creative endeavors for environment protectors

Portrait of Sky Bird Black Owl, the first woman to give birth at the Standing Rock resistance camp in Cannon Ball, ND. She named her baby Mni Wiconi, "water is life." • To be swaddled and held by our mothers is to find peace and protection wherever we are. Today I give thanks to all the women who have embraced us throughout our lives. Wopila tanka! • #MniWicon #WaterIsLife #HonorOurWomen #DefendTheSacred #StandingRock #OcetiSakowin #NoDAPL #IndigenousRising #ReclaimYourPower

A photo posted by Tomás Karmelo Amaya (@tomaskarmelo) on Nov 24, 2016 at 4:53am PST

Creative endeavors are dependent upon a certain amount of freedom - freedom to have the time to explore new ideas, and the freedom of a society that allows one to engage with ideas that may not fit within the status quo. We are grateful to the women who have come before us as artists, as activists, as freedom-fighters, and as cultural icons, who have made it more possible to be artist as female today. We are also cognizant of the inspiration that the natural world and connection to the land offers us as artists, and are deeply inspired by spiritual traditions of indigenous nations in North America and elsewhere. 

In light of recent political upheaval in the US, and a normalization by the Canadian government of the incredibly anti-woman, anti-environment, and anti-just-about-everything-that-we-recognize-as-civil society positions of the new US president-elect, we would like to take a stand. We as individual artists stand up for racial, economic, social and environmental justice.  We stand for equity, and we want to put that into action. 

As we explore in our practice the creative power of love and its impact on justice, we also recognize that money is an energetic force, and as such we have committed to donate a portion of our profits to the people defending our natural resources with their blood, sweat and tears. We recognize that our lives without access to clean drinking water, clean air, and fertile land and seeds, would be short-lived, and that our creative practice depends upon the natural world to give us life. We therefore pledge to donate 10% of our proceeds to protectors of our natural resources. 

At this time, this portion of our proceeds will be sent directly to Standing Rock water protectors. As time passes, we will update you as to where our donations are being sent, but we will continue to support these protectors of our most precious resource, the planet that gives us life, and to which we are eternally grateful.

Thank you,
​Katie & Janna