The initial concept for Yellow Ribbon took root, in partnership with Kent County Veterans Services, as we set our sights on ArtPrize 2020. Over the next few months, this community-based work involved ten veteran art workshops across West Michigan. We initially planned six workshops, but the interest level kept growing; veterans and their families felt…
For the Girls Up motivational talk with Healing in Arts, I began by sharing how, as a 22-year-old, I was considering an art graduate program on the West coast. But I decided to reset my values and goals, changing directions. Instead, I went to Japan, to teach Japanese people how to speak English. After my…
We shared one of our community projects and the corresponding lesson about swimming against the flow of culture with artist Dawn Baker from Alert Ministries. Alert creatively services incarcerated teenage boys at a Dallas juvenile detention center. Due to increased restrictions because of the pandemic, we encouraged Alert to actively seek permission to get the…
We are honored to create Stories, a collaboration with Youth For Christ and MDV Housing, located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. For this collective project, students within YFC’s program painted their own unique story on a wooden tile to include in the collage. The work emphasizes the importance of our personal stories and how our narratives define…
Divorce may be easy to obtain, but it wasn’t always that way. In 1979, Michigan’s law stated that a couple needed to wait a year before obtaining a divorce. Why? Because even the state recognized that everyone benefited when families stayed together. Plus, divorce always incurs a cost, though I’m not talking about dollars. A…
Military families tie yellow ribbons around trees to welcome soldiers returning home. Continuing this tradition as a veteran’s wife, a military mom, and an artist, I designed the art exhibit Yellow Ribbon, which expanded into additional veteran art workshops for artists and non-artists, sponsored by Kent County Veterans Services. Because of the veteran’s invisible battles…
Monarch butterflies contribute to the health of our planet by pollinating many types of wildflowers. But in order to survive the harsh winters, the monarch butterflies migrate from Canada to Mexico and back to Canada; it may take up to six generations for butterflies to complete the 6000 mile round trip. Once the butterflies reach…