M
A
G
A
MA R CH
Z
I
A P RIL
N
2020
WHERE THE
ARE YOU? HEMP:
Agriculture’s Newest, Oldest Crop
CAN HEMP SAVE THE WORLD? Maybe...
E
ANTONIO CUELLAR
The Artist and the Process Are One
2
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
3
Dave Adalian
Welcome to another edition of LEAF Magazine.
FOUNDERS Cecil Lopez, CEO Paul Marshall
This month, we’re all about hemp, the industrial version
EDITOR Dave Adalian
of cannabis that’s poised to return to America’s fields and become a multi-billion-dollar industry in the next
PHOTOGRAPHER David Swann
few years.
ADVERTISING SALES Imran Akhund Cynthia Jacques Marie Labbee J.H. Central Coast
After nearly nine decades, hemp is legal to grow again, and the ag industry can’t wait. In this issue, we visit the
BUSINESS MANAGAMENT The Garabedian Group | Business Advisor www.tgg-cpa.com 7110 N. Fresno Street, Suite 200 Fresno, CA. 93720
International Ag Expo’s hemp pavilion and get a look
www.LEAFmagazineCA.com
We also visit the home of ceramicist Antonio Cuellar to
@LEAFmagazineCA
explore his artistic journey.
GENERAL SALES/ADVERTISING Contact@LEAFmagazineCA.com 559-500-1332
Enjoy.
at the future.
©2020 by Leaf Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproductions without permission are strictly prohibited. Articles and advertisements in Leaf Magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management, employees, or errors, misspellings and omissions. If an error is found, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us of the mistake. The businesses, locations and people mentioned in our articles are not influenced by advertising. Keep cannabis out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older. Consume responsibly.
4
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Lego is Going Green! An entire empire of LEGO, approaching 60 years was built on plastic. But now, the gigantic Danish toy company is investing millions to get rid of it ‌ By 2030, the 60 billion blocks that the company manufactures each year will be replaced by hemp.
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
5
HEMP: AGRICULTURE’S NEWEST, OLDEST CROP text by Dave Adalian
6
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Field of hemp. Industrial farming of hemp for CBD.
THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW AT THE WORLD AG EXPO — new ways to harvest, new growing
techniques, new ways to fight pests, new farm tools, new production methods. It’s what the Expo is all about. This year, however, there was something new that agriculture hardly ever sees: a new crop. Well, not entirely new. For the first time in the Expo’s 53-year history, hemp, the red-headed stepchild of US agriculture, was welcomed back into the fold at the world’s largest agricultural gathering. Growers from around the globe came to Tulare, eager to remake the acquaintance of what may be the world’s most useful plant.
it’s not the same. Hemp is the industrial version of the plant, and under a fairly new federal law making the crop legal to grow again, industrial hemp must contain less than 0.3 percent THC (the active cannabinoid that causes intoxication). In both of its forms, cannabis is one of the oldest crops cultivated by man. On the Oki Islands near Japan, archeological evidence shows cannabis was harvested there in the earliest days of agriculture nearly 10,000 years ago. For millennia it was a source of food, fiber, medicine, and, of course, relaxation. For thousands of years it was a staple crop around the world. Then, in the early 20th century, everything changed.
A Crop as Old as Civilization Hemp, as most people know, is cannabis. It’s the same plant that bears intoxicating flowers that produce a high when smoked. Yet, Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
7
Racism and ‘Marijuana’ The popular term for cannabis around the world is “marijuana,” but few people today are aware of how that word came to replace the proper name of the plant, “cannabis” or “hemp.” It began with media magnate William Randolph Hearst and was born of his hatred for non-whites. At the turn of the 20th century, while the United States was engaged in fighting the Spanish American War, Hearst’s nationwide chain of newspapers began vilifying our country’s enemy in print. But the hatred wasn’t limited to Spaniards. Hearst’s editors and writers aimed their vitriol at all Latinos — especially Mexicans, after the revolutionary army of Pancho Villa seized nearly a million acres of land belonging to Hearst. Part of the effort to besmirch Mexicans was a renaming of cannabis, a vital crop grown by farmers across America and an important ingredient in many patent medicines of the day. Hearst’s writers chose the exotic-sounding word “marijuana” to suit their purpose, frequently calling it the “killer weed from Mexico.”
Outlawed and Stigmatized Hearst’s newspapers created stereotypes that persist to this day, not just of lazy, unintelligent, cannabis-smoking Mexicans, but also of blacks, who were portrayed as “marijuana-crazed negros,” emboldened by the drug to commit heinous and violent crimes, and worse to possibly think of themselves as equal to whites.
For a third of a century, headlines in Hearst papers decried the evils of cannabis, and the blacks and Mexicans who allegedly used it, driving themselves into murderous frenzies. In 1937, the propaganda campaign finally paid off — with the aid of a compliant Congress and power-hungry civil servants — the first efforts were made at the national level to outlaw what was still one of America and the world’s most important crops. There were objections to making cannabis illegal, most notably from the American Medical Association, which considered cannabis to be a much-needed medicine, as well as industry groups, such as the National Oil Seed Institute. Those objections fell on deaf ears. To this day, high-THC cannabis remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance, considered by the Drug Enforcement Agency to be as dangerous as heroin and LSD, and more dangerous than methamphetamine and cocaine. Even as medical and recreational cannabis are legalized in state after state, it remains federally illegal. The years of propaganda that gave cannabis its undeserved bad name also made hemp guilty by association.
New Interest in the New(ish) Crop But in 2018, that began to change. That year saw the passage of the Hemp Farming Act, a law that moved low-THC cannabis off the DEA’s Schedule 1 and back into the fields of America’s farmlands. California followed the federal lead and soon had its own set of regulations for industrial hemp cultivation. Not long after that, in the run-up to the 2019 Expo, the International Agri-Center began getting calls from farmers interested in learning
Guests flood the new Hemp Pavillion at the World Ag Expo photo by David Swann
8
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
about hemp. Too late to include hemp in the Expo, Jennifer Fawkes, marketing manager for the Expo and the Agri-Center, worked with cannabis consultant Christian Gray to arrange a series of seminars on hemp, along with a reception for would-be hemp farmers. “We expected 20 people at the hemp seminar,” Fawkes said. “We got 200.” Fawkes and Gray knew they were onto something big, so they put their heads together. It was a simple meeting that would have big consequences. She remembers the moment with apparent fondness. “We had a chat at the back balcony about it,” Fawkes said. “We thought we could do more.”
Even with a cap on the number of participants, Fawkes and Gray found bringing the hemp exhibitors up to speed on how the Expo works took extra effort. Exhibitors who have been coming to the show for years know the ins and outs, but those working to promote hemp are newcomers with little experience of selling the benefits of their industry. “Ninety percent of them have never attended the show, much less exhibited,” Fawkes said. “It takes a lot of customer service touches to get them to understand.”
“We expected 20 people at the hemp seminar,” Fawkes said. “We got 200.”
2020 Hemp Action Plan What Fawkes and Gray came up with, once the pair had approval of the Expo’s board of trustees, was a plan for more than 33,000 square feet of room for a pavilion dedicated entirely to hemp production. More than 40 exhibitors quickly bought out the available room, with hemp exhibits spilling into a nearby outdoor area.
To make matters even more complicated, organizers decided late in the game to add a contest to show off hemp’s versatility.
“Halfway through the planning of this we added the Hemp Innovation Challenge,” said Fawkes. “Entries from 14 countries came in.” Winning the inaugural contest was Victory Hemp Foods. The company won top honors for its work to create food additives derived from hemp seeds. (See story on page 29.)
“We decided to go small this year so we could focus on quality,” Fawkes said.
Hemp Pavillion at theWorld Ag Expo photo by David Swann
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
9
The Plan in Action Besides the exhibitors showing off their hemp equipment and products, the Expo’s hemp pavilion also played host to 19 different seminars on the hemp industry. Topics for the seminars, which were well attended, included basic information during panel discussions such the Business of Hemp and First-Time Hemp Farmers, and ranged to more practical how-to subjects in seminars like Hemp Genetics, Seeds, Starts and Planting, Hemp Processing and Extraction and Hemp Economic Models, a review of financially successful help operations. “It’s exciting so far. It’s looking great,” Fawkes said. “Lots of good panels. Lots of good experts.” With a successful run of the Expo’s first Hemp Pavilion, Fawkes says she’ll be working to dial in their branding and extend their outreach into the established hemp industry. Given the popularity of hemp at the Expo, Fawkes is looking to expand hemp’s presence aggressively for the 2021 ag show. “What I’d like to shoot for, based on the quality of exhibitors and early response this year, there’s every possibility we could double the size of the tent,” she said. Fawkes says she was not surprised at how well hemp was received by attendees at the Expo. “It’s a hot topic at the show, and why wouldn’t it be?” she said. “That’s where we talk about new crops and new possibilities.”
Cash Crop Guest Speakers inside the Hemp Pavillion photo by David Swann
FREE
According to the Hemp Business Journal, in 2017, the value of the US hemp market was worth some $820 million. They also report the value of the US hemp market will grow to $1.9 billion by 2022. But the expansion doesn’t end there. According to Grand View Research, the revived hemp industry in the United States will
MAGAZI NE
MAI LED
DI RECT!
Mailed to your door! Please go to the webpage below and fill out the form:
leafmagazineca.com/direct-mail We respect your privacy and do not tolerate spam and will never sell, rent, lease or give away your information (name, address, email, etc.) to any third party. Nor will we send you unsolicited email. 10
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
experience a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent, meaning the crop’s value by the year 2025 will be $10.6 billion. Those impressive numbers, made possible by the 2018 change in federal law, are why hemp was one of the stars of this year’s Expo. “I’m into a business opportunity,” Fawkes said. “It’s fully legal federally. It’s a new crop and brings new exhibitors to the show.” That projected growth, however, cannot happen without building a new infrastructure for the new crop. “We want hemp to be sustainable,” Fawkes said. “If it’s not a crop that can be profitable, it’s not going to be sustainable. It’s got to be something that helps farmers.” Two of the factors limiting growth of the industry are processing capability and a lack of knowledge about the crop, Fawkes said, and that’s where the Expo can play a key role. “All we can do is provide the right education and bring farmers to the table,” she said.
Bigger, Bolder, Brighter While industrial hemp is now legal in all 50 states, there remains some stigma attached to it thanks to the efforts of those who sought to outlaw the plant as a drug early last century. Even in Tulare County — home of the Ag Expo and one of the world’s leading centers of agricultural production — industrial hemp remains a prohibited crop, as county leaders continue to fear hemp will somehow provide cover for blackmarket growers of highTHC cannabis. The lure of profits and a change in the law, however, have softened the reluctance of farmers, a traditionally conservative group. Instead of playing to those fears, 30-year Expo veteran Joseph Seimas, who represents Tracy-based GS Distributing, thinks the Expo organizers should be even more bold in their presentation of hemp.
Guest in the Hemp Pavillion photo by David Swann
I’VE GOT MY LIFE BACK
THE ONLY PRACTICE TO SEE YOU SAME DAY
3120 W Main St Ste E, Visalia, Ca • 559-816-3178 • Marriage • Children • LGBTQ+ Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
www.arrivetherapynow.com MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
11
“I think their tent is too small,” Seimas said. “They need to move us out in the middle (of the Expo).”
formed what would become the nation’s first industry group dedicated to protecting and promoting hemp.
Seimas was at the Expo promoting Hempsac, a product intended to control the sometimes overwhelming odor of hemp.
“There were just five of us,” he said. “We started as a co-op. It went to 100 of us in ‘94.”
“If you seal them, a dog couldn’t smell it,” he said.
It was that same year the group changed its name and its mission, becoming the Hemp Industries Association. It now represents more than 1,500 hemp growers across the United States.
Seimas also thinks the Expo should include high-THC cannabis equipment and services. Seimas also represents CenturianPro, a high-end automated trimmer used for medicinal and recreational cannabis harvesting. Yet before the Expo got underway, Seimas was unsure of the reception the Hemp Pavilion would get from attendees. “We’ll see how many people come through,” he said.
For Boucher, who spent much of the 2000s fighting for the legalization of industrial hemp while the Drug Enforcement Agency was trying to shut it down, the Hemp Pavilion at the Ag Expo is a dream come true. It’s one he almost can’t believe in. “This is like almost a mirage,” he said. “It’s magical to see this happen so quickly.”
An Ag Revolution The change in federal regulation back in 2018 marked the beginning of a revolution in agriculture, but the effort to get government officials to see the crop’s benefits began decades before the plant was finally legalized for industrial use. Back in the 1990s, Chris Boucher was already a champion for industrial hemp. A hemp farmer for the US Department of Agriculture, an arm of the government that never gave up entirely on the value of hemp as a raw material, Boucher was also one of the country’s few hemp importers, bringing in sterile seeds for food processing and oil extraction, and hemp fabric for textile production. Then, in 1992, Boucher and a handful of other hemp entrepreneurs
CONQUER BRAND CLOTHING T E E ’ S • L I D S • S W E AT S H I R T S
conquerbrand.com 12
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020  LEAF MAGAZINE CA
13
Can Hemp Save the World? Maybe... text by Dave Adalian
In a time of climate crisis, one of the tools that may help the world overcome the trouble it’s gotten itself into turns out to be one of mankind’s oldest crops. Hemp, according to its proponents, can provide the raw material for almost every industry. During the 2020 World Ag Expo in Tulare, representatives from hemp businesses filled the show’s new Hemp Pavilion to tout the plant that until recently has been illegal to grow in the United States. “There’s really limitless possibilities,” said Ryan Loflin, a hemp farmer visiting the Expo from his ranch in Colorado. “You can make anything out of hemp but glass.” Loflin is the founder and CEO of Rocky Mountain Hemp, and in 2013 he was the first person in nearly six decades to raise and process hemp on a commercial scale in the US since the plant was outlawed by Congress in the 1930s. When Colorado led the nation in returning hemp from prohibition in the early 2010s, Loflin was the first person to risk the ire of the Drug Enforcement Agency by planting industrial hemp. (“Industrial hemp” indicates cannabis strains that produce only 0.3 percent or less THC, the psychoactive drug produced by cannabis. Cannabis grown for recreational and medical use averages about 16 percent THC.) A fourth-generation farmer whose family raised cattle and grew wheat, corn and alfalfa, Loflin was literally betting the farm on the return of hemp for use in manufacturing. Someone, he figured, had to go first. “We needed the extra shove,” Loflin said. “Hemp seed was 14
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
there on the same schedule with heroin.” With so much risk involved, one has to wonder what it is about hemp that could drive this kind of passion. What could make Loflin chance a federal prison term? The main answer has to do with the possibility hemp seed oil could replace petroleum, the greatest source of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Another is the versatility of hemp, with each part of the plant producing useful raw material for industry. “There really is no byproduct with hemp,” Loflin said. While hemp seed oil-derived biodiesel can be burned in a standard diesel engine and the plant can also be turned into ethanol as a replacement for gasoline, the possibilities it presents as a replacement for fossil fuels are much greater. Almost anything that can be synthesized from petroleum can be made from hemp seed oil, including pesticides, dyes, lubricants, varnishes, soaps and detergents, and plastics. Famousely, Henry Ford built a car using nothing but plastic made from hemp and that burned alcohol fermented from hemp. Ford, it appears, was ahead of his time. On display in the Hemp Pavilion during the Expo was a door panel from a BMW 7 Series made out of a hemp-flax fiber composite material created to replace fiberglass. “It’s lighter weight and it performs better than fiberglass,” said Eric Steenstra, president of the industry advocacy group Vote Hemp. “A lot of manufacturers in the auto industry, including BMW, have been using this in cars for about the last 20 years or so.”
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020  LEAF MAGAZINE CA
15
16
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020  LEAF MAGAZINE CA
17
The use of hemp to make items currently made using non-renewable resources is just one aspect of how hemp could help humanity clean up its act. The plant’s fiber can be used to make clothing that many consider to be superior to cotton textiles, while requiring little or no herbicide or pesticide, and very little fertilizer to grow. Currently, nearly 50 percent of the herbicides and pesticides used worldwide are applied to cotton. “The natural fiber is really going to be a big deal,” said Mike McGuire, owner of Western Fiber and one of the Expo’s featured speakers. “There’s a fiber shortage.” Given that hemp produces two to three times as much fiber per acre as cotton and up to four times as much pulp per acre as trees, it’s no wonder that farmers like Loflin, industrialists like McGuire and political influencers like Steenstra see it as the crop of the future. McGuire wasn’t at the Expo just to espouse the benefits of hemp. He was also there to promote the products made and sold by Western Fiber and its partners. The products McGuire was at the Expo to pitch were mainly construction materials, such as Western Fiber’s HempKote, a spray-on insulation made from industrial hemp; Hemp Shield, a wood sealant and deck coating; and ECOR, a wood and cardboard substitute made from hempderived cellulose. That wide variety, says McGuire, is key to success as the hemp industry rebuilds itself. “You can’t do one thing. If you grow for one product, you get in trouble,” he said, pointing to the CBD oil industry as an example. “We need to have diversity to succeed.” Alongside the building materials, McGuire also had a bin of what looked like green and tan cheese puffs, but were actually extruded hemp meal, a leftover from hemp oil extraction that Western Fiber will soon market as a livestock feed under the name EnerKote. Matt Burn, a sales associate with Western Fiber, said the pellets have a mildly nutty flavor.
18
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Western Fiber’s HempKote, a spray-on insulation made from industrial hemp
(middle) Mike McGuire, owner of Western Fiber (right) Matt Burn photo by David Swann
“I ate some for breakfast,” he said. “I just pour some milk on them.”
grower. “We can have it in its natural state.”
While the products that hemp can be turned into are certainly more eco-friendly than their petroleum-based counterparts, the environmental benefits don’t stop there. No matter what reason hemp is grown, its cultivation removes more CO2 from that atmosphere than a forest on a per acre basis. Hemp is also a bioremediator, removing toxins from the soil as it matures.
Like corn, industrial hemp can be grown in almost any climate, but it does especially well in areas like the San Joaquin Valley. “California is perfect for this opportunity,” Loflin said.
“We can clean the soil,” said Loflin, the pioneering Colorado hemp Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
19
Ceramicist Antonio Cuellar: The Artist and the Process Are One text by Dave Adalian
CERAMIC ARTIST ANTONIO CUELLAR’S HOME — WHICH ALSO SERVES AS HIS CERAMICS STUDIO — IS AN ORGANIZED CHAOS. His yard, which fronts onto the main avenue of the small town of Farmersville is filled with works in progress, many of which seem to have nothing to do with creating colorful forms from clay. Inside, the countertops have been removed in the kitchen, along with the flooring and the fronts from the cabinets. Again, it’s all work in progress, driven by a man with a passion for finding art in practical places. The space Cuellar occupies is more than home and studio; it’s a
20
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
photography by David Swann
laboratory, a place where experimentation becomes pathway. Cuellar’s career as a ceramic artist started directly out of high school. A graduate of Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia, Cuellar studied under Rondald Loyd, and learned from him the basics of working with clay. While Cuellar had always intended on a career in art, this was the point where all things changed for him. “I’ve always been a painter,” he said. “I thought I was going to be a painter until I found the clay.”
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Finding the clay was only the first step of a lifetime journey, and it was his practical skills that would carry him along the first steps of his path. As a newly minted high school graduate, Cuellar landed an apprenticeship at Santa Cruz Pottery, a working shop focused on the production of restaurant tableware. “I was accepted for the apprenticeship because I was already proficient at throwing on the wheel,” he said. “For two years, I pretty much did grunt work.”
The experience was in a way a rite of passage for the young would-be artist. “They want to see if you’re going to be a bull in the china shop,” Cuellar said. His time at Santa Cruz Pottery was spent focused on production, making thousands of pieces of tableware for clients across the world. It was a satisfying time for Cuellar, but he still wanted more out of himself.
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
21
“A Cone 6 fired, hand-built study of fertility. I was thinking about a butterflies and samurai cloak patterns when making this.”
“It boiled down to me having this real drive to be a ceramic artist,” he said.
“He showed me there are no rules,” he said. “It’s really up to us what we do with it.”
Pushing himself in that direction, in 2001 Cuellar landed a position as an assistant to Paul Soldner, an innovative ceramics professor at Scripps College until 1992 and founder of the California School of ceramics that combines Western and Japanese ceramic styles and materials. Cuellar credits his time with Soldner with turning him into an artist.
Before working with Soldner, Cuellar’s work was mainly traditional. Now, with nothing holding him to tried, known styles, his artwork became more abstract, with form driven by feeling rather than entirely by function. What he learned shaped his work as a sculptor, the output becoming something like jazz music, with emotions translated in free form.
“When I met Paul, I started seeing the possibilities,” Cuellar said. “Prior to that, it was a craft.”
“Then it becomes me drilling into the clay,” Cuellar said. “Cutting into it with a hacksaw.”
Cuellar describes his time with Soldner as “liberating,” and what he learned would change his entire life.
He learned that with no rules there can be no errors, that the unintended outcome could only be discovered by missing the mark.
22
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020  LEAF MAGAZINE CA
23
“Pay attention to the mistakes,” Cuellar said. “That’s where new ideas come from.” The process working without rules doesn’t end with discovery. The unintended mistakes have to be repeated. “That becomes your style,” Cuellar said. After his time with Soldner, Cuellar moved to the Caribbean Islands nation of Trinidad and Tobago, where he continued to practice his art, but from a new perspective. “I was approaching it in a much more spiritual way,” he said. It was in that tropical setting that Cuellar realized the clay was shaping him as much as he was shaping it. The process of creation was changing him, removing unnecessary material and giving him a sort of permanence he hadn’t experienced previously. “I recognized it as the path,” he said. “You realize the fire vitrified you.”
His love of haute cuisine provided him an answer. Chefs are artists, Cuellar decided, and the food they create is their artwork. His task then was to complement that work.
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Yet the question of how to achieve that remained. “How am I going to make the lines without affecting the plating of the food?” was the quandary he faced. The answer was a return to his earliest works, to keeping things simple yet elegant, of the finest quality, but not intrusive. “That’s what I want to make,” he said, “things that embrace.” He sees his work as “telling the story of food through texture and color.” “We’re going to really start indulging the form,” Cuellar said. While being called back into the practical side of ceramics, Cuellar still creates works made for the sake of art alone, most recently with a commission to decorate a series of new bridges being constructed in Tulare County. His first output will be a series of monumental tiles for a bridge in Springville. His work will feature native plants and animals, including bears, quail, the California poppy and the Springville clarkia, an endangered wildflower found only in the Sierra foothills near the tiny town for which it’s named.
“Pay attention to the mistakes,” Cuellar said. “That’s where new ideas come from.”
Eventually, Cuellar returned to the United States and California’s Central Valley, taking a hiatus from ceramics as he raised his son. After two years away from the studio, Cuellar found himself called back into action by Greg Vartanian, co-owner of a handful of high-end restaurants in Visalia, who wanted Cuellar to begin making tableware again.“How am I going to do this?” Cuellar found himself wondering. “It’d been 20 years since I’d made tableware.”
24
“I’m making the frame for their canvas,” he said.
Cuellar is impressed that the county’s leaders retained his services to produce public works of art. “Kudos to them for coming at me,” he said.
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
“Omar Sosa & his Quartet” This is a sculpture of four jazz musician on a stage. Omar Sosa is a complete innovator and a creative inspiration to Cuellar, “A truly improvisational expression of energy”, he said..
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
25
GUEST COLUMN
by Nick Vargas Director of Development and Strategy The Source LGBT+ Center
“WOW! REALLY? HMMM, LET ME THINK ABOUT THIS.” That’s what went through my mind when Leaf Magazine
founder Cecil Lopez said he wanted to feature The Source LGBT+ Center in his magazine. No other magazine or publication has offered to do this. As co-founder and Director of Development and Strategy for The Source I am always looking for ways to highlight our live-saving work in the public domain. Yet I had to think about it for a minute. And as I mulled it over I saw the potential to educate people in our target area and be part of an emerging organization that’s focused on a growing industry. Cecil’s passion for media and growth resonated with me because I am also passionate about media’s potential to grow The Source. When we reach people we change hearts and minds and savelives. It can be difficult for queer and trans people to exists in Central California and many people don’t know the hardships their queer neighbors face. Our queer and trans folx often don’t know that The Source is a resource for them. As I considered Cecil’s exciting offer, it occured to me that both cannabis and queerness have been part of the documented human experience for over thousands of years. Yet there is so much misinformation, assumptions and stigma around both. Core to the mission of The Source LGBT+ Center is to reduce stigma for the queer and trans community in Tulare/Kings Counties. Stigma and bias are often byproducts of a lack of awareness, humility, and education on issues that we are unfamiliar with. At The Source, we spend much of our time building relationships to educate folks
26
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
on the LGBTQ experience and this opportunity with Leaf Magazine seemed like a perfect opportunity to do that. In America, and especially now in California, we are at a point when we can begin to think critically about our views on previously taboo topics such as queerness and cannabis production. California laws are some of the most progressive and inclusive in the nation when it comes to LGBTQ rights and cannabis usage. With these new freedoms and protections comes new ideas, new experiences, new friendships, and new economic opportunities . The Source is contributing to our local economy with our unique events, grant awards, and most recently, by employing folx. Our signature event for the last 3 years has been Pride Visalia. In 2019 we had over 3,000 people at Pride. To put on a large successful community event takes funds, sponsorships, and community support. Pride Visalia contributes over $50,000 to the local economy. Additional economic benefit that we can’t quantify is the revenue generated by the many businesses at Pride and by the tourist dollars spent by travelling to participate. One of our most recent grants was from the California Department of Public Health to study barriers to medically assisted treatment for opioid disorder. That’s $50,000 we are using in our local economy and money to employ people, train providers, and address stigma, isolation and treatment for an epidemic raveging our communities. And true to our mission, we are using this grant
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
to save lives and make our area healthier. Visibility and funding are key to our strategy of achieving our mission. We believe that when everyone feels safe and included, we build lives that benefit their communities. The more people hear about the work we are doing and the people we have helped, the more empathy and familiarity they will have. The personal stories of people we’ve helped would touch your heart and inspire you. The Source LGBT+ Center and Leaf Magazine, both new arrivals in Central California, born of new freedoms, and forward thinking, are evidence of the changes ahead. I want to thank “Leaf Magazine ‘’ for believing in our mission to help uplift historically marginalized people and giving us this space to educate and inspire its readers. This is a platform we wouldn’t have had without the founders reaching out to us. It’s my vision that we enable a society where everyone feels safe, included, healthy and prosperous. I look forward to sharing our part in making that vision a reality. We look forward to sharing with you our stories in upcoming issues. And we are always here to help at The Source, you don’t have to be out to come in.
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
27
28
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
And the Winner Is... Staff Report
A late edition to the World Ag Expo in 2020 was the Hemp Innovation Challenge, a contest designed to promote the hemp industry and bring attention and support to the individuals and companies working to remake the world of hemp. An idea that was too good to wait until next year, the Hemp Innovation Challenge drew entries from 14 countries on five continents. “We were amazed to get so many high-quality hemp innovation submissions from all over the world in such a short period of time,” said Mike Reid, executive director of the Challenge. The winner of the inaugural Hemp Innovation Challenge was Victory Hemp Foods of Louisville, Kentucky. Earning it the honor was the company’s development of a pair of food additives made from hemp seed hearts and hemp oil. The company’s V-70 is a high-protein, high-fiber ingredient for products such as meat and dairy substitutes, and nutritional drink powders, that is also a source of Omega-3 polyunsaturated fat. Victory Hemp Foods’ Victory ONE Hemp Heart Oil is a “light-colored, mild and nutty-flavored” oil intended as an ingredient in not only foods, but also in skincare products.
Chad Rosen, Founder & CEO of Victory Hemp Foods and Mike Reid, Executive Director of the Hemp Innovation Challenge™ at the World Ag Expo® in Tulare, CA
Besides feedback from industry insiders and mentorship, Victory Hemp Foods also received a $5,000 check. “This award is the outcome of three years of work by many hands and minds with a singular focus,” said Victory Hemp Foods CEO and founder Chad Rosen. “As the agricultural industry tries to answer the question of how it will feed the world’s growing population in a way that benefits soil, water and air, as well as the health of our planet’s inhabitants, our innovation allows hemp to participate in that solution.” Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020 LEAF MAGAZINE CA
29
S T R AT E G Y
|
MARKETING
|
DESIGN
DRIVEN BY RESULTS PUBLISHER OF
MAGAZINE
STRATEG Y When you w ork us, you' r e ge tti n g a str ate gi c p ar tn e r to c o n su l t y o u in a ll a spect s of your c o mp an y. Fr o m star ti n g an e -c o mme r c e com pa ny, t o dev eloping a c o mp l e te mar ke ti n g p l an . We h ave th e expert ise t o guide you eve r y ste p o f th e way to e n su r e su stai n ab l e su c c e ss. MARKETI NG Toget her, w e' ll det erm ine go al s fo r o u r c amp ai gn , su c h as i n c r e ase d w ebsit e t ra f fi c or a grea t e r so c i al me d i a p r e se n c e , an d an e xe c u ti o n pla n t o im plem ent our str ate gi e s. Fr o m so c i al me d i a an d SEO to v ideos a nd ev ent s, w e take a fu l l -se r vi c e ap p r o ac h to mar ke ti n g a cr o ss man y c h an n e l s. DESI G N Our design t ea m a re expe r ts i n p r o d u c ts an d h o w b r an d s sh o u l d b e port ra yed. Whet her it be d i gi tal d e si gn , p ac kagi n g, b i l l b o ar d s, p r i n t m a t eria ls, or sa les t ool s, we h ave th e c ap ab i l i ty an d c r e ati vi ty to crush a ny p r o j e c t y o u c an th r o w at u s.
559.500.1332 | LEAFMEDIACA.COM
A
30
M U LT I D I S C I P L I N A R Y
M E D I A
C O M P A N Y
STRATEGY & PLANNING
DIGITAL MARKETING
DESIGN
MEDIA
PRODUCTION
Research
SEO
Responsive Web Design
TV/Radio Buying
Video Production
Marketing Plan Creation
Remarketing
Identity Design
Print Buying
TV Production
Strategic Thinking
Social Media
Digital Design
Contract Management
Print Production
Branding
Ad Design
Radio Production
Content Creation
Packaging Design
Billboard Production
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older.
MARCH APRIL 2020  LEAF MAGAZINE CA
31
19535 Avenue 344 | Woodlake, CA 93286
CURRENT STRAINS (available in bulk)
DOSIDOS
GARANIMALS
Hybrid Indica Dominant
Hybrid Indica Dominant
COMING SOON: PRE-ROLL CARTONS
1/8TH OZ. JARS
Do-Si-Dos
NET WEIGHT: 5 GRAMS (0.17 OUNCES) 7 PRE ROLLS | THC 25.0% | CBD 0.06%
FOR MORE VISIT: www.7points.biz 32
LEAF MAGAZINE CA MARCH APRIL 2020
Keep out of reach of children. For use only by adults 21 years of age and older