Arts Council is proud to serve as a fiscal agent for How to Feed an Artist.

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How DO you feed an artist? For twenty years, the protagonist of our story, Mary Haglund, used her restaurant to feed the artists of her community, (Winston-Salem, NC) by employing them and supporting their artistic careers.

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In many ways, this story is an honest and personal love letter to the restaurant industry: a literal life line for so many in the art community. An overwhelming number of emerging and even experienced, recognized artists cannot survive on commissions from their art alone and have to take on other jobs, many finding themselves in the food service industry. Mary's Diner is a powerful example of a family-owned restaurant that embraced the artistic community, then BECAME the artistic community. Through interviews of the artists who worked there or found Mary’s Diner to be their community nerve-center, as well as integrating the artwork of these artists within the body of the film, we will tell the story not just of Mary, but how the Diner, in that moment in time, influenced, changed, challenged, inspired, protected, and saved these artists. And how they saved Mary.