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…
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…
Every year, monarch butterflies embark on a dangerous, 3000 mile journey from Canada to Mexico. Somehow, millions of delicate butterflies successfully complete the dangerous trip in spite of severe weather, pesticides, and habitat loss. The butterflies ride the air currents about 50 to 100 miles a day on the two month trip in order to…