Notes of Graditude from "Food as a Social Construct" Oasis in the Woods.

 Oasis in the Woods Thank You Notes:

“For you, your skill and love and new friendship.”

“Thank you for such a beautiful experience and for allowing me to share in it.  Love you, Caryl!

For new friendship …. Especially you, Alpha!  Vickie

8.25.2024

“Alpha, you radiate beauty and love, and your presence is contagious. Your energy is magnificent, and I am blessed to have met you.” Conamor y respero- Davis

“Dear Alpha,

Thank you, a million times over, for welcoming me to Loiter Galleries and allowing me to help with a profit that made me feel like I was back home in Cape Cod. Being in this space reignited my fire and passion for creating a community when I was without one. There aren’t enough words to express my gratitude to you for this chance to connect.” VSanti. 

“Dear Alpha Caryl and Yaya. Love Happy. 

Thank you for the opportunity to experience this art exhibit event. It has opened my mind to the beauty & wonderful earth the lord has blessed us with; now, I can appreciate the water, wind, earth, and art.”

8/25/2024

“Thank you for the opportunity to experience this art exhibit event. It has opened my mind to the beauty and wonderful earth the lord has blessed us with; now, I can appreciate the water, wind, earth, plants, wood, and plants. It’s a good way to be creative. w/life and also appreciate the Earth Art”. 

8/25/2024

“Honor and glory to the team. It was a great pleasure to break bread and enjoy the peace of the occasion with you all. Thank you for the invite. Sharing my sister with everyone in your circle was an honor. I love you. Thank you very much”, Diana Bruton  

“If I was lonely, which I am, I have found beauty where you are. Thank you for the art, music, soul, and artistic beauty.  Sisters in Art & Soul

“Beautiful installation and ceremony; thank you for sharing the space.”

“Alpha brought me here, and she made all things possible. Seeing Alpha smile during the ceremonial dinner made all my expended energy worthwhile. The moments when we hold hands in gratitude are fleeting but expansive. I am grateful to know Alpha and her community. Love Community Gratitude”.

2024 Oasis in the Woods: “The Land” "Earth Art" Food as a Social Construct

Overview 

2024 Oasis in the Woods: “The Land” "Earth Art" is a living, creative, and cultural experiment with sustainable practice at its center. It is an incubator for the artist’s and community’s personal and collective transformation. Land art or earth art is an art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs. Land art, also known as earth art, is documented in artworks using photographs and maps, which the artist will use to exhibit in Loiter Galleries; for this project, artists will make land art in the gallery by bringing in material from the landscape and using it to create installations.

Theme: Oasis in the Woods: “The Land” "Earth Art" 

Loiter Galleries will host artists, dancers, musicians, and storytellers whose art is inspired by the land.  We have invited four artists who are curators of this work to exhibit their nature and environment-centered artworks at Loiter Galleries.

Our collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, “How will we rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live?” Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice's physical and psychological dimensions and impact. 

SELECTED ARTISTS IN THE COLLECTION

Caryl Henry Alexander- Clinton Maryland, Visual/Environmental Installation Artist

Alpha Bruton- Chicago, Illinois, Visual/Installation Artist

Happy/LA Hyder- Mendocino, California, Photograph

Jennifer Andrea "YAYA" Porras- Oakland/Sacramento, California, Multi-disciplinary Art Practice

Happy/LA Hyder from Mendocino, California, will install an exhibition of photographs and maps of The Land Retreat 2013 & 2023. The Land is a project facilitated by the Visual Arts Development Project/ International Society of Arter makers. 

International Society of Altar Making artists construct temporary installations curated by master altar makers, drawing on personal history. Envisioned to evoke the transformative value of historical and contemporary cultural traditions, the MAP's Gallery uses the power of myth, stories, and imagination to give voice to the universality of cultural traditions.

Co-curator Andrea Jennifer "YaYa" Porras was an artist and assistant at the MAP Gallery, where she was mentored and guided by master artist/Altar Maker Michelle Walker. YaYa, in her own right, has studied the traditions of her ancestry; she is an Aztecan dancer, an African-modern dancer, an actress, a poet, and an altar artist from Sacramento, California.

August 23, 24, 25th Join us as four artists culminate to exhibit their nature and environment-centered artworks at Loiter Galleries in downtown Long Beach, California.  

Sunday afternoon, we will celebrate and use food as a social construct with a sit-down dinner with Long Beach, California's favorite cook, Cecile's Catering, who inspires our menu! 

As someone who loves to cook and eat, I have always been fascinated by the cultural significance of food. Eating is not just about satisfying hunger; it is a social activity that brings people together and builds relationships. Food can evoke memories, create shared experiences, and reinforce cultural traditions.

"At this afternoon's salon, we will explore the role of food as a social construct and how meals play a crucial role in societal bonding. We have invited twenty-four guests, including gallery staff, members of our network, friends of the artists, and benefactors."

The closing on Sunday will feature storytelling and music and a de-installation of the artworks. 

● The environmental and social impact of the project.

 How your project directly explores or impacts environmental issues.

We have in mind a topic we have addressed in our curatorial practice, calling curators and installation artists to create temporary installations to examine the state of our environment. In addition, we are unraveling common patterns of activism aimed at rebuilding communities and remaking places, addressing the physical and psychological dimensions of environmental justice. 

 Our project directly explores the idea and focuses on the social impact of deep play and risk-taking play that serves to overcome fears and develop confidence as we explore this work. Exploration of natural or imagined environments versus the urban built environment and strategy play involves long-term planning to achieve a goal of temporary installation to design and develop infrastructure in placemaking. 

2013 "The Land" Retreat Auburn California, Anita P. Lowe Host. 

Caryl and Jessie Alexander, Host Rabiah Al Nur @ Potomac Riverkeeper Network 

2023 Breathe, viewing the river while enjoying each other and planning for Oasis in the Woods, Brandywine, Maryland. 

Host, Caryl Henry Alexander @ Juniper's Garden, Brandywine, Maryland

Happy/L.A. Hyder - Explores the Art of DEEP/RISKTAKING PLAY

Join us at Loiter Galleries in Long Beach, California, for "2024 Oasis in the Woods," a display of "Land Art" or "Earth Art"—the Art of Deep/Risktaking Play in the Environment. The Opening Ceremony will be on Friday, August 23rd, from 6-8 p.m. The exhibit will be open on Saturday, August 24th, from 1pm - 6pm and Will Close on Sunday, August 25th, from 2-6pm.

Happy/L.A. Hyder remembers taking her first serious photograph on a fourth grade school trip, leaning over the railing to focus on the swirling water below. She purchased her first serious camera in 1969; her latest series is from a trip to Japan for an exhibit in 2023. After 48 years in San Francisco, where she purchased that first camera, she moved to Mendocino on the North Coast of California.

    As a member of the Vida Gallery collective at the SF Women's Building, she produced her first installation in 1982. With Caryl Henry-Alexander, she created a labyrinth on the land in the first Oasis in Auburn, CA. Hyder says, 'Participating in this rendition of Oasis in the Woods is bringing all my creative senses and collaborative skills into play. I look forward to what we four bring together.'

   Hyder's self-portrait 'New Country Daughter/Lebanese American is published in 'Lesbian Art in America', Harmony Hammond, ed., and in the third and fourth editions of 'This Bridge Called My Back', Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, eds. She was the founder and served as director of LVA: Lesbians in the Visual Arts (1990-2003). Her writing is published in 'Arab & Arab American Feminisms', eds: Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Asultany, & Nadine Naber; 'Dispatches from Lesbian America, eds: Xequina Maria Berber, Giovanna Capone, Cheela Romain Smith.

Caryl Henry Alexander- Curator "Oasis in the Woods " Long Beach

 August 23rd - August 25th, 2024, Loiter Galleries, Long Beach, California. 

Visual Arts Development Project welcomes curator Caryl Henry Alexander as she presents and explores her installation from "Nzinga Nature Tour Oasis 2023", the topic of "Land Art" or "Earth Art" in a three-day installation.  

Caryl Henry was born in Highland Park, New Jersey, in 1955. She has been a practicing artist her whole life and has exhibited widely in galleries and museums in the US and abroad. 

Her practice focuses on social and environmental justice, women's rights, and cultural equity. She is a proud founding member of several artists and women's grassroots advocacy groups in the Bay Area. 

Her education is a mélange of traditional art schools, residencies, and collaborations with artists in communities internationally. She is a 1980s adapter of non-traditional arts education projects, including community public art and artists in the schools, and is a curator of storytelling art exhibitions. Caryl has also taught in art schools and universities and is today a mentor to many of her former students.

For the last two decades, Ms. Henry Alexander has focused on visually communicating our not-so-natural environment's catastrophic changes and its joys and sorrows. Today, her work is collaborative and leans into community, a sustainable world, and joy! 

Environmental art encompasses historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated works. It has evolved away from formal concerns, such as monumental earthworks using earth as a sculptural material, towards a deeper relationship to systems, processes, and phenomena related to social concerns.

Integrated social and ecological approaches developed as an ethical, restorative stance emerged in the 1990s. Over the past ten years, environmental art has become a focal point of exhibitions worldwide as climate change's social and cultural aspects come to the forefront.

What is Deep Play?

Play allows one to encounter risky or potentially life-threatening experiences, develop survival skills, and conquer fear.

This type of play is defined by play behavior that can also be considered risky or adventurous.  Deep play can happen alongside any of the other types of play – Creative play, communication play, dramatic play, exploratory play, fantasy play, locomotor play, imaginative play, mastery play, object play, recapitulative play, role play, rough and tumble play, social play, symbolic play, and socio-dramatic play. 

Learn more about the 16 play types in our blog post, “What are the Playwork Principles and Play Types?”

J. Andrea Porras / Yaya is a Queer, two-Spirit Curator

 

J. Andrea Porras / Yaya is a Queer, two-Spirit curator, producer, intersectional artist, and practitioner; with over 30 years of experience in performance, organizing, facilitation, grant making, grant reviewing, philanthropy, and mentoring. Porras curates’ visual exhibitions, creates site specific installations, ritual performance, teatro y flor y canto movimiento. 

Porras earned their B.A. from California State University Sacramento's Theater Dance and Cultural Anthropology Departments, where they specialized in Black, Indigenous, and Chicano Theater. They focused on acting, improv movement, playwriting, producing, and video documenting. 

They studied, taught, performed, and participated in Inter-Tribal ceremonies as Caribbean Danza Mexika traditional dancers predominantly connecting and building in Northern California across the Southwest and later in Cuba, Mexico, Africa, and New York.

Arts Administration: 

Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. They served as the city's Arts Education coordinator and later Co-founded, Directed, and Facilitated a Roots, Altars, and Movement course at World Arts Space. 

Arts Grant Specialist for the California Arts Council, where they managed a portfolio totaling approximately $9 million in funding per year. 

I am an agent for BIPOC communities as a member of the Caltrans Office of Race and Equity, Native American Liaison Branch Headquarters. 

University of Davis Education Opportunity Program recruited them as student teachers/peer mentors in Ethnic Studies, Acting, Chicano Theater, Cultural Anthropology, and African African-Caribbean dance. 

Philanthropic focus: 

They have offered intersectional multimedia art between edutainment and story sharing, storytelling ceremonies through solo and collaborations for over 25 years. 

Porras co-founded Movimiento Molcajete (1997) Contemporary Indigenous Teatro Co. & MA Series Arts (2018), a 501c3 non-profit MA Series Arts nonprofit 2018: dedicated to supporting performance, research & practice by women y queers of color, honoring the full spectrum of cultural and gender identities.

Action manager, community, and art gallery curator at Taller Arte del Nuevo. TANA is based in the rural community of Woodland, CA.

Oasis in the Woods 2024 "Land Art" or "Earth Art"

 Loiter Galleries, 425 Promenade North, Long Beach, California- Monica Fleming and Vinny Picardi. 

 "Land Art" or "Earth Art" involves creating art directly within the landscape, sculpting the land, or using natural materials like rocks and twigs to build structures. It is an ongoing cultural and sustainable experiment that serves as a platform for artists and the community to foster personal and collective transformation.

This exhibition will feature images and elements from Junipers Garden's Oasis in the Woods Environmental Installation, including photographs and maps from the 2013 "The Land" installation." As part of this project, artists will create "Land Art" or "Earth Art" within the gallery using materials from the landscape, resulting in unique installations.

Theme: 

Earth art, also called Land art or Earthworks, is an American movement that uses the natural landscape to create site-specific structures, art forms, and sculptures. The movement was an outgrowth of Conceptualism and Minimalism: the beginnings of the environmental movement and the rampant commoditization of American art in the late 1960s influenced ideas and works that were, to varying degrees, divorced from the art market. In addition to the monumentality and simplicity of Minimalist objects, the artists were drawn to the humble everyday materials, the participatory "social sculptures" that stressed performance and creativity in any environment.

SELECTED ARTISTS IN THE COLLECTION

Caryl Henry Alexander- Visual/Environmental Installation Artist

Alpha Bruton- Visual/Installation Artist

L.A. Happy Hyder- Photograph

Jennifer Andrea "YAYA" Porras- Multi-disciplinary Art Practice

Our collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, "How do we rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live?" Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice, social and psychological dimensions, and impact.

• From August 21st to 23rd, 2024, Installation begins. 
• On Friday, August 23,  6-9 pm, Opening Ceremony, the Gathering  
• On Saturday, August 24th, from 1pm to 6pm, stories of their experiences and how their installations came together, exploring the elements of air/earth/fire/water. 
• On Sunday, August 25th, from 2pm to 6pm, Salon and Closing Ceremony 

● The environmental and social impact of the project.

We consider the topics of air, earth, fire, and water. Our project directly explores the idea and focuses on the social impact of deep play and risk-taking play that serves to overcome fears and develop confidence as we explore this work. 

Exploration of natural air/earth/fire/water or imagined environments versus the urban built environment and strategy play involve long-term planning to achieve a goal of temporary installation to design and develop infrastructure in placemaking. What does this mean? What are we saying?

○ The public engagement component is free and open to the public. 

Guest Curators:

Caryl Henry Alexander,   

For more than 40 years, Caryl has worked as a powermaker in creative collaboration with multi-generational, multicultural, and interfaith communities to conceive, design, and implement community art projects in diverse public settings around the globe. In the studio, Caryl's work includes printmaking, papermaking, textiles, installations, and sculptures. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant matter. Out in the community, she combines her roles as a visual artist, teaching artist, curator, researcher, lecturer, writer, and social activist to support communities in clarifying their shared goals and turning their ideas into one. Her long-term focus is on culture, environment, and nature. She has exhibited throughout the US and abroad. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials.

Alpha Bruton, 

Chief Curator Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, the Phantom Galleries are temporary exhibitions in nontraditional settings. The mission of PGCN is to promote the visual arts community, encourage personal growth and excellence in artists, and support cultural activities through exhibits, workshops, galleries, art centers, and artist residency projects. Before relocating to Chicago from Sacramento, California, she co-founded the Visual Arts Development Project (VADP), an art service organization that develops projects as living experiments for sustainable practices and as an incubator for personal and collective transformation. The Visual Arts Development Project is a community-based art organization that provides resources, workshops, and venues for children, adults, and emerging artists to showcase and express their art.

Jennifer Andrea "YAYA" Porras- Holds a BFA in Theater/Dance Arts from CSU- Sacramento. 

During her studies in the American Southwest, she was a cultural ambassador, arts educator, and performing artist in China, Mexico, Africa, and Cuba. A multi-tale ted artist who has received Fellowships from Teatro Campesino, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), was a youth mentor and video documenter for the Center for African Peace Conflict Resolution. Curator of the International Society of Altar Making artist constructs temporary installations curated by master altar makers drawing on personal history. Envisioned to evoke the transformative value of historical and contemporary cultural tradition, MAP Gallery uses myth, stories, and imagination to give voice to the universality of cultural traditions.

 L. A. Happy Hyder, executive director of Lesbians in the Visual Arts, has been an arts activist and fine art photographer in the Bay Area for over thirty years. She taught herself photography with a Hasselblad camera in 1971 (the same year she learned to belly dance) and has been developing her craft ever since. 

She is an artist using the camera as her tool and the negative as her canvas. Loving the intricacies of architecture, I seek the same in nature. Every day since spring 2016 (my first in Mendocino following 47 years in San Francisco), I have been ecstatic as I have become physically and visually immersed in this vibrant area. I claim the pictorialist photographers' 1950s Life Magazine as 1950s; their crisp, sometimes stark, B&W images began my love of photography, informing my budding vision and, to this day, making me exact in my choice of image to take and to print.

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Why Race Matters: Black Farmers and Land Ownership

ARTgrove Vol 8 - Dia de Los Muertos 2023

Reposted blog article by Teresa Gutierrez | Nov 3, 2021, |

This is a celebration of the Mexican traditional cultural holiday Dia de Los Muertos, where we honor our dearly departed with altars displaying photos and all of their favorite items, along with a cultural Azteca blessing and festivities.

 “Dia de Los Muertos,” a first-of-its-kind cultural creative event put on by ARTners nonprofit in Elk Grove, CA, and sponsored by the City of Elk Grove, Elk Grove Arts Commission, Elk Grove Diversity and Inclusion Commission, and SMUD. The event occurred at Old Town Plaza in Old Elk Grove. The event was well accepted, with approximately 1000 attended on October 29, 2023. We received so much gratitude from the community, thanking ARTners for contributing to our community culturally and creatively. The artwork was reviewed and received many compliments. Also, the vendors, performers, and DJ received many compliments.

Meaning: Dia De Los Muertos is a Mexican traditional holiday that has evolved from Indigenous rituals, and throughout the centuries, it has been infused with religion and regional traditions. It is currently observed in Mexico, the United States, and globally. 

How we celebrate: Families build “altares” (altars) to welcome the spirits of our loved ones back to the earthly realm, providing “ofrendas” (offerings) such as fragrant marigolds and incense,  Pan de Muerto, and objects they enjoyed while living among us. Also, “Calaveras and calacas” were placed on altars to represent those who passed. 

 

Chantel Bennett Joins "Oasis in the Woods" 2023 Retreat

My name is Chantel Bennett, and my preferred pronouns are she/her. I hold a Master's degree in Social Work. I believe in dreaming before thinking as you climb the ladder of trust and power. This is beautifully captured in the words of Toni Morrison.

Chantel (she/her) is a Caribbean-American multidisciplinary artist and spiritual diviner. She hasn't found a medium she won't try at least once and often cycles through periods of focusing on one or three mediums more than others. She is currently focusing on fiber arts and collage.

 

After learning how to knit through TikTok and YouTube University, she is working on replacing her storebought sweaters and knitwear with clothes she knit or crocheted herself. She learned how to crochet from her mother at a young age and often has at least two fiber projects going at once. 

She uses collages for emotional expression and has led therapeutic art journaling and collaging sessions for over 7 years. After completing her Master's in Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in May 2023, she plans to become an art therapist and incorporate creative self-expression into her therapy practice.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

Grandmother's Circle, "Those That Help Us Find Our Way"

How will we rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable living places? 

Six artists will answer this question with land-based art installations during a week-long artist residency at Juniper's Garden. 

FEATURED ARTISTS AND GUEST CURATOR ALPHA BRUTON

Alpha Bruton, 2012 Wanderlust, in a German Garden 

Alpha Bruton, phantomgallerychicago@gmail.com,  

Chief Curator Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, the Phantom Galleries, are temporary exhibitions in nontraditional gallery settings. The mission of the (PGCN) is to promote the betterment of the visual arts community through the arts, promote personal achievement in striving for excellence and continual growth as an artist, and promote cultural activities in exhibits, workshops; galleries exhibitions; art centers; artists in residence projects. 

She is the Co-founder of the Visual Arts Development Project (VADP), formed in 1996. It is an art service organization - that develops projects as living experiments for sustainable practices and an incubator for personal and collective transformation. Visual Arts Development Project is a community-based art organization that provides children, adults, and emerging artists with resources, workshops, and venues to show and express their art form. 

Oasis in the Woods is a 2-Day Arts Festival Showcasing 

2023 Environmental Installations Artists and Celebrating the Summer Solstice!

Mark your calendars now & stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks!

Brought to you by @junipersgarden, @carylhenryalexander, @Phantomgallerychicago. @liminal.grace

 ELEMENTS FROM THE ARCHIVES 2013 "THE LAND" 

Fire Pit, Found Objects Repurposed, 2013 @ Bruton

Grandmother's Circle, installation, 2013 @ Bruton 

Labyrinth by Caryl Henry Alexander,  Happy Hyder, 2013

What is the spiritual meaning of a labyrinth? A labyrinth is an ancient symbol of wholeness. The imagery of the Circle and spiral combine into a meandering but purposeful journey. The Labyrinth represents a journey or path to our center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools.

Grandmother's Circle Storytelling, 2013

Tree Decorating @Caryl Henry Alexander