Who's for Dinner?
Michelle Waters on becoming an artist-activist
Michelle and I met almost ten years ago, when I fell in love with a 300 year-old Douglas fir and moved into the crumbling cabin adjacent and across the street from Michelle in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. When she gave me a tour of her studio, and I saw this painting, it struck a chord of simultaneous gravity, irony, and humor that has never dimmed for me. What a last supper!
So, when FED hatched, I immediately reached out with an enthusiastic request for Michelle to cook something up for us. What follows is an exploration of her grandparents’ influence on her life and work.
Bon appétit and big love, Ashley
Michelle Waters on becoming an artist-activist
I was born and raised in a part of suburban Los Angeles, which wasn’t exactly a stimulating place for a budding artist to grow up. Fortunately for me, my life was not all shopping malls and concrete. My Eastern European immigrant grandparents influenced me and encouraged me to believe in the power of creativity and of the individual to effect positive change in society.
Both my maternal grandparents valued the arts and nature. My grandmother was a poet and seamstress who immigrated with her sister from Bessarabia, now Moldova. My grandfather was an immigrant from Belarus, a socialist, a gardener, and a surrealist artist who started painting when he retired at age 65.
My mother and aunt were raised during the Depression, and there wasn’t much money, but my grandparents always made sure both girls had piano lessons. I did, in turn, and during every visit, my grandparents wanted to hear the latest music I was learning on the piano. One of Grandpa’s paintings hung by the piano when mom was growing up.
My grandparents’ property was full of flowers and fruit trees. Many of my earliest memories are of the garden and of drawing and painting with Grandpa, my sister, and our cousin. Grandpa peppered these art-making sessions with talk about the world and our place in it, most of which I didn’t quite understand as a child, but it has been something to reflect on as I’ve aged.
On the other side, my paternal grandparents were activists who fled the anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia. They raised my father, uncle, and aunts on two anarchist collective farms—Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe were the largest segment of the anarchist movement in the United States in the early 20th century.
Later in her life, my grandmother made ceramics and donated the proceeds from her sales to the United Farm Workers. I have early memories of going with her and my sister to picket outside Safeway with “boycott grapes” signs. My grandmother became friends with Cesar Chavez—he spoke at her memorial—and she made bowls emblazoned with the UFW Aztec eagle logo and “Si Se Puede!”
My grandmother was a vegetarian in the days when that was practically unheard of, but in her activist circle, vegetarianism was a given for people who cared about non-violence. Chavez took it a step further and was the first vegan I ever met. My grandmother definitely influenced me to become vegetarian as a teenager, and later, when I became an activist myself, I also became vegan.
In writing this piece, I’ve been reflecting on the example my grandparents set—that identifying as an artist and activist is a legitimate life path to follow. I live in the U.S. where there is little support for visual art, and in order to forge my modest artist career, I’ve needed to draw on something higher—my grandparents’ guiding light and my own stubbornness.
Without my grandparents’ influence—art and activism—I’m confident I wouldn’t be the artist I am today. My art raises awareness about human exploitation of non-human animals and is a call for us to stop thinking of ourselves as the most important species. It’s not our right to use animals for whatever we desire.
My grandmother and her activist example gave me the idea to donate proceeds from my art sales to organizations I care about, and I prioritize grassroots animal rescue and environmental groups. I’ve been an environmental and animal activist for nearly 40 years and was also a wildlife rehabilitator for many years. These days, I’m active in my local cat rescue community.
As a result of me following my calling I’ve been an outsider quite a lot, but in being true to myself I’ve found deep satisfaction as my authentic self. My grandparents gave me the gift of their influence when I was a child, and I didn’t even realize how lucky I was.
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All are welcome at the table, and together, we co-create and sustain community.
& for more goodness…
Learn more about Michelle and FED’s entire Summer 2024 global crew of musicians, artists, writers, growers, gleaners, cooks, and craftspeople, and be sure to check back Thursday for Michelle’s vegan Lemon Bar recipe. It drops July 4!
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