Food is Love - A Valentine's Weekend Edition

Food is Love

A tale of Art, Love, Family, Inspiration and Purpose.

Does life imitate art or does art imitate life? Does Art inspire emotions or do emotions inspire Art? How does answering these questions have anything to do with an up and coming brand like //MOVEMENT? The connection begins in the place where first experiences, lessons and maps of our lives are often first given direction: parents.

The Project that //MOVEMENT is co-sponsoring today is with artist Elio Mercado, or as he is known in the art world, Evoca1. His ongoing project that //MOVEMENT is helping out with today is called 3rd Sunday for Hunger and it’s been an going project that has been happening in Miami for over 3 years now. Initially it was just a small group of people trekking through the downtown area of Miami with food in hand just looking to show some love by way of some food and a smile. Elio first learned about giving back and doing something bigger than himself from his father. He was just a boy in his single digits still when he saw his dad giving. His dad worked in the restaurant business in New York and despite not having much, when he went back to his home country of Dominican Republic he gave freely. Not because he had so much, but because he saw how little so many others had and understood how we are all connected. It’s often been said that those that have less give more and this was something that Elio saw from an early age; more than being seen, he was inspired as he saw his father looked up to by many because of his generosity and desire to help people. Having witnessed this and been inspired by this at a young age, little did he know that it would inspire his Art or more so his Art Name “Evoca1” later in life.

The name “Evoca1” comes from the Spanish word Evocar or in English Evoke. The idea behind the name is that his art is meant to inspire or “evoke” inspiration in at least one. Each piece he does is not about conveying a certain story but to inspire or evoke an emotion. Elio’s own inspiration in his work is not about a tangible subject but about an emotion at a time of the piece and how that manifest itself via his work serves its purpose: to evoke. On days like today it evoked more than 1 to come out and help. I counted easily over 30 people out and as a result hundreds of homeless people were fed today. It seems to continue to grow and this year Elio and wife Yuri have plans to branch out beyond just food but I’ll let them reveal those plans themselves in time.

I don’t know how big this will grow but //MOVEMENT was excited to help out with this project today and there is something here that should give us all hope and I can say with certainty has a direct inspiration of hope for //MOVEMENT: if you believe in something, as small an impact as you think you can make, do not be afraid to put your ideas out there and into motion because the one commonality with all great movements is that they started as a single idea from one person who was bold enough to put them self out there to be judged. So I ask you the question: what is art? We know it as painting, dancing, music and many other common definitions but does it stop there? Art is in fact so much more. Art is an idea of one manifested externally and put on display for the world to see. It says come and see me. Come and judge me. I am putting myself out there to be seen and this is who I am. Art is the ability to be bold and create something that has not been done before. It is but one person, one vision, one idea and one purpose that stands up to be seen. For Elio, 3rd Sunday for Hunger came from him wanting to make an impact and someone telling him they gave a homeless person a sandwich once and that small idea grew in him as the inspiration that showed him it could be done, with his vision as an artist to create and the idealism of what the makeup of him was from when he was a boy and saw his own father pay it forward. This is why //MOVEMENT wanted to help. Our part was small; we bought most of the food that was passed out today but it was much more than that in that we supported one person’s growing dream to make an impact. It’s the same vision that //M has in that we want to look for places where good and a helping hand is needed and do our part to help. Much like Art has no externally obvious correlation to feeding the homeless, nor does a fitness studio have to do with trying to spawn grassroots philanthropy causes which pay it forward. Look closer however and you will see that the lack of connections seen is exactly the reason why everyday people doing everyday things need to continue doing them: because as the world has grown our sense of community is becoming lost and the underlying yet obvious fact remains and needs to be revitalized and refocused upon. We are one. We are all connected. We are all the same. If enough of us believe and stride to rebuild these connections then perhaps we will make an impact, we will leave this world a little bit better than we found it and we will shift the world-think motto to believe that we is the new me and with this, we will have begun, a…

//MOVEMENT

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Check out more on Elio and his purpose at Evoca1.com