Jamming fruit into art in Echo Park

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Wondering what to do with that bumper crop of fruit in your backyard?

This Sunday, the ever tasteful, always amusing Fallen Fruit art collective returns to Echo Park’s Machine Project for their third Public Fruit Jam.

All are invited for a free, hands-on tutorial on canning from noon to 3 p.m. To participate, just show up with some fruit -- fresh or frozen is fine, and homegrown is preferred -- along with clean, empty jars. Everybody leaves with a personal pot of the results, plus a little something extra to chew on.

For the last couple years, Fallen Fruit — made up of members David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young — have been, among other endeavors, mapping Los Angeles’ troves of “public fruit” — that which grows on or overhangs public lands.

The idea here is to use the communal act of cooking to help disconnected Angelenos reconnect with one another, their neighborhoods and nature. This explains why June found them making art out of vodka at a Bonelli Contemporary art gallery exhibit by infusing said spirits with authentic neighborhood flavor, a la Los Feliz Bitter Orange and Koreatown Kumquat.

This weekend, bring an equally playful palate.

“We are looking for radical and experimental jams as well, like basil guava or lemon pepper jelly,” the artists said in a recent e-mail. “We’ll discuss the basics of jam and jelly making, pectin and bindings, the aesthetics of sweetness, as well as the communal power of shared food and the liberation of public fruit.”

-- Mindy Farabee

Photo credit: Fallen Fruit art collective

To read more about the Machine Project’s 2007 tomato-music project, click here.