One of the benefits to starting a local food distribution business is the many haphazard, DIY projects that spontaneously need doing. Sometimes this can be a total pain (e.g., when I’m planting a field of asparagus and my boss suddenly needs meat sorted and fridges cleaned), but it can also be a pleasant surprise (when, say, I suddenly need to design, carve, and print a stamp for his delivery bags).
So I spent some quality time with the Speedball stamp carving tools, and came up with two designs: a rooster and strawberries. My friend O., who was helping with this project, compared the process of carving stamps to “trimming cuticles.” Very accurate, I’d say.
To be honest, I feel a little yucky after this project. I don’t like the marketing side of food– I think it’s sad enough that we need advertising to convince us to eat healthy foods. I also don’t like when my boss instructs me to make something look “farm-y,” basically reducing a complex and fraught way of life to a children’s book cliche. I might as well have put a man in overalls and an ear of corn on the stamp.
