OUR VISION STORY

"A Day at the Art Farm"

a vision story by Peter Haller

If the sound of giggling children running around the courtyard hadn't woken me, I'm sure the sunlight beaming through the bedroom window would have. Thoughts of the day ahead bubble in; I'm meeting two residents at the studio building to get a lesson in welding. Natasha and Ryan came to the project almost from the beginning. They are both active sculptors and really amazing. They helped a great deal with the details to safely include the foundry area in the new studio building.

Summer has been kind to growing. The gardens are doing amazingly well. Bravo to the Garden group for their planning! Six people have taken on being our land "gurus". Dominique, who came to the community a little while back, has a background in permaculture and a few others actually work on nearby farms producing truckloads of food. During the fall harvest, the kitchen in the common house serves as headquarters for putting up the food for our winter feasts.

I just remembered I told Zoe I would stop by today. What a sweetheart. She's been struggling a bit with mobility and asked me to dust the high shelves on her bookcase. Her daughter and grand-daughter live next door to me so I see the little "dynamo", Lilly, a lot in my travels around the complex.

I'm a bit distracted by some recent struggles in our monthly village meeting. It's not always easy to blend everyone and their desires, but I'm comforted to know we worked hard on communication and collaboration when we were in the initial planning sessions. It truly paid off; no matter the issue, we are ultimately able to step outside of our own needs and look at what's best for the whole community. We usually settle on an agreeable midpoint. I just remembered we're having music by the firepit tonight! As a visual artist, without a lick of musical talent, I'm so impressed by our family band. They rock out and we all dance along with our neighbors. Philip plays a mean fiddle and gives lessons to the younger generation - or really anyone who wants to learn. I think there's an afternoon field trip to the nearby swimming hole today too. Wanna join us?

Support our initiative

Our initial seed money campaign is through GoFundMe. Funds raised will help us with early administrative costs: communications fees, website and zoom services, guest speaker fees for workgroup facilitation, and more.