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AHN INTERVIEW:
Kaylynn TwoTrees
"As artists we have the responsibility to use consciously and wisely our ability to tap into the creative impulse in order to re-envision and re-create our human reality and our place in the web of life. It calls us to remember that however individual our art may feel that it touches all living things." -Kaylynn Two Trees
Kaylynn TwoTrees is a multi-media artist, writer, and visionary whose work is guided by her connection to the Earth and the Great Mystery. She is the founder of the Seven Directions Practice, an earth-centered contemplative practice that offers a way to align our life in relationship to the Earth's rhythms and cycles. Her work includes sculpture, installation, performance, adornment, prints, and drawing, as well as offering divination/guidance, earth teachings, and workshops and retreats. Mary Daniel Hobson interviewed KayLynn in the Fall of 2006 about her work with earth art, and in particular her ceremonial earthwork, The Trail of Hope, which was created in the Ohio River Valley and was the subject of a documentary film created by Jean Donohue.
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Mary Daniel Hobson: Tell me a little bit about how you got started in making earth-based art?
An aerial view of the completed Trail of Hope
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Kaylynn TwoTrees: I have been a maker all my life. The medium of my creativity has changed many times over the years from theatre and dance to adornment, sculpture, performance, writing, printmaking and installations, but ultimately I see all of it as the body of work guided by my relationship with Mystery and the Earth. So in many ways my whole life and all of my work has been Earth based art. There is a saying from the wisdom keepers that "reality as we know it is held in place by agreements with time, space and mind. Humans have been gifted with the use of medicine, magic and the creative impulse to renegotiate those agreements." The Earth is the greatest teacher of how we might use these gifts to create a sacred reality and She continually surprises and inspires me.
Mary Daniel: I just watched the documentary about the creation of The Trail of Hope - I was so struck by the sensitivity and spirit you brought to this work. Tell me about the process of creating The Trail of Hope. How did you get the vision for this project? How did you get permission to do this on the land? How did you gather the community that helped you?
Kaylynn: When I went to the Ohio River Valley the first time to teach at Miami University I kept asking everyone about the First People of that place. There seemed to be a lot of sorrow in the land and I knew that I was a visitor to that landscape, and so I wanted to honor the guardians of that place, introduce myself and learn something more about the land. I also wanted permission to bring my prayers and ancestors to work with me on their land. Over time I met the members of the Shawnee United Remnant Band who are the descendants of native people who remained on the land during the removal of the nations, the Trail of Tears. It was this meeting and my understanding of the history of the underground railroad in the area that birthed the idea of a Trail of Hope. Those who lived on this land now could plant the stories of their ancestors as nourishment for the land, and heal the suffering that passed through the land with the removal many of the First Peoples had endured.
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A Story Pole from the Trail of Hope
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I had heard of the Maori idea of pu rakau (story in solid form) and it struck me that it was possible to create a solid story of the hope with the help of the people of the Valley. As the idea gained energy I also received a Lila Wallace International Artist's Award to go to Aotearoa (New Zealand) and learn from the Maori for six months as I continued to develop this idea. Miami University Women's Center agreed to commission the work that eventually would be conceived from this starting point.
What I learned in Aotearoa during the time I spent then and the subsequent six trips I made was a reminder of what I had known all along --- that the Earth is the greatest source of inspiration and teaching. I had gone to the southern hemisphere thinking I would learn all about the way that the Maori understood story in solid form. In the end I went to see my world upside down and to rekindle relationship with the plants and trees and the shapes that are revealed in the shafts of light in the forests. The unfurling fern is an image that you see everywhere in Aotearoa, and I realized that it was also one that was present in the Ohio River Valley and that its nascent energy and multiplicity offered everything that I hoped for in the project. With that image in mind I began to visualize the project as a marriage of knowledge from both hemispheres expressed through that multiple spiral.
The Ohio River Valley also had a pre-history carved and shaped in the landscape by the mound builders and this also informed my ideas of the project and my feeling that everything should be used -- nothing would be wasted. So the spiral became the negative image dug into the earth as if coming through the earth from the southern hemisphere which inspired it. The dirt that came from creating the spiral became a mound around the spiral in which the story poles of the people of the Ohio River Valley would be planted.
Once the site was chosen and the design in place I worked with Jean Donohue to introduce to different communities in the area the idea of telling and building stories to plant in the land. We first requested the blessing and support of the Shawnee United Remnant Band and then worked with the African American Heritage Task Force, the Urban Appalachian League, Miami University and various other community groups to invite people to come forward with their stories and be part of the creation of this Trail of Hope by planting those stories in the ground.
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The video of the Trail of Hope is available for sale for $34.95 at the MWG web site.
where you can also watch a short clip from the film.
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In the documentary, Trail of Hope: The Building of a Ceremonial Earthwork, producer/director Jean Donohue has captured both a sense of the process of bringing people together to participate in the project, and also the place of this project in the spirit of the landscape and the history of the people.
As people gathered we began with storytelling so that our circle became witness to the stories that would be planted in the landscape. Stories were told of childhood, ancestors, spirits, trees, rivers, cultural memories and memories that stretch far into the future. After witnessing the stories each person was asked to create a two-dimensional drawing of their story. This drawing helped in the transition from the story on the breath as a telling to the story taking shape. The stories became a small book which was the first artifact of the Trail. Copies of the book were given away at the opening to those who came to greet the Trail and see the solid stories. The next step was to help people consider the materials for their story pole, which would be planted in the mound at the site. Each person chose their pole and built their story onto it. This was the transformation of story into solid form.
As the spiral path of the Trail was plotted on the ground we received the blessing of Chief Hawk Pope of the Shawnee. We and were honored with the extension of this blessing by his temple women Hasuwi and Sun Spirit Lowe at a groundbreaking ceremony. This allowed us to carve into the ground under the guardianship of these keepers of the land. The digging of the spiral revealed a spring at the center, which over the years filled the spiral with water and created a watering hole for animals.
The day before the opening all the people came with their story poles and we planted them in the mound surrounding the spiral path. We gave offerings at each hole. The Trail of Hope opened to the public in August of 1994. There were two more pole plantings with people from as far away as Chicago and Cleveland over the next two years.
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Story Poles from the Trail of Hope
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Mary Daniel: What were some of the challenges of doing this project? And what were some of the wonderful surprises?
Kaylynn: The main challenge of doing the project was gaining the trust of the people and finding a site that lent itself to being in collaboration with the people rather than becoming a static memorial. We had originally planned to have the site on the campus of Miami University but because I wanted the Earth to respond to our stories and planting rather than having the site be “managed”, the airport offered more possibilities, and it also gave us the opportunity to see it clearly from the sky which was the best view. The challenge for me was to let go of any ideas I had about art and let the process produce the surprising and stunning result it did rather than holding to any vision of how I thought it would look.
The wonderful surprise was that after it was finished people came to it without knowing who created it or what it was for. They came to pray, to tell stories, to celebrate the moon and to have a peace-filled moment. I loved the way that I became irrelevant to it and its place in the landscape.
Mary Daniel: The completed Trail of Hope is visually stunning. What has been the impact of this piece on the land, on those who created it, and those who experience it?
Kaylynn: The Trail of Hope changed many times during its life and it became many things to people and land -- a refuge, a pond, an eyesore, a memory and a point of connection. It gave people of the Ohio River Valley an opportunity to re-enliven their relationship to the land through story; to make connections with other people and stories of the land and renewed the idea of sacred ground. It changed with the weather, the seasons and the changes in administration of the University that funded it. In 2004 it was bulldozed out of existence by the University.
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Mary Daniel: The Trail of Hope is just one of many wonderful project you have initiated as a multi-talented artist, expressing yourself in words, sculpture, installations, prints & drawings, as well as offering divination, earth teachings, and individual retreats. How do you balance all of this? How do you sustain all this great work?
The altar and spring at the center of the Trail of Hope.
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Kaylynn: I see all of it as the body of work guided by my relationship with Mystery and the Earth. I don't try to balance it or channel it in any particular direction. I move as the energy moves from one expression to the other following the flow rather than trying to direct it. The work sustains me rather than me sustaining the work. It is the Great River, and I float on it and drink from it and am guided and nourished by it.
Mary Daniel: Do you believe art can heal? If so, how?
Kaylynn: I believe that healing is the art of bringing things back into appropriate balance. I think that art can reflect that balance so that humans remember, and that it can also create balance through beauty. Most essential is sustaining the belief in balance rather than solutions and “fixing things,” and to let the flow of art move through us as a healing force.
Mary Daniel: What role do you think artist's can play at this troubled time?
Kaylynn: As artists we have the responsibility to use consciously and wisely our ability to tap into the creative impulse in order to re-envision and re-create our human reality and our place in the web of life. It calls us to remember that however individual our art may feel that it touches all living things.
To learn more about Kaylynn TwoTrees, please visit www.ktwotrees.org.
Or visit Kaylynn's blog at http://2treesnotes.blogspot.com/
To order a copy of the video, The Trail of Hope, or view a clip from the film, please click here.
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FEATURED BOOK:
Art and Survival: Patricia Johanson's Environmental Projects
By Caffyn Kelley with an introduction by Lucy Lippard
 "Johanson's unwavering commitment is to art and survival....She designs places of beauty, and life-sustaining habitat, where birds nest and children play. Her work suggests multiple ways we might reinvent the relationship between culture and nature, while proposing a new vision for public space. In tiny drawings and in parks covering hundreds of acres, Johanson shows how art can actually transform the world." -Caffyn Kelley
Patricia Johanson is a remarkable artist, who left behind her lauded place in the traditional art world to embrace a larger vision. Her projects weave together aesthetics, imagination, ecology, history, social policy, human interaction, and more. She starts with a troubled area of land, researches it from all angles, and re-invents the space in a way that fosters the connection between humans and their environment in ways that are healthy and sustainable. For example, in Endangered Garden, she transformed a San Francisco sewer into a bay walk that allows public access to the waterfront while creating life-supporting habitat that encourages the return of endangered species. The visual inspiration behind the project was the endangered San Francisco garter snake and its attenuated form and bright colors. A place that was once off-limits and potentially dangerous is now accessible, beautiful, and healing to the environment.
In this book, Caffyn Kelley provides a wonderful exploration of Jonhanson's art and life. She highlights different aspects of Johanson's work in each chapter, such as Art for the Living World, Designs in Time, and Functional Landscapes, and the book concludes with a chapter on the artist's life. Caffyn fills the text with great quotes by Johanson about her process and philosophy. The book is packed with numerous color illustrations of Johanson's works on paper, plans, and completed projects. Her large-scale projects in sites all around the world are well illustrated and include the project's statement written by the artist. Already familiar with Johanson's work, I was filled with renewed awe for her vision and accomplishments. She is a true healing artist in the best sense - bringing balance back into our world on a large scale. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the transformational power of art.
This 165-page softcover book was published by Islands Institute in 2006. To order a copy, please click here. To learn more about Patricia Johanson, please visit www.patriciajohanson.com.
Patricia was also the recipient of the 2003 Arts and Healing Network Award. Please click here to learn more.
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FEATURED LINK:
Earthly Concerns
Activist Eco-Art Curated by Women Environmental Artists Directory
www.usfca.edu/library/thacher/earthly/
 "The artist’s ability to imagine, to see give-and-take relationships and multiple dimensions has proved ingeniously effective when applied to social and ecological problems; the artists of Earthly Concerns create art to transform human violations of the earth’s life resources into positive forms and actions." -Jo Hanson
This web site honors an exhibition called Earthly Concerns held at University of San Francisco in September and October of 2006. Even though the show is now down, the web site allows it to live on as a source of inspiration. You can read an essay by the curator Jo Hanson, who founded WEAD and is an extraordinary environmental artist. You can also learn about each of the fifteen different artist's work included in the show, see images, and connect to more information via web site links. The show features work such as Erica Fielder's whimsical Bird Feeder Hats and Judith Selby's installation designed to encourage viewers to save trees by stopping junkmail. It's a very nice introduction to a rich variety of work dedicated to healing the environment.
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FEATURED LINK:
EnviroArts: Orion Online
arts.envirolink.org
 This site is a collection of essays, poetry, interviews, and portfolios of images by some of the best writers and artists in the environmental field, including Barry Lopez, Wendell Berry, Jane Goodall, Rick Bass, Bill McKibben, Pattiann Rogers, Sonja Bullaty and Angelo Lomeo, and Scott Russell Sanders. You will find essays on arts and activism, arts and education, interviews and photo essays. Topics are wide-ranging and include personal reminiscences and calls to action.
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FEATURED POST:
The Arts & Healing Connection Center
Each month, we publish a highlight from the Arts & Healing Connection Center.
This month we feature a post by "the art of light," a member from Washington State, who writes:
“Just sharing some exciting news...
Having been in Public Ed for 13 years, it is always a treat to be able to offer students an alternative in education. We can predict the need for math, writing, reading etc. What I have found that is needed on a much larger level is reaching their spirits.
My current project is teaching enrichment to 5th graders that are reading the fabulous book "Touching Spirit Bear" by Ben Mikelson. After introducing students to the Native American culture, they are then sent on a journey to find their spirit animal. Yes, we can all have more than one, but for these purposes it is a beginning. Once they feel they have the animal, they will do a piece of artwork that represents their animal and them. They will each study the animal and find the behavior that they may act out in their present life, or perhaps need more of in their lives. Each time I have taught this topic, my students have amazing transformations and they begin, for a time, to look at life differently. The other amazing thing about this is that even though some students moan and groan about not being artists, I have never seen a piece that was not simply amazing.
Go Kid Power!!"
This post appears on the Connection Center under the forum, What is Your Current Art and Healing Project?
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READERS RESPOND
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