The Thread Vol 1. – The Breakdown
Nostalgia With Purpose: Luke's Local's Recipe for Modern Community
The Client: Luke’s Local
When does a business partnership transcend the typical agency-client relationship? When it becomes less about transactions and more about shared values. For McCalman.Co and Luke's Local, what began as a packaging design engagement, evolved into a full spectrum partnership. Because McCalman.Co has always known Luke's Local as an ethics-focused business reshaping community commerce.
The Luke's Local origin story is pure San Francisco innovation: a tale of shared kitchens circa 2010, where Luke literally wore a milkman outfit to deliver handcrafted meals.
"We were collaborating with incredibly talented chefs who were launching their own products," Luke recalls.
As a one-person grocery operation, Luke sourced ingredients, coordinated with rotating chefs, and created a dynamic, ever-changing menu that was revolutionary in its approach. "I'd go out shopping for ingredients, source everything, bring it back so chefs could show up with everything ready," he explains. Working alongside his college friend Jimmy and rotating chefs, they created a menu that was "nuts and didn't work"—but was absolutely groundbreaking.
At the heart of Luke's Local lies a fundamental philosophy: technology and expertise mean nothing without human connection. "Every business that has attempted to disrupt food has failed if they don't understand and appreciate the humility, the human connection, the emotions that come with food," Luke reflects. This ethos is embodied by Kayleigh, an operational mastermind who never sought leadership but believes in a deliberate and nuanced approach. "I'm trying to do things the way I would want them done," she explains. Like a classic hero emerging from obscurity, her leadership style unfolded as an unexpected journey. "I remember getting to know the team, and it just felt like a place I enjoyed being," Kayleigh recalls, so much so that she found herself looking forward to Mondays, a sentiment most would consider unimaginable.
She's skeptical of blind technological optimization, preferring human interaction over efficiency for its own sake. "We'll probably never implement self-checkout," she asserts, "because that just removes another human element."
Their approach to community is profound. By engaging with neighborhood associations and local residents, Luke's Local creates more than just stores—they craft gathering spaces. "Grocery is one of those things that really brings people together," Luke notes, understanding retail as a mechanism for community building.
In a world of algorithmic interactions, Luke's Local represents something revolutionary: a business that sees beyond profit to purpose. McCalman.Co has been their partner in translating this philosophy into an authentic brand. Technology meets humanity, commerce meets community—this is a narrative written not in marketing language but in the genuine desire to create spaces that matter. Spaces that nourish not just bodies, but the heart of a community.
Image courtesy of lavathomas.com
‘If One Has Courage, Nothing Can Dim The Light From Within’
The Client: Lava Thomas
Multimedia artist Lava Thomas could’ve quit making art long ago and still walked away a success. Her work had already been shown in some of the largest galleries across the world. She was a highly sought-after collaborator and her name doesn’t just open doors; it fills seats.
However, success for an artist can be difficult to define. It’s not financial; it’s innate, it's hunger, a yearning. It’s almost biblical in its enormity. So the work will always remain and because the fire doesn’t dim the meaning, the reason for it all gets worked out in the process.
“My process is not purely intellectual, it is spiritual, intuitive, and intellectual,” Thomas said. “It's almost like the intellect helps bring form to the spiritual and the intuition.”
For Thomas, the dance between the otherworldly, the cerebral, and the intrinsic is a delicate and informal waltz that finds refuge inside any of her artistic mediums (which include but are not limited to) drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and site-specific installations.
Born in Los Angeles, a few years into the Civil Rights Movement, it’s fitting that Thomas’s work focuses on her family’s Southern heritage, African-American protest, intersectional feminism, and contemporary as well as historical socio-political circumstances. Her work centers on amplifying visibility, healing, and empowerment - in direct response to experiences of trauma, erasure, and oppression.
“Her work centers Black experience, mining personal and national histories to recover and amplify erased voices and facilitate healing,” Thomas told Alta. “The elegant balance of research and the experiential requires her to act as historian, writer, storyteller, archivist, and—whether she likes it or not—activist.”
“I look at history as being cyclical, especially in this country,” Thomas said. “The bulk of my practice is really about uncovering, unearthing these hidden histories of Black women.”
Most recently, Thomas unveiled “Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman” –a tribute to the late Dr. Maya Angelou–outside the San Francisco Public Library’s main branch. The 9-foot-tall bronze monument was shaped like a book and featured Thomas’s rendition of Angelou based on a photo taken of the author during an interview with then White House press secretary Bill Moyers.
Thomas’s offering also includes a quote from Angelou’s 1978 poem “Still I Rise” on the front and a quote from an interview on how libraries changed Angelou’s life.
“Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So, the library helps you to see not only that you are not alone but that you’re not really any different from everyone else. There may be details that are different, but a human being is a human being.”