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[soft music]

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

[birds tweeting]

[bird cawing]

[soft music]

[soft music continues]

[waves rolling]

So. .

what's significant about this is that. .

this is, like. . this is the golden section,

the famous ratio.

These. .

the difference between all these curves and then. .

then the person. .

supposedly the human body is. .

is in the ratios and the relationship

to the parts of the human body.

Um. . yeah,

it has some special significance,

but you can see that his. . top of his head

and the size of his head is. .

everything fits.

In terms of the ratios.

So, an unknown man. .

an unknown man at the center.

He just showed up.

He walked to the right spot.

Stood there for five minutes.

Got some pictures.

Then he walked out, and then. . and then it washed away.

You can see it.

When I ran to the top of the cliff, I thought

that I would not make it to that top

before it washed away,

'cause the tide was really coming in.

So, I finished over here. Way over here.

And it was like, okay,

I gotta run fast, and I ran out there

and just got the picture before it washed away.

And this was done. .

this was done in the last century.

This is from the late '90s.

[soft music]

JANE ROSEN: There on the beach is this guy with a rake,

and he's making a giant Fibonacci curve.

and I go down, and I say,

"Uh. . what you doing?"

He stops holding the rake,

and tears are coming down his face.

I don't think, at that time,

he thought of himself as an artist.

I don't think he thought about

why or what he was doing.

He just had to do it.

JIM: I started drawing in the sand in 1994.

I made one fish about 15 feet long.

It was in the evening. It was low tide in the winter.

And the light hit it so that it really popped.

And then I covered the entire beach.

I drew houses and people

and dinosaurs and clouds.

And then I climbed a cliff.

And then I said to myself. .

because I was the only one on the cliff. .

[laughing]

I thought to myself,

"This is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life,

is I'm gonna draw on the sand. "

[soft music]

DAVID KINCH: You know, the thing I find

most fascinating about Jim is

what I know the least about,

and that's the sand paintings.

I think the sand paintings are. . astonishing.

It's simple, and it's pure,

and it's gorgeous, and it's geometry.

BILL: It's just a way of being light-footed on the environment,

and it's really a neat idea

to tread lightly and do art at the same time.

JIM: I wanna say, I mean, I'm gonna testify

right now that my brothers told me. .

my brothers that are sane told me

that I would never amount to anything.

That I would never have success in life.

ADAM REPLOGLE: He is a trendsetter

on a core underground level.

I think, in the art world,

what he was doing with his art

has gotta be just mind-blowing,

and so I think it's gonna take a long time

for people to understand what he's been able

to create and make.

And what's bizarre. . he'll start out

with just one little circle sometimes.

Next thing you know, it's so out of whack,

and it's perfect!

So I'm fascinated by that, and it just sort of

opens my mind up to think that, you know,

it is possible for humans to do things

that are unexplainable.

ALMOND ZIGMUND: There's something incredibly cathartic

about watching him build something

that is so massive in scale

and then walk away, knowing that he's done it,

that it's completed, that it lives in the world

for a certain amount of time,

and that there is nothing left to do after that.

PETER MEL: The king, as we all called him, you know?

He was Jim Denevan.

He was the guy that, um,

you know, would be out at the point,

and he would know the exact time to surf.

He would know what the wind was doing.

He would know what the swell was doing,

and this was pre-internet,

but somehow he had this way of knowing.

And then now, to see where he's developed his career,

you know, in my mind, I look at it,

and I'm just like, that was his beautiful mind

that was able to allow him to see and do these art things,

and then, with the food, he's, you know,

again at the forefront of something that. .

he was doing this stuff years and years ago.

Let's use the local surroundings and the local farmers.

Now it's cool, but he's been doing it for years, so.

I almost feel like he could be a bit of an alien in a way.

HOWIE KAHN: I first heard about him. .

I was having dinner in Portland, Oregon.

And I said, "Oh, man, I just. .

"I wish there was someone who was more mobile.

"Somebody who was traveling from place to place.

"Somebody who was cooking

"in a way where there wasn't a restaurant.

"Somebody who was cooking out of the context

of what we know," and someone goes,

"There's a guy with a bus,"

it's like, "and he draws in the sand.

And he's a really great chef. "

This is the story I've been waiting for.

And so I said, "What's his name?"

"Jim Denevan. "

DAVID: Part of the genius of Jim is

just that original idea that he had, you know?

There's been a lot of permutations of it.

But just, like, the original pure idea,

you know? We're gonna go to farms,

we're gonna cook dinner,

we're gonna do it in a field,

and people are gonna come and eat the food.

I mean, it's the original idea, you know, it's like. .

it's so simple, but no one really thought about it before.

[music]

HOWIE: The phrasing "farm to table"

hadn't really even happened yet, at all.

This wasn't farm to table,

this was table at the farm.

"Outstanding in the Field"

combines an extraordinary meal

set in natural surroundings

with a long, beautiful table

that's specific to the place.

He'd think about how it's running parallel

to a shoreline or how that line works

in respect to a nearby cliff.

And then there's a chef.

Sometimes it's somebody very notable.

Sometimes it's someone who's a little bit lesser-known.

It's always someone who sort of passes the Jim taste test.

He's a chef, he knows how to cook.

I've seen him cook the dinners himself.

There's a drawing component

when there can be; if there's a surface

on which he can draw, he will.

He'll try to bring together as much of himself

into one experience as he can every time.

[music]

Those piles of ash out there. .

- Yeah. - . are the remains

of the apple orchard.

We should go walk around the field a little bit.

This is definitely. . I mean, this is. .

this is all about the inspiration

for us eating in the field, this is definitely

the center of the interest. .

of. . of creating something like "Outstanding in the Field. "

Turn this wormy one around?

Yeah, there we go, look at that beautiful

apple bunch.

This orchard, I took care of it for 30 years.

The workers called it "la joya," like the jewel, you know?

And this is where Jen and David Kinch had

the first dinner.

That was a memorable one.

DAVID: I agreed to do this dinner,

and we were gonna cook the pig, and the spit didn't work,

and we couldn't get the pig on it,

and it was midnight,

and Jim proceeds to go immediately to sleep.

So, I was up all night, and as soon as he went to sleep,

ah-whoo!

You know? Roasting meat

in the middle of a dark field.

All the critters started coming out, you know,

looking out, there's eyes. . you know.

That was my first "Outstanding in the Field" dinner.

JIM: I wasn't all that interested

in cooking at first, in the sense of

the task of cooking,

because it was really just a vehicle

to go surfing. It's a night job.

You can surf in the day.

I worked at shitty restaurants.

At a time when food culture or the idea of

food as culture in the United States. .

was no fucking way.

It didn't exist. It didn't happen.

I went to Europe, lived there,

I was a model. And traveled a lot

between living in Milan and Paris and other places,

and. . culture of food was interesting in Italy.

My brother's a farmer, but they don't really. .

like, there's really not a connection

between what he does and. .

and those restaurants I was just working at.

Then I came back, and I immediately got a job

at a. . a place where, um. .

Catherine Faris, she lived outside Rome

for four years and studied the food there.

She came back to the United States,

opened a restaurant, she hired me,

straight from Europe, and then I became

the chef there, I was 26, like, pretty quickly

I was running the show.

[mooing]

CATHERINE FARIS: When I first met Jim,

I was looking for someone that

didn't have a lot of experience, necessarily,

but had a lot of passion.

And Jim came

to the door of my restaurant one day.

He was really quiet, but when I started to talk to him

a little bit about what we did at the restaurant. .

menus changed every week, and this is 30 years ago,

so this is very new in California. .

and I could just see that there was something resonating,

like in a really big way; he was really into it.

And so I think

it was part of the right time at the right place,

connecting around this idea that was about

how it can be, and clearly

that's what he's doing now.

[static fuzzing]

[announcer speaking Japanese]

What I'm trying to do is provide a place

where people can learn about the food

and where it comes from, and also, of course,

enjoy a delicious meal.

[static fuzzing]

JIM: There's a great number of people that are

excited that things are on the fly,

that it's not predictable, that it's not a catering event.

That they don't see the same old shit

like the same rental plates

and rental tables and rental chairs

and the same, you know, appetizers and such.

We're doing it, you know, right here and now.

First of all, I'm considering the. .

- the size of the space. . - [translator speaking Spanish]

- . what fits. . - [translator continues]

- [translator continues] - . to the sculptures,

- the space is rectangular. . - [translator continues]

[translator continues]

JIM: . the gestures of the sculptures, so. .

[translator continues]

rigidity, but also, there's the flowing curves.

[translator speaking Spanish]

[static fuzzing]

[soft music]

DAMANI THOMAS: When I met Jim Denevan,

I think it was, like, in '96 or '97,

and that was the beginning for me,

with the farm dinner situation and. .

to be able to bring a chef

with farmer and wine-makers and fishermen

and, you know, seeing the patrons

just, like, really enjoying themselves.

It was novel, you know,

to be able to have a fancy meal on a farm.

HANS HAVEMAN: We are a sustainable

fish company here in Santa Cruz.

Working really hard to bring in

local, right out of the bay

salmon, halibut, sea bass,

caught from our local people, and get it to the chefs.

We try to bring people really good, sustainable product.

We got asked to do, like, I think

one of the first "Outstanding in the Field" dinners.

I think it's all kind of on the coattails

of just food consciousness.

Everybody's really been excited

about knowing where their food comes from.

And these "Outstanding" dinners

have been such a great venue for that,

because it's one of the few places that

you really get to pair up

some of the best chefs in the world

and then the farmers who actually grow the product.

Such a fun experience.

MARCUS SAMULESSON: In Palm Springs, it was

so exciting on many levels because. .

we practice so much of our work inside of a restaurant.

What could be better than to go outside

and cook great food with a great audience

in a new place?

For me, it's like you have to find these incredible places.

Part of it is getting to the dinner,

setting it up, and then executing it.

JOHN McMCARTHY: The Japanese dinners were

in a brand-new mowed field.

Cooking over coals, which was,

it was all fantastic.

It wasn't just Japanese people

that showed up at that dinner.

There were Americans that were living abroad,

there were some people from South Korea.

There were some people from Hong Kong and China.

They hadn't seen something like this before.

MARCUS: Bermuda, first of all, it's a stunning island,

with the most amazing, fresh produce

and then also the most amazing, fresh fish.

They go out and catch something that night,

and we get it that morning, so it's all-around local

and what's on the island, and, you know,

Bermuda's a very special place, and that was a special dinner.

[percussive music]

MAN: Jim and his art,

it was definitely mind-blowing and exciting.

It was a clear message of protecting nature.

We had a vision. .

"Hey, how can we do something big

but is also meaningful?"

It was, like, spot-on, let's bring Jim,

and let's have him do his thing

in the river mouth of Mundaka that needs protection.

And that's what we did.

We brought him over, and bingo, you know?

It was, like, on the biggest news program in Spain.

[music]

[reporter speaking Spanish]

People were asking me, "Man, how does this guy do

so round, big circles?"

I was kind of sure that he was doing so round circles

because he's a freak, and yeah, he is.

[chuckling]

[speaking Spanish]

It was the season when "Outstanding in the Field"

was doing their first Euro tour.

So, they wanted to do something in the Basque country. .

as being a food hot spot.

So, we scouted, we saw options,

we talked with chefs,

and we finally set up the table in our farm.

My family bought a farm in the '60s

in La Rioja.

It's the Basque Mediterranean, I would say,

a big wine region.

We set up the table there, it was amazing,

and it was kind of. . end of a perfect two gigs

with art and food together.

MARCUS: This is not just a New York or LA thing.

This is about giving people

unique experiences that matter.

That's what these events gives you an opportunity to do.

Yeah, I'm kind of excited, actually.

- First dinner of the year? - First dinner of the year.

I moved the bus six times to get it in the right. .

[laughing] . right parking spot.

I'm gonna check on some. .

Um. . have you printed the menus yet?

Yep, they're over there.

Awesome.

- Hey. - Oh, I thought

you were just coming to tell us we were doing it wrong.

No. . I'm not sure how you do it, actually.

What about this frame. .

I'd set that one to the side, yeah.

- It's not perfect. - Where's the first one

you've done? This one?

That one's beautiful.

So, I always get stuck at this part.

Then you put your hand on the front,

and you flip it.

That's the menu, and there's the people.

MAN: It's 20 minutes to 3:00.

- Yes. - Whoa, really?

- Yes. - Time flies.

That's not good. [laughing]

I. . gotta get cranking.

Huh.

Oh, this is a beautiful menu.

I think. . I think it's gonna work.

Better. . Better get chopping.

DAVID: My impression with Jim is. .

and I don't mean this badly, but Jim is easily

one of the most disorganized people I've ever met

in my entire life.

He goes in with this, like,

this impression of being. . scatterbrained's the wrong word,

just, like, disorganized, but this kind of. .

"Everything's gonna be all right, you know?

"Everything's just gonna kind of. .

"everything's gonna kind of line up,

and it's just gonna be. . " and you know what,

he's right every time, you know?

It. . just somehow, it kind of comes together,

and there he is, standing with his. .

you know, with that hat that he wears.

It's pretty funny.

Hearing the sheep. Forget it.

Need some WD-40.

DAMANI: He's an odd guy, but I like him.

He's, you know, odd but likable.

A gentle giant, if you will.

It takes a different type of person

to be able to conceive something like that

and, you know, bring it to fruition

and stick with it for so many years, you know?

- Hey, how're you? - Pretty good.

Yeah, it's gonna. . we gotta go for the shade today.

- Uh. . Chef Sean. - Yeah.

- Hey. - Hey, how you doin', Jim?

- Good, great to see you. - Nice to see you.

- How was the first dinner? - Umm, well,

I barely saw it, 'cause I was doing my artwork.

- Oh, really? - And then I did art

- and the food at the same time. - Cool.

Um, but it went very well.

This is. . This is a tough site.

- Right here? - Oh, we haven't even. .

the tables aren't even out yet.

- No. - Sweet.

- You ready to schlep? - Yeah.

- Nice, that's nice. . nice. - Yeah.

Um, the table's gonna be in the barn proper.

- Just up there. - The proper. . cool.

The idea is for the table to go in the tunnel.

I thought there was gonna be a lot more vegetables.

The vegetables are very tiny.

Nick, you remember how I'm really fastidious

about the location of the kitchen

as it relates to the table?

You shouldn't make a place for it

- until we talk about it. - Okay.

- Too close? - Yeah.

It's like, shove it. . shove it back.

Yeah, I don't know, it just. .

- you know what I mean. . - . walkway,

and then there's that roaring fire over there, too.

- So, and we've got. . - Well, let's think it through

- before we just throw it up. - Okay.

Because, do you see what I mean, like. .

- Yeah. - Because. .

with the tables all through here,

- it's like. . - Okay.

- So let's figure it out. - Just clunky-looking.

Let's review our available area over here.

So. . I'm such a tyrant.

[laughing]

The table, in the kitchen. .

Nick, are you cool with that plan?

You cool with that plan?

- The kitchen here? - Yeah.

- Yeah, totes. - Nice.

I can't believe I just said "totes. "

Totes.

[laughing]

[music]

Yeah, that's it. Right there.

DINA BREWSTER: Jim and those guys,

this is their first time here.

I was really floored,

you know, that two weeks ago,

I hadn't really heard anything,

and they seemed terribly confident

that everything was gonna go off beautifully.

But with no menu set

and no placement for the table,

and I thought, we can't do this in a day.

I mean, who can do this in a day?

But he seems very on top of it

with checking the wind

and the placement of the tables

so that it would catch just the right breeze,

and lovely.

All right, guys, we need to have someone start

slicing the quail right away, okay?

All the diced tongue, is that finished?

Okay, it needs to be finished soon.

I need another. . I need something else

to plate these beans.

Who has a bigger spoon?

Coming now, hot-hot-hot.

[distant chatter]

All right, heads are up.

VOICE: Heads are up.

PAUL KULIK: I can't imagine that there's a scenario

that they haven't already encountered at this point.

Like, the technical proficiency

that "Outstanding in the Field" brings

takes everything and just brings it up, like, a notch.

Come on, look at this bad boy. . blah!

PAUL: And their ability to find, like,

the most scenic spot on the farm to put the table

and yet not sacrifice the function

to be able to, like, still know how to put

the little kitchen tent together so that we weren't

gonna be killing ourselves to dry to deliver.

That's really part of what makes it so special.

You can focus on what you wanna focus on,

because you know that those sort of peripheral concerns

are absolutely already taken care of.

So, Murray, can you explain what. . what happened

with our bus here? What'd you find,

and how did you come upon us?

Well, I was driving by from a different job,

and I work here often,

so I stopped to look at the bus and talked to Karl

and said, "Well, you needed this fixed, so. "

That it wouldn't start, so basically your. .

your inverter batteries for your cabin were bad,

- and they were draining. . - Mm-hmm.

the rest of it, um,

there was a switch that you should've not had on

that was on,

so we're gonna make it automatic,

- so that will be. . - Nice.

So. .

and then a few other little things, that's all.

Sounds good, what do you think of this old bus?

Looks good from the outside,

but underneath, it's shit.

Why am I the guy getting the seaweed off the beach?

That's something for somebody. .

who's not making geometry.

The other drawing was trampled

by a lot of volleyball activity

yesterday afternoon.

And so I had to. . I had to repair it.

I mean. .

do painters have this kind of trouble?

When they've got their paints,

does someone come up. . coming up to their service,

and they're fucking with their canvas? No.

Not to mention the goddamn waves.

But, you know, I'm experiencing a. .

some. .

challenges to my. . to my zen.

Oh, well.

So we keep. . keep moving.

[birds tweeting]

JIM: Well, we want all the guests to arrive. .

they're supposed to arrive in about ten or 15 minutes.

I want 'em to see the table in the field

before it's evacuated to the barn,

which I think is likely.

[wind whooshing]

[wind whooshing]

[wind whooshing]

[soft music]

Yeah, this is the Midwest experience.

Chaos to perfect sun.

In 20 minutes.

JIM: Today, there's 0% chance of rain.

There's not a cloud in the sky, so. .

we don't have to think about that.

If you go over there, that's, like,

the table just looks like it's floating in grass.

Like, on the sides.

Okay, bring it right here.

[music]

The table's just gonna get a little bit wet on Saturday.

Sunday, it's just gonna get nailed.

People are gonna get soaked.

It's a hot day, too.

So, it's. .

so it's sort of okay that they're getting soaked.

It's. . I think it's the flaw.

It's the best possible conditions for. .

having waves at the table about third course.

We need the staff to come over to help move the table.

And they did not dawdle.

Hey, Karl, it's raining.

We're usually not this sensible.

I usually leave the table out there longer.

It's really hard to walk backwards with flip-flops.

Do you want me to walk backwards?

No, I got it. How many tables we got?

- Fifteen. - Fifteen? Let's go three fives.

[squeaking]

Sorry.

[sighing]

It's difficult to bring the table inside,

but sometimes it's gotta. . just gotta happen.

But at least now everyone's still got the view.

It's still amazing from here.

Looking good, we got. . we made it.

- Dude. - Yeah, thanks.

Yeah, we've actually. . before we moved the table in,

- and then we. . - [overlapping chatter]

the staff gets in the way, but it's kind of funny.

[birds tweeting]

NION McEVOY: Jim's art exemplifies

an art form that literally is engaged with

and inseparable from the land and the local conditions.

He's always very attentive to place,

and it's part of a piece with agricultural thinking

and locavore.

MAN: Jim is doing three.

- I'm an experienced server. - That a boy.

The attempt he has made to travel around the country

and yet, in each place that "Outstanding" throws a party,

it's inextricable from not only

the local environment of the venue

but also of all the foods

and the thinking about food from the region.

It definitely seems to be

a wonderful, magical idea

that makes people feel part of something larger than themselves

and yet something very human and intimate.

[wind blowing]

DONIGA MARKEGARD: I started working with

"Outstanding in the Field" a number of years ago,

when I ran into Jim Denevan

because he likes to draw

on the sand right across from our ranch here.

Jim makes sure to create that relationship

with the people that are tending to the animals,

or tending to the vegetables,

and then he can trust

that we have that connection to nature.

And then that trickles

into these dinners.

It's like this celebration of everything

that went in to creating that meal.

It's really fuckin' hot.

MAN: You've been just chilling in here?

Yeah, just kind of getting out of the. .

away from the circus for a moment.

MAN: Right.

Even though it's uncomfortable.

- Cool. - It's a little private space.

With just me and the camera.

[chuckling]

Kind of fucked up today, with the weather.

Should've had. .

shelter.

It's a little. .

it's a little hot.

MAN: Wanna get ready?

Yeah, let me get the. .

get my costume.

I just gotta show you the magazine.

This is ten years.

"Gastronomica. "

It's an intellectual study of gastronomy.

- It's very well-done. - Mm-hmm.

Beautiful photographs and. .

hold on.

It's very artfully put together.

And, uh,

yeah, and there's this, "On Dining and Creating. "

- Oh, nice. - Ten years ago.

You mean this came out ten years ago?

Yeah, just by coincidence,

it's sitting on the desk there.

Left by the last person that stayed here

and was. . and was the one that was on top.

Pretty weird, and it's got pictures

of our dinner in a cave.

Where we had a hundred people inside of a sea cave.

MAN: Nice.

And, uh. .

then the. . the foraging,

our first foraging event,

which we had outside in the woods.

- Ahh, cool. - In Bonny Doon.

MAN: What you looking for?

Looking for a toothbrush.

All I see is toothpaste.

It's gonna have to be my toothbrush.

[muffled] . what I got.

MAN: And no water.

I got soda.

Brushed my teeth.

You gotta what you gotta do.

These are primitive conditions. .

on the road.

Okay.

- Ready? - I'm ready.

- Showtime! - Showtime.

- All right. - Whew.

- Fresh breath and all. - Yep.

[distant chatter]

So we're gonna. . yeah, we're gonna get started

with the event. I'm gonna track down Sean.

- Good to see you. - Nice to meet you.

[accordion playing]

I'm looking for a place to start.

Yeah.

That'll go this way a little bit.

And we'll. . yeah, we're gonna start in a second.

Over here is the most space, yeah.

[upbeat music]

So, welcome, everyone, welcome to "Outstanding in the Field. "

Could we have a round of applause for Joan?

"Outstanding in the Field"'s favorite farmer!

I take the hat off to you, Joan.

[baa-ing]

RANDALL GRAHM: Jim's genius was

in trying to connect people

to where food is grown.

JIM: So, folks, come on over here.

We're gonna take off on a little tour

which will end in the table.

RANDALL: It's an emotional experience

to be eating a meal

in the place from which the food has been grown.

You can't even articulate why it's so powerful,

but it really does seem to move people.

Jim discovered this, and I think it was totally brilliant.

That's the best.

Just lift your feet when the wave comes through.

[upbeat music]

[screaming]

[overlapping chatter]

This isn't fuckin' Tuscany.

It's not Basque country.

This is. . the confluence

of three states:

Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.

It's specific.

It's not general. It's not Tuscany.

Every fuckin' place in America, the. .

like, the '80s and '90s,

would call themselves Tuscany

because they think people would run in the door

because Tuscany has

beautiful olive trees and mountains

and architecture.

This is America.

This is where it comes from.

DEVAL PATRICK: I'm really intrigued

by the growing interest that people have

in where their food comes from

and having as few steps as possible

between the source and the table.

We've had a nearly 20% increase in farms

here in Massachusetts in the last ten years or so.

And that's really exciting.

JIM: The one thing I wanna say also is that

there really is. .

um. . just as much power

and culmination in that. .

um. .

in the meeting of the farmer and the chef

in Arkansas' areas. .

east coast, west coast, south, north.

It's pretty. . It's pretty powerful,

all across this country.

- That's great. - Thank you.

- Thank you. - Thanks.

These guys just show up, and they're so mellow,

and they just make it happen.

This morning, I woke up, and I just realized, it's like,

I've got this great crew of nine people.

I've got five of the best chefs in Memphis

coming to my farm, throwing a party,

and I really don't have to do anything.

And just realizing that, I mean, like, okay,

it's gonna be fine.

VOICE: Thanks, Brandon!

[cheering]

- Thanks. - Thanks so much

- for coming out here. - It was fun.

- It was awesome. - Thanks. Thanks so much.

ANASTASIA PLAKIAS: Thank you, whole "Outstanding" team,

for doing this, because when we started this business,

we didn't know if we could make this work,

and the only reason that we did

is because of folks who are committed

to seeing this concept work. Folks like Jim,

who are willing to support small farms like ours.

JASON WEINER: These gigs, you can't get too complicated.

You're in the field, working with propane.

So, um, and you don't wanna

get complicated anyway.

It's about stepping out of the way

of the pretense and the smoke and mirrors

and just kind of give the ingredient

a little bit of whimsical push,

but it's really letting the ingredients

sort of, like, be the star.

The jalapenos are from, uh. .

they came from Amber Waves.

Is the balsamic going on the first course or. . ?

Yeah, the balsamic and basil all is going on the first course,

and you got a bunch of different micro-greens

going on that course. . that's from Brendan

from Goodwater. . the garlic croutons,

the bread comes from Blue Duck Bakery

- in Southampton. - What?

Blue Duck. Blue Duck.

And that's the first course?

That's it, yeah, and the tuna, yep.

Second course, the fish and chips.

It's whole black sea bass. We're doing the whole fish

on the plate, deep-fried.

And mahi.

And those are both. . yep, both black bass. .

with wine, caught off of Montauk.

And, um, and the mahi-mahi,

[indistinct] . on that.

These are blue mussels.

They came from my friend Captain John

in the. .

we got 'em from a bed in the Shinnecock Canal.

Out of the water yesterday.

Yeah. [clears throat]

The conviviality of the meal

should all be sort of out of respect

for the product, and where it comes from.

And, you know, "Outstanding in the Field"

have sort of cut out that middleman

and made it so much more obvious.

These kinds of events that "Outstanding" does sort of

brings that all sort of in sharp relief.

PAUL: There's a ton of really motivated

and interesting farmers and growers

and people cooking, I mean, it's, like, massive.

I mean, this is a big country,

and for this many people now to be

successfully doing good food,

representing their region from the cooking standpoint.

I think the mission really is about

just reminding people that,

you know, you wanna care about what you're eating.

JIM: This place is the desert that. .

where you can set up a camera, you know, it's like. .

and there's, like, this really thin gravel thing going on.

And you could do it ahead of, uh, like, say,

big wind storms predicted for the afternoon.

You do it in the morning, you set

your fixed camera up there,

and all. . half the day, there's this dude

just on this isolated area

who's just, like, bl. . just using the. .

the broom, you know, for hours and hours and hours.

And then you start, like, seeing little bits of it.

The wind getting higher.

And little bits of it, so the wind starts

blowing stuff across it.

And finally you get, like, 30-40 mph winds. .

and it's, like, blowing across the drawing,

and then it gets even stronger, and it's just. .

and it's a dust cloud, like, an actual, like,

where you can barely. . occasionally you can

see the. . drawing, and occasionally

it's just completely obscured by dust.

And then completely gone.

I think. . I think doing drawings

that are in sync with the weather forecast

is pretty much exactly the same thing

as doing the sand drawings at the beach.

You know the wave's coming, or you know the tide's coming.

You know the weather's coming.

And then to compose right in that space.

[jazz drumset playing]

[jazz drumset playing]

[jazz drumset playing]

[jazz drumset playing]

WILLIAM FOX: Art and environment has been

woven into our history here

from the very get-go.

I run the Center for Art and Environment.

Which is the only research institute in the world

that studies that topic, and we collect archives

from artists around the world.

So, Jim's work of course

fits beautifully within that rubric.

Because he is not only conducting

direct interventions into the environment

by drawing on it, but he's also working

a long tradition of land art.

Jim has a work here. .

that's in reference to spiral jetty.

This is kind of a copy

of the thing he's done in the field.

Jim's really aware of the tradition

he's. . he's walking in,

and that's true of the food that he does,

in "Outstanding in the Field,"

as well as. . as in his drawings.

So, um, it's not unusual, in fact it's gratifying

for us to have, in the archives here at the museum,

a piece of work that exemplifies

that connection to the land art of North America.

So, these designs are so large

that people can be in a commercial jet liner

and see them while they're apparent,

and they, of course, get very excited.

Like, "Oh, my God, the Martians have landed," right?

To really see the work that Jim has done

on places like Baikal and the Black Rock Desert,

you need to use a satellite,

and you have to photograph it from the big desert,

which is outer space, basically,

or near outer space.

So it's best to commission time on a satellite

to image these sites, right?

Jim is photographing from an airplane

with the wing overhead,

and he's over the Black Rock Desert,

and you can see. .

it gives you a sense of scale with, again,

the shoreline of the desert mountains

and then the surface of the playa.

That long white line you see

along the edge there is actually a dirt road.

So, one of the things that's really interesting

about Jim, whether he's working in the desert here

or even on a beach, you know, just outside Santa Cruz,

is, in a sense, he re-creates himself,

and he re-creates his art

every time he does one of these works.

That's a very gracious gesture for an artist to make.

To participate in the world that way.

To make something that, in a sense, is not about ego.

It's so ephemeral, it's so time-based. .

it's really about the thing in and of itself.

In Jim's meditative practice,

which is part of what constitutes

why he makes these drawings, it's his way

of centering himself in the world on a daily basis.

It's interesting that you can sit down

and assign mathematics to that.

He talks openly about how that runs

throughout the entire family.

It's a struggle to stay centered in the world.

And one way you do it is by repetitive gestures

and just being calm, so.

Watching him work, watching him rake is always

an amazing experience for me.

It's hard work, and yet it seems graceful.

Jim goes at the natural world

in several different ways.

And so it's not just that he's making drawings

on the surface of it.

But, in yet another manifestation,

he's trying to connect people

with their food sources by expressing

a geometrical figure.

A kind of linearity in the landscape.

It's a very deliberate gesture.

The fact that he could make this simple connection that has

a far side and a near side or a left and a right,

depending on how you're looking at that line.

And he's simply laid that out in a field

like it's an anti-furrow

is again one of those very deep gestures.

People who go to those dinners always talk about

how unexpected the power. .

of that gesture and the landscape is.

It's not just the experience of the food,

but that Jim has laid out

a physical structure on the land,

to which the food accumulates.

He is making a very intuitive gesture

that has to do with the farming situation

and his ability to make a structure in the landscape.

So. . it's very intimate,

I think, to what he's actually doing on the. .

on the surfaces with drawings.

♪ There was a boy ♪

♪ There was a boy, there was a boy ♪

- ♪ There was a boy ♪ - ♪ A very strange ♪

♪ Enchanted boy ♪

[scatting]

- ♪ They say he wandered ♪ - ♪ Super strange ♪

- ♪ Super strange ♪ - ♪ Very far ♪

- ♪ Very far over land ♪ - ♪ Wandered far ♪

- ♪ Really really far ♪ - ♪ And scene ♪

♪ Yes, there was a boy ♪

♪ Yes, there was a boy ♪

♪ He was super-shy ♪

[scatting]

♪ But very wise ♪

♪ Was he. . ♪

♪ Super super super super ♪

♪ Super wise. . ♪

♪ And then one day ♪

- ♪ One. . One day ♪ - ♪ One magic day ♪

♪ He passed my way ♪

♪ Way-hey-hey, which way? ♪

♪ And while we spoke of many things ♪

♪ Fools and kings, as he said to me ♪

- ♪ Oh, the greatest thing ♪ - ♪ Greatest thing ♪

♪ You'll ever learn ♪

♪ Is to love ♪

♪ And be loved in return. . ♪

♪ Whoo. . ♪

[whistling]

[whistling continues]

JIM: We're in Paradise.

We're at the farm that's at the end of the road,

and the name of the road is Paradise.

And this is the farm at the end of the road.

This book, "Practical Electricity,"

was published in 1923.

There's a particularly interesting illustration

from "Practical Electricity. "

This describes atoms

and the boundary of an atom,

and electrons.

And then right below that is. .

a description of Saturn and its satellites.

So you got the macro and the micro. .

adjacent to each other.

My dad, he was a machinist.

And my mother was a mathematician.

So, his machinist book looked a lot. .

looked a lot like this.

Anyways.

JIM: I'm from a very large family,

but the family intact is. .

is something that I have no memory of

because. . of a couple things.

One is, my dad died when I was five.

And he was. . he b. . died of a brain tumor,

and he was sick when I was three.

So, my only memory is of him being in bed.

But the thing is,

he built a table to fit the whole family.

A really long table,

and you could seat 11 people,

which is the size of the whole family.

That big long table was something he built

a few years before he got sick.

But. . so I have no memory of my mother

and my father being at the table,

and all the children being at the table at the same time.

[stammering] I've often thought

of the farm dinner table

as being some weird. .

um. .

I don't know. .

has some strange relationship

to that. . to that table

that wasn't completely. .

utilized.

But I-I'm pretty rattled talking about my dad

and the machinist workshop.

Kind of disturbed.

[sighing]

[sighing]

[sighing]

So, when my brothers went crazy,

I actually hid in the river like this.

I hid here when they were crazy.

I hid in the river.

'Cause they were dangerous and violent

and. . insane.

They all went crazy, and. .

this. . well, three of my brothers went crazy

all in the same year.

All became schizophrenic.

One was 18, one was 19,

and one was 27.

So it was eight brothers, and. .

it's kind of bizarre

that three of 'em would become crazy the same year.

I was. . I was 15,

so I'd come down here.

It was calm, I could breathe, like, psychologically.

Mentally I felt pretty calm.

These places, even if things were. .

insane in the house.

And really, yeah, my. . my artwork. .

began with this. . this creek.

And putting the. .

putting the rocks into patterns

and channeling the river and. .

so I'd do that by myself all day.

Like, every day, all day long.

Just pushing the rocks,

and I'd change the river from going that way

to going over here and then make it

go down the middle and then

just pushing all these rocks around.

It's like a task that has no. .

completion.

Yeah, and I like the nonsensical. .

the useless tasks the best.

[soft music]

ANDREW McLESTER: Jeff, John, and Tom

were the three brothers

that were in the throes of schizophrenia.

TISH DENEVAN: Yeah, we were having a hard time.

It was rough, you know, Jeff was

starting fires, John was breaking down doors.

They were calling the cops.

Jeff would stare at us for hours from outside

on the sliding glass door.

He'd look through the sliding glass door at us

when we were watching TV.

That was. . I don't know,

it was just. . it was disturbing.

ANDREW: When I was 15, I got kicked out of my house.

and so I lived on the deck at Jim's mom's house,

which was at the back of Moran Lake,

and one night I was sleeping, and Jeff came,

and he went and sat on the other side of the deck

and just started saying, "Go home, boy. "

"Go home, boy. " And this is, like,

about 2:00 in the morning?

And he just kept saying it over and over

and getting louder and louder.

And he says, "Go home, boy. "

The next thing I know,

he's above me, and he's got his hands around my neck.

And he's choking me as hard as he can.

And I couldn't scream,

because his hands were around my neck,

and so I was just gurgling.

And somehow Dan,

who was living in the shed below,

heard the whole thing go down

and came up and tackled Jeff

and pulled Jeff off of me.

JIM: My brothers were unable to take care of themselves.

Were unable to clean themselves.

Unable to communicate.

Locked up in mental hospitals.

And I didn't know how to deal with it.

I didn't know how to think about it.

I feel very ugly inside

from having schizophrenic siblings.

That that ugliness was part of me.

That it was my family and it was my people.

The emotional stress made me sick.

Physically ill, definitely.

I couldn't even work

because I would be so doubled over and in pain

and so nauseous that I would be throwing up.

I was incredibly physically ill

for a period of years.

I can't overemphasize how sick I was.

I was nauseous to the extent

where I could barely talk to people.

And when I took the job at Gabriella,

I just worked through the pain.

ADAM: There's a fine line between

being a full-on genius

and a complete basket case, you know?

So, it doesn't surprise me that

after seeing how Jim is, to hear that

a couple of his brothers have slipped, you know?

It's usually hereditary.

JIM: I was at the junior high,

and it was the first I heard

of one of my brothers going crazy.

Jeff was kind of obsessed with masculinity.

And he almost killed his best friend

because of some schizophrenic confusion.

He went to jail for a few years,

and nobody knew where he was.

And then my next brother, John, became catatonic,

which is a very different kind of schizophrenia from,

say, if you're manic.

He was just kind of stuck in a position

with a look of pure terror

and horror on his face.

And he wouldn't move his body at all.

He was even crazier than my brother Jeff.

And my third brother Tom, he. .

his wife, she left,

and he never saw her again.

She had to. . She had to hide,

because he was very crazy.

It's really. . it's very extreme.

And my mother wasn't actually even home

when. . my three brothers were crazy.

We were living in Santa Cruz

with the three youngest children,

with three schizophrenic brothers,

and my mother was in San Jose,

staying at a family apartment

to finish her math at the university.

There was no parenting.

BILL: My mother was such a bad cook.

Both Dan and Jim, um. .

had to learn how to cook 'cause my mother was

more interested in teaching

and reading mysteries every day.

She wasn't really interested in any kind of cooking.

Here's a shot of what my mom used to do for fun,

and she would laugh and cry and get emotional

about these kind of things, but here's some of her

original math work.

With some pictures of us around the back

and the foreground here.

But you can see this is a typical page

of her. . entertainment.

JIM: She was pretty egotistical about her math abilities.

Maybe she was just remarking upon the facts.

She was just way better than anyone else.

I mean, she studied with the foremost

Fibonacci number theorist in the world.

Kind of a hard thing when someone is that smart.

And you think about, well, where do I fit in, you know?

And then you realize that you. . that you don't.

She ended up going to the same hospital

and being locked in the same psych ward

my brothers were locked in.

And I'm the one that took her to the hospital

to be locked up

because none of the other siblings

wanted to deal with it.

All the other family members were like. .

they sort of. .

"Jim, you haven't helped out enough,

so why don't you take Mom to the psych ward?"

BILL: My mom was always calling me and going,

"What're we gonna do about Jim?

"He's never gonna make it. Now he has a child.

Oh, God, what'll we do?"

You know, he's out there with his little trailer

behind his bike in the rain.

Comes over to visit my mom, and she's horrified.

She calls me and tells me. .

"I don't know about him. "

[laughing]

She never got to see him shining.

JIM: I was going through a lot of trauma

in the mid-'90s

while my mother. . getting Alzheimer's.

It was sort of more than I could take

because it took me back

to when my brothers became schizophrenic.

And really, that's probably the real thing

that I was searching for, in terms of finding peace,

was getting to a place to understand

my brothers becoming insane

and really then my mother becoming insane.

[soft music]

When my mother had dementia, I was put in the position

of having to be really tough when it's not really my nature.

I've been overwhelmed at times,

and about the same time,

I started dancing twice a week,

and my improvisational dance,

which I did, you know, twice a week for years,

was a dance of simultaneously

being very strong and also being very injured,

so, from. . weakness is not the right word,

but it's like a dance of being. .

constantly transcending my condition.

The suffering that I've been experiencing.

And the dance sort of represented

the struggle to overcome these challenges

and. . I mean,

the dancing thing was very extreme.

I'm sure it scared the shit out of people at the dance place.

But I was going through this incredible psychic pain

every time on the dance floor,

and. . it brought about this idea

that creativity and composition

would be like some exit

from whatever I was going through.

I was making my way

out of truly incredible suffering.

Just to mention it in a verbal way

and talking about it years later,

is like. . there's no way

that I could ever emphasize how horrible

and difficult it was.

It lasted all the way into my early 50s,

where I was truly disturbed

when I'm sleeping, thinking that

one of my crazy brothers was trying to break into the house

and terrify my mother

or scaring the family or something.

I was keyed up for any noise that I heard any time

when I was sleeping for decades of my life.

Just fearful that something was coming

to, like. .

to hurt me or my family

or kill somebody.

It's weird to think of. .

it's taken all the way into my mid-50s

to have it disappear.

It's literally gone, but it took that long.

It's perfect.

We have some deer in a cage behind that bush.

- Oh, really? - That we release. .

at the second course, and it'll pop out of the bush,

which. . [laughing]

that'll be pretty cool.

JIM: People can't help but. .

be touched by the natural aspect

of connecting.

That's a powerful aspect of it

is that people can come to the table.

Maybe they've had the easiest life imaginable

or the most difficult

or anything in between, but. .

they're always gonna recognize their common humanity,

where they sit at a long table and share a dish,

and they have this dish

that feeds eight people, and they recognize

that little group with the family-style dining.

And they consider each person

and whether each person has had their share,

and it's. .

it's good for people.

Effective.

And that's just people

being able to talk to each other.

Just people stepping outside their own safety zones.

Shouldn't be afraid of people.

Uh, I'm getting psyched for today.

And then you're gonna get psyched

for how many more sessions?

- I don't know. - This year?

Maybe I'll go to all of them.

Maybe I'll go to all 100 events.

Oh, no, you won't do that.

[laughing] Maybe, like, 70%

Yeah, that's. . that's enough.

This is very important, where the umbrella's going.

Key to the success of an event.

Looks good.

Look how much better it is now.

We can have, like, can have all these umbrellas. .

ridiculous locations.

- Right. - And it's all balanced.

[soft chatter]

- How's it going, Matt? - Good, Jim.

So, there's gonna be some Denevan family members

that were present at the first-ever event.

- Really? - Yeah.

Were they seat-fillers then, Jim, or were they all

seat-fillers then?

We did have several paid customers, Matt.

At least. .

over the years, it's kind of like,

I'm not exactly sure how many were paid,

but I think there was at least 30 people that were paid,

and at least 30 that were fake. .

customers.

I think.

JIM: Life, to use a cliché, it's a dance.

Things are always changing into something else,

every second.

Day turns into night turns into day.

Seasons are cycling through. The weather's changing.

People are sort of, like, dancing through this. .

through this phenomenon.

And to walk out when the tide's low

And do things and. .

Then retreat when the tide comes in.

You're sort of, like, you're like a bullfighter.

If you can do it really gracefully,

then you go to sleep,

and you sleep peacefully.

[soft music]

It's all very, very meaningful.

Just being alive is very meaningful to me.

Connections with people.

The connections with. . with earth,

with land, with water.

With atmosphere,

and those things are very profound

and powerful.

And. .

as to how to be or how to do. .

two things.

Everybody's gotta be humble, and I'm gonna try my best

to be humble and not get in the way

of anyone's. .

understanding of themselves or the world.

And. .

when I make a drawing, or when there's. .

a seat at the table that's offered,

people find themselves

in the composition at the beach or elsewhere,

and they find themselves sitting at a table,

and the conversations that happen. .

at a table, or the personal time

to stand in a giant composition.

Those are for other people

to think about.

[percussive music]

[music continues]

[music continues]

[music continues]

[music continues]

VOICE: ♪ It was early in the morning ♪

♪ Much earlier than ♪

♪ You would think to hear ♪

♪ The first bird ♪

♪ In the morning to. . ♪

♪ To sing ♪

2nd VOICE: ♪ It happens that ♪

♪ The bird doesn't sing ♪

♪ Of every sweet song ♪

♪ It happens ♪

♪ That the bird is a crow ♪

♪ The crow only sings ♪

♪ The most average of songs ♪

♪ And you know ♪

♪ Between ♪

♪ Between. . between ♪

JIM: ♪ I used to milk cows ♪

♪ And now ♪

♪ I drive a plow ♪

♪ I just don't know how ♪

♪ My life has changed ♪

♪ It's different now for me ♪

♪ There was and then isn't ♪

♪ There isn't now ♪

♪ But there was ♪

♪ There was, there was ♪

♪ Is ♪

♪ And was ♪

♪ Was and is ♪

♪ And was and is ♪

♪ Is and was and was ♪

♪ Was ♪

♪ And not anymore ♪

♪ For me ♪

♪ Not anymore for me ♪

♪ Not anymore ♪

♪ Not anymore for me ♪

♪ Fools. . ♪

♪ Fools. . ♪

♪ Fools. . ♪

♪ And kings ♪

♪ And kings and kings ♪

♪ And kings ♪

♪ But. . but the ♪

♪ But the. . but. . but. . ♪

♪ But the. . but. . but. . but the. . ♪

♪ But. . but. . but the. . ♪

♪ The. . great. . ♪

♪ The. . but the. . ♪

♪ The. . but the. . but the great. . but. . ♪

♪ But the. . but the great. . ♪

♪ But the greatest love ♪

♪ The greatest love ♪

♪ Is. . ♪

♪ To be. . ♪

♪ Loved ♪

[guitar-picking]

Or love.

[all laughing]

[whistling]