CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) is a supportive network of farmers and farmers-in-training. Prospective farmers gain exposure to and experience with a diversity of farm/garden designs and agricultural practices. Northwest Lower Michigan CRAFT is a new program, designed to support farms who have existing internship/apprentice programs.
CRAFT provides emerging farmers a vital experience--a community they can learn from. Interns gain a deep understanding of their resident farm, and CRAFT complements that learning by connecting them to the entire network of member farms. Through farm tours and workshops, interns gain exposure to a wide variety of farm types, production methods and management styles. Regular potlucks help ease the isolation an intern can feel while cloistered on a single farm. The connections made through CRAFT can last far beyond a growing season, and can offer support for the beginning years of starting a business.
Farmer members of CRAFT are required to allow their intern(s) the day off 1-2 times a month to attend the CRAFT workshops. Farmers are also encouraged to attend. Each farm hosts one workshop/farm tour/potluck in the 2010 growing season.
Individuals that are interested in farming but are not farm interns may join CRAFT as an opportunity for to work with other Northwest Lower Michigan farmers. The program works to establish a peer group for all of us!
Individuals who are not interning on farms can still attend workshops and farm tours for a donation of $10 each.
The CRAFT program is funded by ISLAND. As a non-profit educational center, we receive support from private donors, and private and public funding agencies. If you would like to support ISLAND, your donation is fully tax deductible and can be earmarked to finance the Northwest Lower Michigan CRAFT program.
How can I learn more?
Visit www.artmeetsearth.org/craft.html or contact Brad Kik at ISLAND: (231) 480-4515 or brad@artmeetsearth.org. We'd love to hear from you!
Friday, February 05, 2010
Support for Farm Interns Coming This Season
Training our next generation of organic, biodynamic, and sustainable farmers
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Why Holly ♥s Residencies
I am thick into the world around me. By vocation I listen, I go where my curiosities take me, I embed all over the place. Yet so much of the work and life of a writer is solitary—a beautiful aloneness—and one which at its best breeds both a secret life, and words that serve the needs and desires of readers. Just as important to the process is the occasional company of others who are similarly engaged. It is at the intersection of these values—amidst the quiet and the conviviality—that I am most able to recognize what I have to say and how I will say it. For me, it is not an overstatement to insist that an artist residency is a sort of Shangri-La—one which I can get to from here.
During my first residency a few years ago—at California’s Mesa Refuge—I discovered how profound uninterrupted time in a place designed for artists is for people like me. I thrived in my little wooden shed where I wrote all day and late into the night. At mealtime, I was enlarged by the companionship of my fellow residents with whom I shared conversations, works in progress and the sort of big ideas that percolate in places like that. This was a poignant, watershed experience for me; one that dignified my purpose and fortified my resolve at an important stage in my young writing career. I see now how some writers will write whole books over the course of an extended residency.
After much creative isolation, it is heartening to be engaged in the work of creating—side by side with others—especially at a time when our ilk are pushed further and deeper into the cultural and economic margins of society. In so doing we are also more able to contribute to a larger conversation, one that very often aspires to inclusivity and big-heartedness and which amounts to creating a world where art, ideas, and literature continue to be made.
I hope you too see the value in creating communities that support working artists. ISLAND has a long term vision to create precisely this sort of creative space for people like me and perhaps even for someone like you. Please give what you can so that Northern Michigan will have just such a place for its own and other emerging and established artists and writers.
—Holly Wren Spaulding
Holly Wren Spaulding is a writer, educator, community activist and a seasonal farm worker at Meadowlark Farm CSA in Leelanau County. She was a co-founding member of Sweetwater Alliance, a direct action organization formed to challeng the mining of Michigan groundwater by Nestle Corporation. Holly has traveled extensively to learn about and document social movements in Chiapas, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. Her writing has appeared in The Ecologist, Clamor, Earth First! Journal, Z Magazine, The New Internationalist, and in the book We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism (Verso Press, 2003). She worked on and also appears in the feature documentary FLOW: For Love of Water (Dir. Irena Salina), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2008. Her first collection of poems is due out in April from Michigan Cooperative Press. She is currently at work on a book about grassroots movements to defend the global water commons for AK Press. She teaches creative writing at Northwestern Michigan College.
During my first residency a few years ago—at California’s Mesa Refuge—I discovered how profound uninterrupted time in a place designed for artists is for people like me. I thrived in my little wooden shed where I wrote all day and late into the night. At mealtime, I was enlarged by the companionship of my fellow residents with whom I shared conversations, works in progress and the sort of big ideas that percolate in places like that. This was a poignant, watershed experience for me; one that dignified my purpose and fortified my resolve at an important stage in my young writing career. I see now how some writers will write whole books over the course of an extended residency.
After much creative isolation, it is heartening to be engaged in the work of creating—side by side with others—especially at a time when our ilk are pushed further and deeper into the cultural and economic margins of society. In so doing we are also more able to contribute to a larger conversation, one that very often aspires to inclusivity and big-heartedness and which amounts to creating a world where art, ideas, and literature continue to be made.
I hope you too see the value in creating communities that support working artists. ISLAND has a long term vision to create precisely this sort of creative space for people like me and perhaps even for someone like you. Please give what you can so that Northern Michigan will have just such a place for its own and other emerging and established artists and writers.
—Holly Wren Spaulding
Holly Wren Spaulding is a writer, educator, community activist and a seasonal farm worker at Meadowlark Farm CSA in Leelanau County. She was a co-founding member of Sweetwater Alliance, a direct action organization formed to challeng the mining of Michigan groundwater by Nestle Corporation. Holly has traveled extensively to learn about and document social movements in Chiapas, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. Her writing has appeared in The Ecologist, Clamor, Earth First! Journal, Z Magazine, The New Internationalist, and in the book We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism (Verso Press, 2003). She worked on and also appears in the feature documentary FLOW: For Love of Water (Dir. Irena Salina), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2008. Her first collection of poems is due out in April from Michigan Cooperative Press. She is currently at work on a book about grassroots movements to defend the global water commons for AK Press. She teaches creative writing at Northwestern Michigan College.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wanted: School garden instructor for after school programs in Central Lake
We're hiring again! If you can work well with K-5 students, have a green thumb, and want to earn a little part time cash, this is for you. Please consider this exciting new job!
ISLAND is partnering with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), MSU Extension and Central Lake Elementary to start a school garden and run after school programs for Central Lake Elementary students.
Here's the basic info:
Phase one of this project involves a 6-8 week session, 3-4 days a week from about 3:15 to 6:15 pm. You will create and implement a simple but exciting hands-on curriculum for between 5 and 20 kids in grades K-5. The goal: to set up a brand new school garden, plant a fall cover crop, garlic and other plants, and run sustainable gardening classes at the school. You will also work with teen or adult volunteers and school staff.
ISLAND wants to hire you as the instructor/program leader. You will have complete control over the program (within the bounds of the project goals) and would check in with ISLAND staff for an hour per week in person and regularly by email.
The position pays $12/hour for between 10 and 20 hours a week (to be determined). Work hours are from about 3:15 to 6:15 on 3-4 weekdays as well as prep time hours on your own schedule. Some additional funds are available for materials and other project costs. No benefits, sorry.
This position will hopefully expand to include more projects and additional hours. The position starts October 5th (yes, that soon!) and will run through late November/early December. We may plan additional winter programming (maple syrup?), and then the regular program will start again in March and run through May.
Please email Brad Kik at brad@artmeetsearth.org if you're interested, or call (231) 480-4515.
ISLAND is partnering with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), MSU Extension and Central Lake Elementary to start a school garden and run after school programs for Central Lake Elementary students.
Here's the basic info:
Phase one of this project involves a 6-8 week session, 3-4 days a week from about 3:15 to 6:15 pm. You will create and implement a simple but exciting hands-on curriculum for between 5 and 20 kids in grades K-5. The goal: to set up a brand new school garden, plant a fall cover crop, garlic and other plants, and run sustainable gardening classes at the school. You will also work with teen or adult volunteers and school staff.
ISLAND wants to hire you as the instructor/program leader. You will have complete control over the program (within the bounds of the project goals) and would check in with ISLAND staff for an hour per week in person and regularly by email.
The position pays $12/hour for between 10 and 20 hours a week (to be determined). Work hours are from about 3:15 to 6:15 on 3-4 weekdays as well as prep time hours on your own schedule. Some additional funds are available for materials and other project costs. No benefits, sorry.
This position will hopefully expand to include more projects and additional hours. The position starts October 5th (yes, that soon!) and will run through late November/early December. We may plan additional winter programming (maple syrup?), and then the regular program will start again in March and run through May.
Please email Brad Kik at brad@artmeetsearth.org if you're interested, or call (231) 480-4515.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird
This Friday, September 25th, at 7pm
Left Foot Charley in the Grand Traverse Commons, Traverse City
Sliding scale admission $5-15
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to ISLAND
This is a rare opportunity to see Dan Kahn and the Painted Bird, (their full band, together and here in Michigan) since several of the band members live out of country.
Many were blown away by Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird's performance at Harvest Gathering this past weekend.
They have been described as musical theater, and are a mix of punk cabaret + radical yiddish song + gothic american folk + klezmer danse macabre.
"Kahn writes like the rainy ghost of Woody Guthrie hitched a ride with Tom Waits to New Orleans" — Detroit Metro Times.
ISLAND's First Annual Community Canning Party
On Tuesday September 15th ISLAND hosted its First Annual Community Canning Party. We canned six half bushels of tomatoes and one half bushel of dilly beans. All the veggies were grown by local farmers. The equipment was borrowed from several sources, including from the Martha Wagbo Farm and Education Center. It was a great success and lots of fun! We will have more canning events in the future, so check back if you are interested.
Fungi and Fermentation Skill Swap
The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design (ISLAND) and the Martha Wagbo Farm and Education Center are proud to partner for the upcoming Fungi and Fermentation Skill Swap.
The skill swap will take place Sunday, October 4th from 1 pm to 5 pm at the Wagbo Farm, located three miles south of East Jordan at 5745 North M-66.
Join us as we explore the wide world of fungi and fermentation. Anyone with an interest in local foods; wild-crafting; food preservation; or tasty, healthful meals will greatly benefit from the workshops offered here. There will also be local vendors selling fungal and fermented goods.
Experienced instructors will lead workshops about fungi and fermentation, including:
Mushroom cultivation with Jim Ruster of Mitchell Hill Farm
Paper-making with polypores taught by Franny Bluhm
Fall mushroom hunting led by Michigan Mushroom Hunter's Club Vice President Jim Provci
Dyeing wool with mushrooms taught by fiber artist Julie Hurd of the Lake Charlevoix Weavers Guild
Cheese making taught by Amanda Kik of ISLAND
Sauerkraut preparation by Mark Maier
Composting with Mike and Monika Fiebing of Bella Terra Farms
Kombucha with Pepper Bromelmeir
Mead making with Nels Veliquette, beekeeper and fourth generation farmer in Northern MI
Wine making with Brian Hosmer
Live ginger beer and kefir with Nirinjan Singh and Kimberly Dante of Anahata Balance
Whole Grain Home Brew with Jerome Grskovic, BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) beer judge
Sponsored by Eden Foods, and support from the following: Field and Forest Products, and Pleasanton Bakery, Tandem Ciders, Leelanau Cultured Veggies, Black Star Farms, Mushroom the Journal.
Cost is $20 for pre-registration by Friday, October 2nd, or $25 at the door.
For a complete list of workshops and vendors, or to register, please visit http://www.ARTmeetsEARTH.org or contact Yvonne at ISLAND 231-480-4515 or info@ARTmeetsEARTH.org.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Thanks Josh!
Woah. If I'm ever walking around with my fly open or I have mustard in my beard, please let me know! We just got a phone message from Josh, letting us know he was checking out our website, and apparently one of our links had changed.
We quote from the Sustainable Living Network and then link to them: www.sustainableliving.org - except that now, for one reason or another, that website has been re-inhabited by Dow Chemical. Because Dow is sustainable now, yay! Right?
Thanks to Josh's heads up, we've removed the link. Instead, we invite you to visit this link instead : the art of Paul Phare relating to Dow and it's blatant greenwashing.
We quote from the Sustainable Living Network and then link to them: www.sustainableliving.org - except that now, for one reason or another, that website has been re-inhabited by Dow Chemical. Because Dow is sustainable now, yay! Right?
Thanks to Josh's heads up, we've removed the link. Instead, we invite you to visit this link instead : the art of Paul Phare relating to Dow and it's blatant greenwashing.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Art of Tracking
Date-- Saturday, August 29th to Sunday, August 30thTime-- Saturday: Check-in starts at 1 pm; Classes go from 2 pm to 9pm
Sunday: Breakfast starts at 8 am. Classes go from 9 am to 5 pm
Cost-- $30 for three meals and camping, $25 for two meals without camping (breakfast excluded.) Registration is limited! Reserve a space today!
The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design, (ISLAND) and the Martha Wagbo Farm and Education Center are partnering to bring you a valuable resource in outdoor education—tracking knowledge. The Art of Tracking will be held at the Wagbo Farm just south of East Jordan at 5745 North M-66. Activities will be lead by Paul Raphael, an experienced tracker who has worked with celebrated outdoorsmen such as Jon Young and Paul Rezendes, and has taught tracking classes across the United States and Europe.
At The Art of Tracking, you will learn how to fully engage your senses so that animal trails and sign can be readily observed, how to understand the meanings of bird calls, and how to interpret animal behavior through tracks and gaits. Snacks, drinks, and three meals (dinner Saturday, breakfast and lunch Sunday) are included. Overnight camping is available at the Wagbo Farm—please call Wagbo at 231-536-0333 or email wagbo@torchlake.com for more details.
This event is limited to just 15 participants, so please register by Monday, August 24th by following this link or calling ISLAND Directors Brad and Amanda Kik at 231-480-4515. Supervised older children are welcome. Please note that your registration is not complete until we have received your payment.
For further general information, visit the ISLAND events page. Or contact Intern Maria Wesserle at 231-480-4515.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wish List
Do you have this stuff cluttering up your pole barn? Have these skills to share? Can you help? Here's what we're hankering for:
- yurt and/or yurt parts
- black planter/buckets, 5 gallon size, for the tree nursery
- 50 gallon food grade plastic drums
- building materials
- free or discounted accounting
- new or gently used Mac for our staff
- new or gently used solar panels
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