Fox Haven Farm yard art and solstice wreaths

I love this time of year, don’t you? The plants and trees doing their thing, resting and building strength for the coming Spring. The visual splendor of the naked branches is tickling my eyes! 

In light of this-I’ve been thinking of the wonderful people out at Fox Haven Farm who participated in my yard art with vines workshop last spring and the awesome sculptures that they created for their gardens. I would love to see their work in the spaces that they lived in this Summer.

So yesterday I received an invite to propose a workshop at Fox Haven for 2018 and I started thinking about Springtime herbal wreaths and was looking around to see how to create a wreath. In doing so I realized that by now the leaves have given way and there should be an awesome vine framework on which to build a wreath! Repurposed vines, repurposed artwork!

If anyone has pics please share them with me carylhenryalexander@gmail.com

And if you create a wreath with your vine sculpture-let me know! Enjoy the season

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#PartyatthePolls at Upper Marlboro Community Center

Today we did a pop up art event at our local polling place. 
We participated in #PartyatthePolls! 
It was fun! Until there were no ballots for people to cast their votes....for hours!
Our challenge was the rules against electioneering within 50ft of the poll. I don't think that was what we were doing but the rule caused us to not have access to the voters as they waited to vote.

I heard about #PartyatthePolls on social media. 
#PartyAtThePolls, is a nationwide initiative for artists to help make voting fun by offering opportunities for voters to be creative and experience creativity before-during-after they cast their ballots.
This National event looked like an awesome opportunity to engage with our super local residents.




Goals: Most importantly to increase the profile and conversation around art-poetry and creativity in South County  and to share through social media in the National conversation.

We are 4 South PG County creatives, artists Caryl Henry and John Lee Ranta and poets Jesse Alexander and Hiram Larew  with a special guest poet Rocky Jones from Annapolis!

 

Our site was the Upper Marlboro Community Center-5400 Marlboro Race Track Road, Upper Marlboro, MD 20772- polling site, from 5-8pm.

The poets read poems, folks wrote about why they vote and Lee and I concentrated on conversations with voters on their way into the poll and taking celebratory selfies with them as they left. Interesting conversation were had, we met new artists that we had not known.

Most folks just wanted to vote and go home-we had a good time-learned a lot and definitely lifted up the visibility of artists in our area! Thanks to the artists and poets and our community for participating!

This Paint Branch Trail Mural is Magic

This week, I have been working with PGParks and the College Park Scholars program. 
Here is the wall as I saw it during an initial site visit!

We painted a 40ft mural in an afternoon!

It was an awesome energy that came down the trail with 21 first year students on their first day after moving into the dorms!

Motivated, excited, confident, communicative and collaborative! 

I asked the students to create 3 groups of 7 folks and to each take 1/3 of the mural to paint. Each group strategized and developed a plan of action.

The results are spectacular!

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Syep 2018

Yesterday was the culminating workday with my Prince Georges County Summer Youth Employment Program team.

The 14-18 years olds have been clearing honeysuckle, grapevine, bittersweet and lots of mugwort off of trees and out of the ground in the local trail.

I heard today that they have removed 10000 sq ft in their 4 week project! Wow that is awesome! This work makes our trails much safer!

So my part in all of this was to work with SYEP in the afternoons 2x a week to create a collaborative public sculpture to live on a tree along the Anacostia river in the parks Art on the Trails project. We worked with the vines that they were pulling each morning and natural twine.

 

My idea was to create an imagination provocation, a visual element that sparks creative thinking! The work would be installed on a mock pear tree that is set to die because it is crowding out 3 native trees at Bladensberg Waterfront Park. This project springs from the 2015 "Listen" Art on the Trails project.

I visioned the workshops to be like a quilting bee or a tamale making party. Everyone has a role that is essential for the whole project to be a success, and a safe space to share stories.

Most days the youth were pretty tired from their morning's work pulling weeds.For the first few workshops, we were under the tree that we were creating the artwork to hang onto. Later in the week, as the rain really set in we worked under the park's awesome pavilion.

There were a few opportunities for interesting conversations around higher education and safety when playing sports. The hand work was sparse as the young people were captivated by their phones but with the support of a couple of the group leaders ultimately the project is wonderful!

PAPERMAKING Sacred Creative-Nature-Time

THIS PAST SATURDAY GRATITUDE GARDEN:
Papermaking with natural materials workshop!

Yep!

Relaxed-Shared Creative-Nature-Time

Beautiful handmade paper

 

   

Material evidence

Plant Fiber and water, moderate temps....

Gratitude Garden Papermaking This Coming Saturday July 7

This Heat is so crazy!

In response the garden is very interesting!! 

So, 

I can safely say that there is definitely

lots of fiber for papermaking!

I'm so happy to be processing plant fiber for the
Gratitude Garden Papermaking day!
It's on for this coming Saturday July 7.

I've started gathering and processing plant fiber and we will also do some of that too!




Heat or not the traditional papermaking processes is full of water and actually keeping me a bit cooler than expected!

 Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/caryl-henry-alexander-artist-with-purpose-invites-you-to-gratitude-garden-2018-tickets-44822253567

UPDATE:Fox Haven Farm Garden Charms Workshop

I was happily surprised to receive this awesome text from Stacie!
Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful creation! @FoxHavenFarm

Hi this is Stacie. I took your Fox Haven class a couple months ago. Kim shared your number with me. Just wanted to thank you for helping me with my birth alter. It is complete and is amazing!

The Yard Art and Charms workshop was really great.

 We took a garden walk together and checked out some of the more voluptuous plants currently, the Winter squash and the mullen.

 

We also visited our Mother’s Garden which is moving into it’s second bloom with calendula-echenecia-borage-hostas. I also got some good advise for my under performing plants. I was so happy to share the garden space with plant loving creative folks!

When we went into the studio, creativity rose up and came out in really amazing ways for each participant. 

Herbal Dream Pillow for Kirtrina and Stanley's new married life!

Made with love for these two wonderful people!

Ain't LOVE grand!

 The cloth is indigo dyed, from Abiokuta, Nigeria

The herbal recipe was divined by me and each small pillow is filled with herbs!

 

It was so much fum sewing the pillow by hand, It reminded me of hanging and sewing with my grandmother in her basement sewing room. It was free wheeling sewing this time with stitches going where they needed to go!

It's ALL about LOVE!