24 | NWSLTR
Though she was moving on, she promised she’ll never forget her time in the Garden. “Even when I move to Nashville, I’ll always come back to this little garden.” “Even when I move to Nashville, I’ll always come back to this little garden.” Thorn said she hopes there are more students like Kamille at CSU now and in the future. ”I feel the students can find her lead and know they will be able to share their talent at the Garden while they attend CSU,” she added.
and the surrounding community.
Kamille, under the guidance of Thorn and with fellow students Corey Higgs and Mariah Simmons, also researched nearly two dozen African heritage crops planted in the Garden and around CSU’s Wilberforce campus to test their growth sustainability and viability as marketable crops in the Midwest. The Garden always provided a place of quiet reflection for Kamille. She often brought her keyboard and headphones to play alone: “I came here to relax and meditate. It was just me, the music, and the wind.”
“It was very vibrant and colorful, and it felt like home. Just adding nature to my practice experience made me feel very whole.”
Sharing with Family & Inspiring
The Garden’s impact extended to her family. Kamille often took home harvests from the Garden to her mother. “She’s always excited when I come home with cucumbers or spinach,” Kamille said. “I’d tell her that I perform here, and I work with amazing people. It’s beautiful -- if you ever visit me, you just have to see it.” For younger CSU students, Kamille offers advice rooted in her own discovery: “You don’t have to be looking at social media. You can just come to a garden and enjoy its presence.”
-Kamille Austin
Kamille at the keyboard: She performs her post-CSU graduation “Abide in the Garden” program last July, just a couple of weeks before heading to Nashville-based Belmont University for graduate studies in commercial music composition and arranging.
Looking Ahead
Inspired by her time in the CSU Garden, she plans to become a licensed music therapist. “I could tell I was lifting people’s spirits when I performed here,” she said. “That inspired me to pursue music therapy.” Kamille glowed with both pride and passion on that July evening as she performed one more time in the Garden for her regular audience, which later grew in number when they were joined by a group of teenage boys spending time on campus for a residence summer camp.
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