ROOTING Where's Your Tree?

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How we tell our stories maps the vast terrain of expression in my quest for sustainable art and life practices. I'm an urban daughter born in Philadelphia and "adopted" by New York City before Brooklyn was "hip and trendy."  Currently, Newark is home. I also have abundant love for green 'scapes to sanctuaries nestled in Vermont, New Hampshire, and upstate New York.  The beaches of Provincetown, MA, and Los Cabos, Mexico, are for me, spacious sites of desire and renewal. 

Within these settings, I began to understand the relationship between the science of (UTC) Urban Tree Canopies and how the lack of shade and cooler temperatures, (because of fewer trees) contribute to stifling city heat, stress, and poor health. Healthy, green habitats encourage less violence and balance the ecosystem by attracting butterflies, birds, and bees and leafy canopies generate good feelings.
 

Through the interdisciplinary testimonials that inform my creative practices as writer/media artist/essayist/poet, I document and affirm, the sustainable future of BIPOC peoples. My work creates tools, programs, and funding opportunities, that improve the lives of artists and communities of color in partnership with our collective moral responsibility to the planet.

An author of several performance works, my work is featured in the critically acclaimed anthology Blacktino Queer Performance, Duke Univ. Press and Dust: murmurs and a play. Other recent publications include:   

Works Of Resistance/About Place Journal , African Voices Tribute to Ntozake Shange, Cranky Chariots, Akashic Books, and Anthropology of Consciousness. Public art projects include Calling The World, a “dial a poem” event by Poetry Society of America with Saint Flashlight; LIVE Art US , and For Whom It Stands among others.

I am also a devoted educator, keynote speaker, and social entrepreneur whose methods, workshops, and programs are committed to shaping actionable outcomes for diverse audiences comprised of young people, college students, families, and the curious of all ages.  Currently, I'm Adjunct Assistant Professor/Writing Faculty at Montclair State University and former faculty at New York University and Goddard College in Vermont. 

In 2020-21, Where’s Your Tree? received the Newark Creative Catalyst Arts Fund Grant to develop and promote creative engagement for the city during the challenging (ongoing) era of the Covid-19 pandemic. My project, Radical Rejuvenation / Gather in the Company of Trees, was imagined as a docu-drama series comprised of three (3) episodes of collected interviews with local residents, artists, healers, and food growers. This project, along with the podcast series (now archived) remain the first-step measure for creating restorative forums and “mediating tools” that have always been my vision since launching Where's Your Tree? 

I am a Portland-based artist and consultant specializing in providing strategic resilience to organizations, individuals, and projects. As the non-profit landscape shifts due to COVID-19, I continue to educate myself on what real, just, equitable change looks like across the non-profit sector.  I am White-bodied, cisgender, intersectional crone with a lifelong commitment to service. 

Drawing on a lifetime of experience with working with narrative, Meg provides the finely-tuned sensitivity and creative perspective of an interdisciplinary artist and brings the organized and practical approach of an experienced producer to all of her work. She is irrepressibly curious and deeply committed to the communities where she works and lives. 

In addition to his recent stellar work as Audio/Sound Editor for the Radical Rejuvenation series, Ian’s other current projects include a collaboration with the Degenerate Art Ensemble titled, “Skeleton Flower,” a new theater performance which is a semi-autobiographical exploration of a creative person’s struggle with identity, depression and the awakening of personal power. It is set to premiere In New York some time in 2021. Further collaboration with the ensemble includes “Symbiosis” a special collaboration between the directors of Degenerate Art Ensemble Haruko Crow Nishimura with visual and performance artist Senga Nengudi and musician and performer Eddy Kwon. The work is an ongoing project currently under development at Colorado College. 

Two short experimental films, "Waking the Green Sound: a dance film for the trees" and “Tidal” was a collaboration with Yulia Arakelyan and Erik Ferguson of Wobbly Dance, the dancer Grant Miller, and the band Sweetmeat. They are currently making the rounds in streaming film festivals.

He has alsoworks for the University of Washington’s Continuum College, editing hundreds of online education video courses on a range of subjects from environmentalism and climate change to women in entrepreneurial leadership to experimental arts.Two short experimental films are currently making the rounds in streaming film festivals.