Summer at Salmon Creek Farm

Sorry I didn't post for a while, I was making art in the woods

Hello! I was missing in action for the past 7 weeks, but I promise I had a very good reason. I was part of Salmon Creek Farm’s inaugural cohort for their Schools of Salmon Creek program. Salmon Creek Farm was established as a counterculture commune in 1971. Now, it’s a living arts space. Myself and five other artists lived in our own cabins in the woods, taught each other from a place of curiosity, shared community, and made art. This was a hugely transformative time for me personally and professionally and I will have a lot more to share about what I learned and did there in the coming weeks, months, and years. For now, I want to share a glimpse of what it looked like.

My cabin, Cedar

Every day started with morning movement at 8:30am on the dance deck. Ruby led us in meditations, dance scores, dance workshops, and stretching. Connecting with my body is often a second thought for me. Ruby’s exercises during morning movement reminded me that embodiment, the practice of connecting with and experiencing the world through one’s body, is essential.

Photo by Fritz Haeg

Every day ended with a communal meal, which we switched off cooking. Cooking together and cooking for others ended up being one of the most meaningful parts of our time there. I didn’t know I could cook a meal for a group of 12 people in under two hours. I didn’t know I had the social capacity to share meals with a group of people for over 50 consecutive nights. I learned that not only is it possible to share more meals in community, it is incredibly meaningful, and I need more of it in my life.

Chia pudding with whipped cream, raspberry powder, and chocolate crunch balls

On weekdays, we took turns leading workshops from a place of curiosity. One of my offerings was called “Mapping Our Collective Consciousness.” I led the group in creating personal consciousness maps, and then we came together to create a map of our collective consciousness.

I did a good amount of reading and researching in my down time. We also held a weekly reading circle where we discussed excerpts from various books. I leaned into a way of approaching books that I learned from poet Joshua Turek. He talks about the validity of popping in and out of books like you would with a TV show, and that there’s no need to put so much pressure on finishing books. He said something in one of his podcast episodes that has stuck with me for months: “I don’t have to retain all of this knowledge, it’s a pleasure just encountering it.” Here’s everything I was poking my head into, many of which were in SCF’s library:

• Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

• The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

• Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

• Great Gay in the Morning! by Richard Hobin

• RSVP Cycles by Anna Halprin

• Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta

• The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell

• The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Cruising Utopia by José Esteban Muñoz

• Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

• And a bunch of dharma talks from the SF Zen Center (here and here)

Guest artists came through for shorter stays. Artist Raina Lee taught us a simple weaving technique called knotless netting. Julia Peterson, guest chef and general manager of Rory’s Place, taught us how to harvest and dry seaweed.

We spent a lot of time at Cider Creek Collective, a ceramics studio and community. Much of our time there was centered around firing an Anagama, a special kind of woodfire kiln. The Anagama firing process deserves its own post, but the gist is that it’s a ginormous kiln that you feed with wood around the clock every 5-8 minutes for about a week. Then it cools for another week. A crazy, huge community effort. Here are some of my pieces before and after the Anagama firing.

The three pieces in the top right (urchin shape, vase shape, and mug shape) were made from clay we dug from Salmon Creek Farm and processed as a group.

Unloading the Anagama! See how big it is? There’s a human inside there. This image shows the kiln about halfway unloaded. The piles of wood to the right are what feeds the fire.

A viewing vessel I made from local clay. Photo by Alejandro Medina

On Fridays we’d spend a few hours tending to the land. This mostly entailed processing humanure, planting starts and distributing compost in the garden, and processing cut down trees.

Unsurprisingly, time in nature inspired me to make art about nature. After we processed these birch logs, I knew I had to paint one of them.

Our time at Salmon Creek Farm culminated in a group show at Mendocino Art Center and a show on the land at Salmon Creek Farm.

An exhibition I map I illustrated for the show:

For our show on the land, I installed various flags I’d been working on, including this Flag for Fluid Identity that has interchangeable panels and is made from scrap wood:

And this flag made from local clay, exhibited in the area where I harvested the clay:

The five other talented artists and incredible human beings in my cohort are what made the experience deeply meaningful and special. I was reminded of the power, safety, and healing potential of queer community. We read in Sand Talk that “laughing is learning.” I laughed and learned constantly. Thank you Ale, Rino, Ruby, Sam, and Seb.

And thank you to Fritz and the Salmon Creek Arts team for building such an incredible program and bringing together such a great group. And more thank yous to Ben Anderson, Dav Bell, Jess Thompson, Nick Schwartz, Wolfgang Obergin, and all of the guests artists and chefs who spent time with us.

I’d never spent 7 weeks living in a cabin in the redwoods before, so my time on the land was full of surprises. I’d never before peed in the woods at 4am while looking at a moon that looked like a sun. I hope to do it again soon.