The Big Soup

Well we did it!

Hundreds of cups of soup given away on the Artists Soup Stall at Woodstock farmers market last Saturday. We had a fantastic day - Martyn's Apple Soup recipe was a winner at breakfast time, and by the time we got to 12.00 and the market was really busy, we had two huge soup kettles full of soup to give away. People were really interested in the concept of Artists Soup and the response was so positive that we all ended the day feeling uplifted and empowered by the event. The other stall holders thought it was a brilliant idea, and were hoping we'd be back every month to give out soup, and some were sweet enough to barter Windrush Valley goats cheese or Crudges cheese, or Isle of Wight Garlic in exchange for some warming soup!

At lunchtime Tom Cox arrived with a mountain of his wonderful homemade warm bread which really added to the offer and gave people something substantial. Luckily for us all there was some left to take home.

Some people are truly unnerved by being offered something FREE! They almost ran away, as if we might try to flog them a timeshare on the way past....its a sad reflection of culture that people need to feel afraid of the generosity of others. However most people got it, and once they stopped for a chat and some soup, it seemed they went away feeling really positive. And we felt that somehow the giving away of a commodity in a market, with no intention other than to please, was in itself pleasingly anarchic.

With the souvenirs we did try selling our hand printed serviettes but with almost no luck - amazingly you just can't sell a hand printed limited edition for 10p. But we had much more success with recipes, almost everyone would have bought the recipe for the soup they tasted - so although that meant we sold lots of Squash Soup recipes, if we'd had printed versions of the others they would have done well too, so seems like a good idea to revisit our Artists Soup Recipe book for next time.

Lots of artists and kind people from arts organisations made the pilgrimage to join us during the day and really enriched the sense of Woodstock being a creative meeting place - introductions and connections were made, so the networking actually worked.

Thankyou's are due to Riverford Organic for providing a veg box (which I traded with myself for a squash box to make the squash soup), Hampers Deli for loaning us two brilliant soup kettles and Vickers hotel for letting us heat soup in the kitchen. ITN turned up and filmed, and we featured on their ITV local spot last night - so thanks to Art in Woodstock for making that happen and to Denis Allen for putting up the dreaded gazebo at 8 o'clock in the morning.

The Soupers on the day were: Martyn Brown, Lynn and Helen all the way from Exeter and London, Paul Davies & his friend Simon from Oxford, Janine Charles (artmummy) & Michael Harris, Suzanne O'Driscoll, & Tom Cox the breadmaker from Oxford.