra Friedman, and artists Barbara Klunder, John Scott
, Fastwürms, chefs Chris Klugman and Michael Stadtlander, and various academics who used the magazine as a vehicle for ironic pieces developed from legitimate research. Dewdney said that “it is the vagueness of the idea, the inability that I and a lot of other people have to pin it down, that makes it so attractive.”
magazine, offering it as a trade paperback available in bookstores. A pilot issue of selections from past JWC issues was put out by Somerville House in 1992, “Wild Culture”, edited by Smith and Lowry, but sales were not encouraging; one explanation for this was that the book did not offer new material.
An attempt by Smith and some new colleagues in 2002 to resurrect the “Journal of Wild Culture” online never got off the ground. Smith said that wild culture was “a notion with a mind of its own” and that “the ingredients for a re-launch in 2002 just weren’t there.”
The readings were a project initially conceived by Smith to provide a venue for writer and poet Christopher Dewdney to share his extensive knowledge of palaeozoic geology, among other things, and his sense of humour. In July 1987 he gave the first landscape reading of Toronto’s High Park Carolinian forest, which was documented in the forthcoming issue of Journal of Wild Culture.
Other artist guides included Gordon Rayner, Hank Hedges, M.T. Kelly, June Callwood
, Larry Zolf
, Joyce Weiland, and architect Donald Schmitt
. The Readings were created to “give [S.P.W.C. participating] artists a new venue”,.
, and later in New York at the Village Gate and at Goddard College in Vermont. Its legitimate non-theatre style played off the vaudeville and variety revue made up of several short unrelated acts (in the Café’s case, no longer than 7 minutes) that caught the wild culture spirit of thoughtful irreverence. Acts ranged from tendentious ‘pataphysical lectures, authentic scientific explanations, obtuse dance works, gentlemen’s shirt-ironing contests and wild food cooking demonstrations, in which small servings were provided for the audience, and a game called StorySlide where artists improvised a performed text based on a random photographic slide show.
Featured performers of the Café of Wild Culture included chefs Michael Stadtlander, Jamie Kennedy
and Chris Klugman, David Sereda, Brian Fawcett
, Curtis Dreidger, Shiela Gostick, Gerry Gilbert
, Derek Lamb
, Gordon W., Terrill Maguire, Robert Priest
, Clifton Joseph, Paul Dutton
, Louise Garfield
, Judith Doyle, Peter Chin
, M.T. Kelly, David McFadden
, Brian Fawcett
, Joost Baker, educator Dr. Hank Hedges, and Great Lakes scientist, Dr. Henry Reguier.
In 1990 the S.P.W.C. worked with an organization started by Michael Stadtlander and Jamie Kennedy, Knives and Forks, on Spring Feast, which became a precursor of future events promoting local chefs and wild and organic foods.
The Journal of Wild Culture
The Journal of Wild Culture was a short-lived magazine combining, among other things, artistic perspectives on ecology and environmental issues...
; artist-guided walks, "landscape readings"; and a series of cabarets, The Café of Wild Culture.
The organization was a unique hybrid. The oxymoron "wild culture" tweaked the interest of contrasting types: artists, scientists and activists, to name a few. Indeed, the organization was embraced simultaneously as an arts organization by artists and an environmental organization by environmentalists.
Art + Ecology
The unique style of the organization was determined by how participating artists expressed themselves around the undefined idea of “wild culture” (also see "wildcultureWildculture
Wildculture is the umbrella term used to include all aspects and styles of "hunting and gathering" food harvesting. Wildculture - harvesting the bounty of nature - was the method of food gathering prior to the development of agriculture thousands of years ago...
"). While calling for new articulations of wild culture through its projects, at its height the Society filled the cultural vacuum in Toronto with an eclectic kind of ‘thinking man’s’ fun and provided a forum for experimentation amongst performance artists. The broader public was encouraged by the S.P.W.C. to engage with questions about nature and art, while frequently congregating in the outdoors. This audience was also attracted to the organization's ability to “soft pedal doom and gloom while partying for the planet.”
During a landscape reading on the aboriginal history of downtown Toronto, poet M.T. Kelly offered a view of how the S.P.W.C. sought to affect its audience: “There is a bridge between history and landscape. To get people to change their view of the environment, you can’t just argue in economic terms. It’s an emotional thing. People act politically when they get emotionally involved.”.
The notion of “wild culture” grew out of multidisciplinary artist Whitney Smith
Whitney Smith (multidisciplinary artist)
Whitney Smith is an artist and activist working in a variety of fields, including music, publishing, performance art and theatre. He is best known for his work as the publisher and editor of The Journal of Wild Culture....
’s experience of "a spiritual updraft in the art spheres” while foraging wild foods in the Ontario forest that he sold to local chefs. From 1982 to 1985 a series of three performances, “Fern Policy”, explored the possibilities of artistic growth in the nature-culture ecotone. In May 1985 Smith made the first public announcement on the formation of the Society at a Toronto art event, “L’Affaire ‘Pataphysique””, that presented examples of 'pataphysics by local artists parodying theory and methods of modern science. Following this Smith event began recruiting artists to help develop The Journal of Wild Culture.
Defining Wild Culture
Though there were attempts by the organization to define “wild culture”, there was never an accepted definition. Smith preferred his colleagues and audiences to find wild culture’s meaning through the titles of the projects in which it appeared, The Journal of—, and, The Society for the Preservation of—, where the social context was at play; that is, that there existed a serious-sounding and possibly genuine academic Journal published by a preserving Society with a long name, all devoted to a subject no one knew anything about. Negotiating the serious and the non-serious in a way that made sense and entertained became part of the artists’ work.Before there was Smith’s recent definition of wild culture (“the articulated ecotone
Ecotone
An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes but different patches of the landscape, such as forest and grassland. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local or regional...
between what humans do and what they can't control in nature”), no single explanation existed around which the S.P.W.C artists’ work was done. Some said that it was the vagueness of the idea, the inability to pin it down, that made it so attractive. In the absence of concrete description, Smith offered a metaphor, which he has recently modified: On the surface of a transparent painting is the human geographic reality that is part of our everyday life, and in the background are elements of nature, seen and unseen, that are very much alive but that people aren’t always aware of, whether out of convenience, ignorance, apathy, or any state of unconsciousness or self-centeredness that contributes to the disconnection from our primal history and our present psychic hold on the home terrain. Wild Culture is the two planes, foreground and background, seen together.
The Journal of Wild Culture
The literary organ of the S.P.W.C., its subtitle, ecology and imagination, spoke to the notion of The Journal of Wild CultureThe Journal of Wild Culture
The Journal of Wild Culture was a short-lived magazine combining, among other things, artistic perspectives on ecology and environmental issues...
being a platform for artists to express themselves through the lens, or mirror, of the natural world. Smith said that “one of the things wild culture is, is a tolerance for ambiguity and an acceptance that things cannot be defined.”. The “quirky and innovative” magazine carried on its discourse in a way that influenced the way more serious themes could be delivered with a sense of play and timeliness.
An Organic Start
Born out of the wild foods foraging of founder Whitney Smith, the magazine was conceived in 1986-87 by an editorial team that included Smith and architect Peter Ferguson, public relations consultant Kim Obrist and filmmaker and publisher Christopher Lowry. Smith attributed his inspiration for the formation of the Society to the National Geographic Society (which published its own journal) and FILE magazine, produced by the conceptual and media-based art collective, General IdeaGeneral Idea
General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994.As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated activities and continues to be a prominent influence on...
, and to the Utne Reader
Utne Reader
Utne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs...
’s use of other published materials. The S.P.W.C. was in production in Toronto from 1986 to 1991. Graphic designer Bernard Stockl became the art director and quickly established the look of the magazine, including the characteristic contents page. Smith and Lowry assembled a photocopied “Journal of Wild Culture” Preview Issue that was circulated in the arts community, and a donation of $5000 “from an anonymous angel” followed, just enough to pay for the printing of the first issue.
Recruitment through Social Events
The premier issue was launched on July 27, 1987 at the Wild Culture Hoedown on Toronto Island. It was described by Smith at the time as “a cross between a literary journal and an arty comic book with ecology as its theme”. Future Wild Culture events followed the format and spirit of the Hoedown by offering down-home high-end cuisine using wild foods and made on site by Chris Klugman, a well-known local chef, and featuring artists whose personae related to nature themes: the Marquis de Sod and Mr. Potatohead were the guests of honour at the launch. Poet Christopher Dewdney, an early contributor to the magazine, said that “half of the experience at “The Journal of Wild Culture” is the parties.) Volume I, Number 1 was sold for $3.95 and 3000 copies were widely distributed in Canada by Disticor, and the issue sold out; later distribution of increased numbers went into the U.S. It developed a small but devoted fan base, particularly in British Columbia. In 1990 its southwestern U.S. distributor reported that the magazine had “a cult following in Texas.”An Editorial Community
Under Smith’s leadership the magazine developed a group of editors that included Barbara GowdyBarbara Gowdy
Barbara Gowdy, CM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she is the long-time partner of poet Christopher Dewdney and resides in Toronto.-Literary career:...
, Brian Fawcett
Brian Fawcett
Brian Fawcett is a Canadian writer and cultural analyst who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.He was born and raised in Prince George, in northwest British Columbia, and graduated from Simon Fraser University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Before becoming a full time writer, he worked as an urban...
, Gary Michael Dault, David Cayley
David Cayley
David Cayley, is a Toronto-based Canadian writer and broadcaster, who was a friend of Ivan Illich. His work airs on CBC Radio One's program Ideas.-List of works:* Ideas on the Nature of Science ISBN 9780864925442...
, Marni Jackson, with Chris Lowry as senior editor and Smith’s closest associate in the first years. Writers and artists included William Irwin Thompson
William Irwin Thompson
William Irwin Thompson is known primarily as a social philosopher and cultural critic, but he has also been writing and publishing poetry throughout his career and received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He describes his writing and speaking style as "mind-jazz on ancient...
, Paul Shepherd
Paul Shepherd
Paul Shepherd is a retired English football forward.He was a part of the English squad at the 1997 FIFA World Youth Championship.-Clubs:*1996-1999 : Leeds United*2000-2000 : Keflavík...
, Merlin Stone
Merlin Stone
Merlin Stone was an author, sculptor, and professor of art and art history. She is best-known for her book, When God Was a Woman.-Biography:...
, B.P. Nichol, Sarah Sheard
Sarah Sheard
Sarah Sheard is a Canadian novelist.Sheard published her first novel, Almost Japanese, in 1985. She has also been a creative writing instructor at Glendon College and Humber College in Toronto, and a member of the editorial board of Coach House Press...
, Thomas King
Thomas King
Thomas King, CM is a noted novelist and broadcaster who most often writes about North America's First Nations. He is an advocate for First Nations causes. He is of Cherokee and Greek descent...
, David Young
David Young
-Music:*David Young , American instrumentalist*Dave Young , Canadian rock musician*David J. Young, American musician/composer-Science:*David Allan Young , American entomologist*David M. Young, Jr...
, Carol Off
Carol Off
Carol Off is a Canadian television and radio journalist, associated with CBC Television and CBC Radio. She has been a host of CBC Radio's As It Happens since 2006. Previously a documentary reporter for The National, Off also hosted the political debate series counterSpin on CBC Newsworld.She is the...
photographers Ed Burtynsky, John Reeves
John Reeves
John Reeves , was a British judge, public official and conservative activist. In 1792 he founded the Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers to campaign against the ideas of the French Revolution and their British supporters...
, Raphael Goldchain, Debra Friedman, and artists Barbara Klunder, John Scott
John Scott
-Politicians:*John Scott , Member of the Australian House of Representatives*John Scott , first mayor of Bytown, later Ottawa*John Scott , MP for Caithness...
, Fastwürms, chefs Chris Klugman and Michael Stadtlander, and various academics who used the magazine as a vehicle for ironic pieces developed from legitimate research. Dewdney said that “it is the vagueness of the idea, the inability that I and a lot of other people have to pin it down, that makes it so attractive.”
A Distinctive Visual Language
Smith said that Stockl, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1992, was a significant contributor to JWC. “Bernie’s deep sense of graphic taste and design intelligence struck the right tone with the first issue: serious like an academic journal but also accessible and visually engaging. In order for the quirkiness to work we needed the credible and elegant look that his gave us.” Stockl said he modeled the JWC design after “Harper’s” and “Arts and Architecture”: “The trick was to create certain effects with what was available to us. Trying to cheat our way through it without it looking like that.” The Bernard Franklin Stockl Memorial Scholarship is offered annually at the Alberta College of Design for “creative and innovative exploration in the use of typography for the purpose of communication.”Difficulties and Demise
In the late 1980s, when advertisers were slow to embrace the few existing green magazines, and particularly one which the Utne Reader editor, [Eric Utne], called “indescribable”, low ad sales made it difficult to pay the bills and meet that quarterly schedule; only seven issues were published. Two Wild Culture auctions and funding from the federal and provincials arts councils helped take up the slack, but with a low subscription base and advertising revenue, a sudden drop in grant revenue, fund-raising and marketing fatigue, Smith’s reluctance to step into the role of “a career publisher”, the magazine decided to take a sabbatical. More recently Smith commented on his own burn-out keeping the magazine and the S.P.W.C. going, the dilemma of the artist-publisher, and the difficulty of keeping cultural magazines afloat in factors relating to demise of JWC. A difficult year in his personal life coincided with the failing fortunes of the magazine, and he admitted at the time that he was having trouble keeping all the balls of the S.P.W.C. and the magazine in the air. In early 1991, on CBC radio’s “Arts Report”, it was announced that the magazine was suspending publication. The plan was to pursue a more economically feasible course by following the format of GrantaGranta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
magazine, offering it as a trade paperback available in bookstores. A pilot issue of selections from past JWC issues was put out by Somerville House in 1992, “Wild Culture”, edited by Smith and Lowry, but sales were not encouraging; one explanation for this was that the book did not offer new material.
An attempt by Smith and some new colleagues in 2002 to resurrect the “Journal of Wild Culture” online never got off the ground. Smith said that wild culture was “a notion with a mind of its own” and that “the ingredients for a re-launch in 2002 just weren’t there.”
Landscape Readings
Landscape Readings were public walking tours led by artists of outdoor environments that held an intellectual or personal interest for the artist. Landscape Readings were a hybrid that combined the attraction of authors reading their own works with a bracing picnic outing in a setting which combines the context for a lecture on ecology, geology, history or biography.The readings were a project initially conceived by Smith to provide a venue for writer and poet Christopher Dewdney to share his extensive knowledge of palaeozoic geology, among other things, and his sense of humour. In July 1987 he gave the first landscape reading of Toronto’s High Park Carolinian forest, which was documented in the forthcoming issue of Journal of Wild Culture.
Other artist guides included Gordon Rayner, Hank Hedges, M.T. Kelly, June Callwood
June Callwood
June Rose Callwood, was a Canadian journalist, author and social activist. She was born in Chatham, Ontario and grew up in nearby Belle River.-Early life and career:...
, Larry Zolf
Larry Zolf
Larry Zolf was a Canadian journalist and commentator.Zolf was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He earned a B.A. from the University of Winnipeg, and then received a Masters degree in Canadian history from the University of Toronto. In 1962, he joined the CBC...
, Joyce Weiland, and architect Donald Schmitt
Donald Schmitt
Donald Schmitt, MARCH, OAA, MRAIC, AIA, NCARB is a Canadian architect.Born in 1951 in South Porcupine, a mining town in northern Ontario, Canada, he went to high school at the University of Toronto Schools and studied afterwards at the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture.Donald Schmitt...
. The Readings were created to “give [S.P.W.C. participating] artists a new venue”,.
The Café of Wild Culture
The Café of Wild Culture was conceived in collaboration with bookseller and film programmer Marc Glassman, who recognized that the sense of humour that was so much a part of the 60s and 70s was missing in the 80s. The Café was performed first in Toronto at The RivoliThe Rivoli
The Rivoli is a bar, restaurant and performance space, established in 1982, on Queen Street West in Toronto, Ontario. The club originally earned a reputation as one of Canada's hippest music clubs, and many major Canadian comedy and musical performers have played on its stage, including The Kids in...
, and later in New York at the Village Gate and at Goddard College in Vermont. Its legitimate non-theatre style played off the vaudeville and variety revue made up of several short unrelated acts (in the Café’s case, no longer than 7 minutes) that caught the wild culture spirit of thoughtful irreverence. Acts ranged from tendentious ‘pataphysical lectures, authentic scientific explanations, obtuse dance works, gentlemen’s shirt-ironing contests and wild food cooking demonstrations, in which small servings were provided for the audience, and a game called StorySlide where artists improvised a performed text based on a random photographic slide show.
Featured performers of the Café of Wild Culture included chefs Michael Stadtlander, Jamie Kennedy
Jamie Kennedy
James Harvey "Jamie" Kennedy is an American comedian, rapper, and actor.-Early life:Kennedy, the youngest of six children, was born in Upper Darby Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family is of Irish descent and he was raised Roman Catholic. He attended and graduated from...
and Chris Klugman, David Sereda, Brian Fawcett
Brian Fawcett
Brian Fawcett is a Canadian writer and cultural analyst who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.He was born and raised in Prince George, in northwest British Columbia, and graduated from Simon Fraser University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Before becoming a full time writer, he worked as an urban...
, Curtis Dreidger, Shiela Gostick, Gerry Gilbert
Gerry Gilbert
Gerry Gilbert was a Canadian poet famous in underground literature for his deliberate eschewing of all awards and competitions as he felt that personal ambition in art led to a lack of sincerity...
, Derek Lamb
Derek Lamb
Derek Lamb was an animation filmmaker and producer. While serving as Executive Producer of the National Film Board of Canada's English Animation Studio from 1976 to 1982, he produced the Oscar-winner Special Delivery, directed by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay, and produced and scripted Eugene...
, Gordon W., Terrill Maguire, Robert Priest
Robert Priest
Robert Priest is a British born Canadian poet and children's author. He has written numerous books of poetry, several children's novels, and has often appeared on CBC radio's hit spoken word show "Wordbeat" under the alias "Dr Poetry". He is well known for his aphorisms and performance poetry...
, Clifton Joseph, Paul Dutton
Paul Dutton
Paul Dutton is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist, and oral sound artist.-Early life and career:A member of the legendary Four Horsemen sound poetry quartet , along with Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Steve McCaffery, and the late bpNichol, Dutton married his soundsinging oralities and harmonica-playing...
, Louise Garfield
Louise Garfield
Louise Garfield is a Canadian film and television producer. Her works include the films Zero Patience and The Hanging Garden, for which she received a Genie Award nomination for Best Motion Picture....
, Judith Doyle, Peter Chin
Peter Chin
Peter Chin may refer to:* Peter Chin , mayor of Dunedin, New Zealand*Peter Chin Fah Kui, Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Malaysia; also the Member of Parliament for Miri, Sarawak...
, M.T. Kelly, David McFadden
David McFadden
David William McFadden is a Canadian poet, fiction writer, and travel writer. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario and first started working there as a proofreader for the Hamilton Spectator newspaper. As he grew more renowned as a poet he quit the newspaper and became a full-time writer in 1976...
, Brian Fawcett
Brian Fawcett
Brian Fawcett is a Canadian writer and cultural analyst who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.He was born and raised in Prince George, in northwest British Columbia, and graduated from Simon Fraser University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Before becoming a full time writer, he worked as an urban...
, Joost Baker, educator Dr. Hank Hedges, and Great Lakes scientist, Dr. Henry Reguier.
Other Programs
Smith met his match when he began a project called the Great Festival of the Lakes, which was to encourage the presentation of community arts festivals in Great Lakes cities. “I didn’t realize what I was getting myself in for,” said Smith. “I was very concerned about water quality issues at the time, and thought that the S.P.W.C. needed an activist project to sponsor. I was wrong. Organizing anything around the Great Lakes is like trying to organize Europe. I learned a lot about underestimating scale on that one, and spreading myself too thin.” The project was abandoned after a couple of years.In 1990 the S.P.W.C. worked with an organization started by Michael Stadtlander and Jamie Kennedy, Knives and Forks, on Spring Feast, which became a precursor of future events promoting local chefs and wild and organic foods.