ON THE COVER
POWER OF POETRY
BY NEHA MISRA (SHE/HER/HERS) CONTEMPORARY ECO-FOLK ART FOR PEOPLE & PLANET OUR WORLD IS A TREE’S DREAM, Tree Surrealisms series
Reclamation, and your role in the blooming
BY EMILY VIERTHALER Nature is the woman with the last laugh and the last word. Hers is the last song, opening her many-petaled mouths
and not shutting them again. She chooses never to shut. Rather, she leaves her gaping maw hanging. Allows it to rot in defiance to the words ‘closed’ and ‘stop’ and ‘capital must expand indefinitely’. Then she opens again someplace downstream, where seeds have been carried her artistic touches willfully unpredictable. She - a kaleidoscope of “watch me transform”, slithering spirit of eternal change. One day not too far from now, she will reclaim. Pulling the matriarchal duvet over cities, pulling our little attempts at something-ness into the communal void of all that is. and rise up in different buds. Her incarnations plentiful,
Artist Statement I am a contemporary eco-folk artist, poet, and award-winning cli - mate justice advocate. My Mother Earth wisdom centered interdis - ciplinary studio builds bridges between our private, collective, and planetary healing. As a climate artivist, I use the transformative po - wer of art to inspire dialogue and action that fosters the shared health of people and planet. Connecting the fractal connections between our micro and macro wellbeing is a thread that runs through the entire body of my art making, being, and sharing. My creative practice is rooted in eco-folk art traditions, sacred geo- metry, and spiritual ecology of my South Asian heritage combined with my lived experiences as a brown climate leader and a first gene - ration Indian-American immigrant woman. By reclaiming decolo - nized mythologies for transformational worldbuilding, I re-center indigenous wisdom that is essential for a co-creating a sustainable world. In a fragmented world, I foster courageous possibilities of whole - ness by embracing east and west, physical and metaphysical, complex and simple, ancient and future. This nurtures catharsis by expanding our ability to behold the paradox of joyful wonder and profound grief for the state of our tiny blue planet. Through this re - newed power of imagination, I weave regenerative ways of belon - ging in solidarity with local and global communities. Neha’s creative practice honors her roots as a first-generation, multi-lingual immigrant woman from New Delhi, India, who calls a solar-powered intentio - nal community in the DC metro region her adopted home. Neha is a 2023-25 Hamiltonian Artists Fellow. She has been honored as a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and as a Regenerative Artivist by the Design Science Studio—a partnership of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and habRi - tual for leading planet conscious artists. Neha is a 2022 Public Voices Fellows on the Climate Crisis — an initiative of the OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, to change who writes history. She ser- ves as the inaugural Global Ambassador of nonprofit Remote Energy, which is dedicated to making the solar photovoltaic field more inclusive for BIPOC communities, especially women of color.
Done with all the love her vines can muster. Our only hope is to assimilate - To fall back into the natural order. There exists a place for all things and beings and that place shifts like a hologram. Borne aloft by new contexts, new meetings of forces If you feel you won’t know where you stand, the answer is right now. The positionality somewhere between atmosphere and earth-core and exhale. You, her seed of change. You, her child. Each bloom, a rebellion.
Emily Marie Vierthaler (Dec. 1997) is a poet, dancer, and academic from An - chorage, Alaska (USA) who is active in artistic collaborations around the Netherlands. She draws inspiration from life’s mysteries and where they intersect with neuroscience to form our perceived reality. www. emilyvierthaler.com/
Learn more at nehamisrastudio.com and @nehamisrastu - dio on Instagram. Scan the barcode to connect with Neha. See Neha’s “Dreams of Earth Renewal” Art Show at Sandy Spring Museum — a two site-specific public art installations that includes an indoor Earth mandala and an outdoor sacred tree grove in- stalled on the museum grounds. This exhibition is the debut solo showcase of the artist’s vibrantly inspiring art on display through April 14, 2024. www.sandyspringmuseum.org/
Illustration by Nova Lore
80—PATHWAYS—Spring 24
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