News 
» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 7:14 am February 18, 2012
Begun in 2009, Little Artshram’s Urban Farming Collective, still actively planning and growing more community gardens and helping build a local, community-generated food system…..
“HOW-to: FOOD & OUR FUTURE in Traverse City”
Urban Farming Collective featured at the March Continual University Series
SAVE THIS DATE for a community gathering:
Saturday, March 10th, 6-8 pm
@ Cogs Creek Studios/Tribalive
124 N. Maple St., Traverse City, MI
231-510-3491
About the event: After viewing a short 30-minute film “Getting Real About Food and Our Future” by Christopher Bedford, along with the active community garden on the barns property, we hope to begin to organize a network of community and neighborhood garden sites, and leave with a timeline and action plan to continue through the growing season. Please come and help with all the buzzing for MORE and new gardens in the Traverse City area!!!
The Urban Farming Collective in Traverse City is launching this 2012 gardening program where street-scapes, empty lots, yards, and neighborhood and community gardens can be transform Traverse City into bountiful foodscapes!
By insuring that as many people as possible grow their own food, or help each other through neighborhood food-growing alliances, we can help provide for our own needs and not have to rely on food that has to be transported from a long distance. The benefits of local food are enormous!
Please join us for this fun and valuable community-wide project. We need people of diverse skills to be involved. Artists, photographers, community organizers, gardeners, farmers, teachers, public speakers, writers, sponsors, carpenters, volunteers of all types are welcome!
Everyone has something to bring to the table in the Urban Farming Collective. You may have an interest in starting pots of tomatoes on your deck, or organizing a community garden, or anything in between! We need your input! It takes many worker bees to grow a thriving, local food system!!!
This is a unique opportunity for our community to become even stronger as we work together to reach this goal.
More about the Urban Farming Collective: Do you currently have a Community Garden in Traverse City, or, would you like to begin one in your neighborhood? Are you a chicken farmer, a bee-keeper, a front or back yard gardener, a seed-saver, a soil-manager? Join us and help grow the TC urban farming and gardening movement!
The Urban Farming Collective is creating a Traverse City based network to meet the growing needs and interest in urban farming and the building of a local food system, while encouraging a lower energy lifestyle.
Join the Urban Farming Collective (UFC) and contribute your good ideas to create a citizen-based, local food system for all. The UFC is collectively organized, offering information about potential and new Community Garden sites, workshops, programs and events, as we continue to deepen our permaculture roots, socializing in our yards and neighborhood gardens, eating good food and encouraging a local economy!
More information: info@littleartshram.org or 231-510-3491
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 8:34 am February 14, 2012
What does it mean to have a DURABLE and loving relationship with the Earth and ALL it’s species?
WHY does the future look BRIGHTER in the midst of global warming and the environmental chaos that we are now experiencing?
AND, how could we possibly think that through our real work as students and educators, parents of curious and amazing children, and Earth-loving care-takers of our planet home…just HOW could a message about the impacts of climate change, energy decline and economic collapse look like a “brighter” future for the younger generation?
Join us and let’s talk about it with open hearts in honor of this human-made day of sharing love!
This lively, brown bag lunch discussion takes place TODAY, with special guest presenter, Dr. Guy McPherson @ Northern Michigan College on Valentines Day—February 14th @ 11:30, Health and Science Building, Room #101, in Traverse City.
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 6:34 am February 9, 2012
SPECIAL February Continual University Series:
SELF-IMPROVEMENT with Dr. Guy McPherson
Saturday, February 11th, 6-8 PM
@ Cogs Creek/Tribalive Studio,
124 N. Maple St., Traverse City, MI
Self-improvement? Anyone can improve his/her life at will. Those who will agree with this statement, may say that in order to improve one’s life, we simply need to make the decision to do so. However, a decision, no matter how good it is cannot do much if it is not supported by the right tools to make of it a reality. In Victorian times, the idea of what it meant to help yourself was: work, work and more work. Many of us still believe in the “American Dream” and that our work will bring merit and meaning to our lives. Other recommendations through self-help guides suggest to love one’s inner child, encouraging us to ‘think positively’, ‘believe in yourself’, and give the general reminder that ‘you’re worth it’ is the way to go. This presentation will take into consideration the evolution of self-improvement in our present day, fast paced, modern world, and, what to make of hard work and diligence. We’ll ask is unlimited success a simple matter of on-going perseverance? What about randomness of luck and the benefits of family and personaladvantages? Or, perhaps the idea that striving for happiness may sabotage our efforts to attain it?
Guy McPherson who will be our guest speaker for the Self-Improvement presentation is an energetic speaker and talented moderator, and lives with a couple of goats on a homestead in New Mexico. He has appeared before countless audiences to speak about the two primary consequences of our fossil-fuel addiction: global climate change and energy decline. Because these phenomena impact every aspect of life on Earth, his talks reach a wide variety of audiences such as universities, associations, nonprofits, and numerous educational and scientific symposia and conferences.
CONTACT INFO For these events:
penny@littleartshram.org
www.littleartshram.org
More about Guy McPherson:
Guy McPherson peered over the edge into the Peak Oil and Climate Change abyss, and rather than backing away, jumped in. The author of “Nature Bats Last”, and most recently, “Walking Away from Empire”, Guy is a conservation biologist who has a keen grasp of the severe ramifications of the climatic course we’re on. So he walked away from his high paying, prestigious, tenured position at a major university and now grows goats, vegetables, and community in the desert outside of Tucson, Az. He has also taught poetry in prison.
Guy volunteers his time talking to people wherever they’ll have him, about both the disaster-seriousness of our course, a course which has created the ecological and climatological chaos we’re experiencing, and ways in which we can and must mitigate that as individuals, communities, and societies. Guy talks about how individuals can work together to strengthen their own resilience, and prepare for a world of change. His talks highlight the importance of living sustainably, a necessity driven by the ongoing collapse of the environment and the industrial economy, and by the arriving shortages of cheap oil.
He’s smart, he’s laugh-out-loud funny, and he’s much more humble than he would have you believe. Guy lays the truth out clearly, in a gentle, humorous, but matter-of-fact and inescapable sort of way.
In his own words (written in 2009): “In 2002, as I edited a book about global climate change, I realized we had set events in motion that would cause our own extinction, probably by 2030…About five years ago, I was elated to learn about a hail-Mary pass that just might allow our persistence for a few more generations: Peak oil and its economic consequences might bring the industrial economy to an overdue close, just in time…If we abandon the industrial culture of death, we might persist until your children are old enough to die a “normal” death. But the odds are long and the time short… I mourn because the solution is right in front of us, yet we run from
it..”
About the Continual Universtity Series:
Supported by Little Artshram, Continual University Series is a community gathering place, organized to provide re-connection to what we’d like to kindly and gently suggest as a higher education, concerned with how to live wisely and well. Continual U offers assurance and authentication in a variety of subjects. We provide elementary and secondary education, along with undergraduate, postgraduate, and re-education, focused on good ideas for everyday living.
Our goal is to challenge, provoke and inspire you to think deeply about the issues that matter most, and to provide a space for you to share your thoughts, ideas and experiences with other curious, open-minded individuals.
Little Artshram and the CU Series has welcomed regional, national and international guest presenters and speakers sharing a variety of topics in the Grand Traverse area since 2010.
Dr. McPherson’s updated schedule here: http://guymcpherson.com/2012/02/speaking-in-michigan-11-22-february-2012/
www.litteartshram.org
info@littleartshram.org
231-510-3491
A Guy and Two Goats, © `penny Krebiehl 2012
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 6:24 am February 5, 2012
There is no reason to keep all of these matter of fact and kind words to our Little Artshram selves. This week we will have yet another important opportunity to sit around a table discussing how, where and if Little Artshram is allowed to follow through on our long-term, leased home-base at the barns property and community garden in Traverse City, at the Historic Barns Park.
A series of unfortunate, sensationalized press reportage, along with fear-based mis-perceptions has contributed greatly to the past seven months of disruption and difficulty for our little, Little Artshram.
The long line of amazing board members, supporters, sponsors, CSA members, program and project participants, and especially the children, youth and their families has remained steady on, many responding with letters of support. These letters of support have helped raise the spirits of the present hard-working, volunteer board, as we’ve plowed through meeting after meeting, all the while having our on-site programs suspended and being closed out of our workshop space.
In honor of this week’s work, which culminates in a mediated meeting, of necessary discussion setting “guidelines on how we are going to be together”, we are reflecting on the power of the word—of the people in lending their voice to justice and doing what’s right. Big—as in Monsanto and other such nationwide issues, AND little—as in our humble attempts to create a thriving community garden and community learning center on public-owned property—-we believe that our place and practice deserves the opportunity to remain at this green-space we’ve invested so much of our work in for the past several years.
Many thanks for the thanks.
This is a supportive note from one of our Summer Camp families:
We are writing in support of Little Artshram with great hope that they will be permitted to operate their summer camp in 2012 and beyond. Our daughter, six years old at the time, participated in the summer day camp run by Little Artshram for several weeks last summer. It was a pleasure for both my husband and I to learn through her young eyes and to hear of the experiences she had each day in our own back yard. Such experiences however, can be had just about anywhere. What sets Little Artshram apart in our mind is the sense of independence, stewardship and community they have been able to cultivate among the participating youths, and by extension their families.
After the first few days, our six-year-old was able to lead us on a long hike through the trail system behind the barns to “Grandmother Willow”, a mulberry tree, the bubbling spring, et. al., pointing out and identifying plants of all kinds along the way. Her narration of our adventure was well thought out and animated, including commentary of what we need to do and how we need to behave in order to preserve these treasures, which we are privileged to see everyday. In fact, she was heartbroken when we hiked to “Grandmother Willow” on a fall day only to find her defiled by vandals. An unthinkable act to a child having spent time at Little Artshram.
Further, the children’s “work” in the gardens was invaluable to their education about the cycle of food in our culture from seed, to plant, to plate. She learned to place a value on potential food waste and find ways to utilize it productively, namely through composting. The residual benefit in the months since camp has been our daughter’s continuing respect for the food she receives and a curiosity about its origin and treatment. At seven, she sorts her waste without even thinking between compost, recycling and trash.
Whether the stewardship and environmental consciousness that Little Artshram encourages and the fact that it sticks with the kids has any bearing on your decision; I cannot be sure. What should certainly matter is that each day we dropped off our daughter, we left her knowing without a question that she was being well cared for in a way that stimulated her mind and provided her with continual physical activity with safety on all levels being the first consideration of the adults responsible for the camp’s daily operation. This peace of mind over the healthy development of our children is important to us as parents and countless other families that stand to benefit from their programming should Little Artshram open again this summer.
With deepest sincerity,
Amanda Danielson
If you would like to write a letter of support for Little Artshram remaining in it’s place of residence at the Historic Barns Park, please address it to:
The Recreational Board of the City of Traverse City and Garfield Township
and forward it via email to our board president, Mr. Rokko Jans at:
info@littleartshram.org
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 8:50 am February 3, 2012
WHO cares about the Earth Day Parade that has happened annually in Traverse City for the past 22 years? WHO believes in the gift economy and will continue to be the much appreciated home-place of our Little Artshram parade building headquarters?
If you have an answer to these questions, contact the Little Artshram Board. THANKS!
Contact: info@littleartshram.org
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 10:44 am February 2, 2012
Little Artshram and the Continual University Series, along with several other Michigan communities and organizations has invited Professor Emeritus Guy McPherson, of the Dept. of Natural resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona to deliver presentations and talks in Michigan. His scholarly work, focused primarily on conservation of biological diversity, has produced 10 books and more than 100 articles. After researching environmental degradation, climate change, and fossil fuel dependency, he discovered that traditional conceptualizations of sustainability are woefully inadequate.
Dr. McPherson left his tenured faculty position after recognizing the extremely untenable, unsustainable pathway we are on is dangerously close to collapse. He now lives in a straw bale house, and is increasing his self sufficiency through organic farming and community resilience. He advises individuals, groups, and communities on how to increase their resilience in the face of economic depression, increasing energy prices, and climate change.
Join Little Artshram and Continual University, and our organizational partners, as we welcome Dr. Guy McPherson to Michigan for a two-week stay:
Saturday, 11 February 2012, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Tribalive, 124 N. Maple St., Traverse City, Michigan. Hosted by Continual University, O’k CSAe, and Little Artshram. Topic: Self-improvement. Event is free and open to the public.
Monday, 13 February 2012, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at North Central Michigan College, Library conference room, Film-showing “Six Degrees that Could Change the World” 7:30 p.m. Dr Guy McPherson “Climate Change and Energy Decline in Northern Michigan: How Can We Make our Communities Durable, and Resilient?” Event is free and open to the public.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. at Stevenson Center, Muskegon Community College, Muskegon, Michigan. Hosted by Muskegon Community College. Topic: The myth of sustainability, the importance of durability, and a method for saving the living planet. Event is free and open to the public.
Thursday, 16 February 2012, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner St., Lansing, Michigan. Welcoming music provided by Zach Power Topic: Building community resilience in Lansing: food and water. Event is free and open to the public.
Friday, 17 February 2012, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at Lansing Community College Gannon Building Room 134, 422 North Washington Square, Lansing, Michigan. Topic: Resilience in Lansing and in your life. Event is free and open to the public, but limited to the first 60 registrants (to register, call 517.862.1559 or email emailchristians@gmail.com).
Monday, 20 February 2012, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at Beaver Island Community Center, Beaver Island, Michigan. Topic: Impacts of climate change and energy decline to Beaver Island: How can we make our community durable and resilient? Event is free and open to the public, and is followed by a free showing of the National Geographic film, Six Degrees Could Change the World.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at Horizon Books, 243 E. Front Street, Traverse City, Michigan. Book reading and signing event for my latest book. Event is free and open to the public.
12 February 2012 through 24 February 2012 various topics and venues throughout North West and Central Michigan. Details forthcoming.
If you’d like to host an additional presentation(s) and you have a venue, please let Dr. McPherson know via email (grm@ag.arizona.edu or guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com)
About Little Artshram:
Little Artshram Art – Community Gardening – Environmental Education
Little Artshram inspires and educates people of all ages to live creatively in harmony with nature, through a unique combination of permaculture principles, visual, musical and puppet artistry, service to the natural world, and inclusive social activism. Little Artshram is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
About the Continual University Series:
Continual University Series is a community gathering place, organized to provide re-connection to what we’d like to kindly and gently suggest as a higher education, concerned with how to live wisely and well. Continual U offers assurance and authentication in a variety of subjects. We provide elementary and secondary education, along with undergraduate, postgraduate, and re-education, focused on good ideas for everyday living.
Our goal is to challenge, provoke and inspire you to think deeply about the issues that matter most, and to provide a space for you to share your thoughts, ideas and experiences with other curious, open-minded individuals.
Little Artshram and the CU Series has welcomed regional, national and international guest presenters and speakers sharing a variety of topics in the Grand Traverse area since 2010. Thanks to Kristine Morris for recently interviewing Dr. McPherson: Click here for interview!
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 9:11 am January 30, 2012
Begun in 2009, Little Artshram initiated the Urban Farming Collective, and continuing to devote time and energy to actively planning and growing more community gardens, while helping build a local, community-generated food system…..
SAVE THIS DATE for a community gathering and a 30-minute film showing:
“Getting Real about Food and our Future”
Besides the satisfaction and fun of getting in the dirt and growing our own food, there is a serious reason to plant food producing, organic gardens. The growing oil, water, and climate crises threatens food security in all communities. And we want to do something about this NOW rather than later in Traverse City. This film by Chris Bedford looks at the deeper issues of food security and community survival in this new age of global chaos and scarcity. “Getting Real about Food & the Future” features the wisdom of local gardeners, farmers and community activists in Muskegon, Michigan, along with John McKnight, Bill McDonough, Lester Brown, Bob Costanza, and David Korten, and can be viewed as a spring-board of inspiration for Traverse City, as well.
This is a 30 minute film designed to help communities and neighborhoods take the first steps towards food security and a thriving economic future in the Post-Petroleum era. “Getting Real about Food & the Future” (GRAFF) is designed for organizing and action, not just discussion. It emphasizes solutions and answers to the deepest problems of transition to the new food economy.
“HOW-to: FOOD & OUR FUTURE in Traverse City”
Saturday, March 10th, 6-8 pm
@ Cogs Creek Studios/Tribalive
124 N. Maple St., Traverse City, MI
We will be using the information gathered from our first meeting as a spring board for this second meeting. We hope to leave with a timeline and action plan and many worker bees signed up for specific jobs. Please come and help with all the buzzing for new gardens in the Cadillac area!!!
The Urban Farming Collective in Traverse City is launching a program where street-scapes, empty lots, yards, and neighborhood and community gardens landscapes can transform Traverse City into bountiful foodscapes!
By insuring that as many people as possible grow their own food, or help each other through neighborhood food-growing alliances, we can help provide for our own needs and not have to rely on food that has to be transported from a long distance. The benefits of local food are enormous!
Please join us for this fun and valuable community-wide project. We need people of diverse skills to be involved. Artists, photographers, community organizers, gardeners, farmers, teachers, public speakers, writers, sponsors, carpenters, volunteers of all types are welcome!
Everyone has something to bring to the table in the Urban Farming Collective. You may have an interest in starting pots of tomatoes on your deck, or organizing a community garden, or anything in between! We need your input! It takes many worker bees to grow a thriving, local food system!!!
This is a unique opportunity for our community to become even stronger as we work together to reach this goal.
More about the Urban Farming Collective:
Do you currently have a Community Garden in Traverse City, or, would you like to begin one in your neighborhood? Are you a chicken farmer, a bee-keeper, a front or back yard gardener, a seed-saver, a soil-manager? Join us and help grow our local, urban farming and gardening movement!
The Urban Farming Collective is creating a Traverse City based network to meet the growing needs and interest in urban farming and the building of a local food system, while encouraging a lower energy lifestyle.
Join the Urban Farming Collective (UFC) and contribute your good ideas to create a citizen-based, local food system for all. The UFC is collectively organized, offering information about potential and new Community Garden sites, workshops, programs and events, as we continue to deepen our permaculture roots, socializing in our yards and neighborhood gardens, eating good food and encouraging a local economy!
CONTACT: info@littleartshram.org 231-510-3491
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» Written by: Penny Krebiehl
» Posted: 4:24 pm January 22, 2012
I participated in the 2010‐2011 Tc/NW MI Permaculture Design Course, brought to us
through Little Artshram. I not only participated, but I helped organize the fundraisers that kept this training not only affordable for low‐income residents of the greater TC area, but also provided complete scholarships for really low income folks, making it more accessible to all.
This training taught us much about permaculture, which if you aren’t familiar, provides a
design system that helps integrate human beings back into their environments in a
sustainable and maintainable way; which is very important work because we are
currently in total opposition with our environments. (Imagine what would happen to our
culture if the electricity totally went out…)
The scope of the impacts that permaculture can have on the community is almost
immeasurable, because of a person’s diversity, and personal skill set. We had people
from varied occupations, from US Postal Service mail carriers, to University Professors, to
farmers. It was an incredibly eye opening experience for all involved, and gave us all
common ground.
We worked on redesigning all aspects of the 4.3 acres of land that Little Artshram has
been caretaking, including the community gardens, Building 221, the borders and
neighbors, and the financial structure. There were many final design projects with
proposed ideas for this land that were mindfully crafted over a period of six months,
using permaculture principals, which all had the sole purpose of bettering this piece of
property.
Basically, last winter a group upwards of 35 people collectively put their diverse hearts
and brains into how to be the best stewards of these 4.3 acres, and this collaboration
continues still. This letter is living proof. We all became invested in this piece of land,
through the encouragement and fostering of our independent gifts by Penny, Steve, Matt
and Kriya and Little Artshram. It is my belief that it couldn’t be in better hands.
I hope all can look at aspects, from all directions, and across time to make
decisions based on the continuance of Little Artshram’s presence on the Historic Barns
Property. I’m sure you will see what I see, which is a group of people committed to
protecting and preserving the land for future generations and building an education
platform, where we can all learn how to integrate with our environments in a more
wholsitic manner.
~Sarah Louisignau, Permaculture Designer
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