During the late summer of 2022, I had the honor of facilitating a writing workshop called Changing Bodies, Changing Landscapes at Pepperwood Preserve's Dwight Center for Conservation Science, in Santa Rosa, CA.
bell hooks wrote that love is "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." I believe that creative pursuits are spiritual growth and that creating art is a necessary part of community building. This group was all love, all circles, all growth. They gave and they got and they built. I am humbled by each of them and their brilliant, dazzling words.
We investigated the life of Bay Trees, native grasses and learned about Native fire practices and the ecology of disturbance. We shared and revised our work, often leaning into ecological principals to guide us. We read and listened to the voices of queer, disabled, Black, Indigenous, People of Color and trans writers. I am thrilled to announce the names of my writing cohort and add their work to the local ecology of writing:
Wana Shue, Mahea Campbell, Tessa Rissacher, Jess Morell, Kelly Gray, Ruby Warnock, Nicole "Nica Celly" Markoff and Meghan Ashley Peterman (from right to left in the photo). We each want to thank the team at ArtSurround and Creative Sonoma for funding this beautiful journey, you create a home for artists in Sonoma County and we are so deeply grateful. Deepest thanks to the warm and welcoming humans of Pepperwood Preserve and the Wappo people’s whose traditional homeland we wrote on.
bell hooks wrote that love is "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." I believe that creative pursuits are spiritual growth and that creating art is a necessary part of community building. This group was all love, all circles, all growth. They gave and they got and they built. I am humbled by each of them and their brilliant, dazzling words.
We investigated the life of Bay Trees, native grasses and learned about Native fire practices and the ecology of disturbance. We shared and revised our work, often leaning into ecological principals to guide us. We read and listened to the voices of queer, disabled, Black, Indigenous, People of Color and trans writers. I am thrilled to announce the names of my writing cohort and add their work to the local ecology of writing:
Wana Shue, Mahea Campbell, Tessa Rissacher, Jess Morell, Kelly Gray, Ruby Warnock, Nicole "Nica Celly" Markoff and Meghan Ashley Peterman (from right to left in the photo). We each want to thank the team at ArtSurround and Creative Sonoma for funding this beautiful journey, you create a home for artists in Sonoma County and we are so deeply grateful. Deepest thanks to the warm and welcoming humans of Pepperwood Preserve and the Wappo people’s whose traditional homeland we wrote on.
This project will be partially funded by a grant through Creative Sonoma's ArtSurround project, a new collaborative effort among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to enhance Sonoma County’s creative vitality by supporting artists and infusing the arts into our public realm.