Rob Lewis – Earth Craft Painting

Rob Lewis is author of “The Silence of Vanishing Things,” a deep exploration of the language of environmentalism, arguing through three essays and sixty poems for a shift toward a more reverent narrative to engage the human spirit in the struggle to repair the earth. His work has been published in Dark Mountain, The Atlanta Review and others. As owner of Earth Craft Painting, he also works to revive the use of local, wild clays to paint our work and living spaces.

Bow, WA
United States

Website: http://thesilenceofvanishingthings.com

Social Media: http://www.facebook.com/thesilenceofvanishingthings/

Workshop(s)

Workshop 1: Putting the Language of Restoration to Work For the Earth

These are precipitous times and new, more powerful narratives are called for. What would a restoration narrative look like? How could the restoration story bring a unifying ethos to this fractured world?

We looked at restoration from the standpoint of language and meaning, toward the goal of building a “groundswell of popular opinion driven by a green ethos.” We tried to figure out what this movement most wants to say to the world and boil that down into simple, meaningful terms. We prowled through the vernacular for the most powerful metaphors and symbols, get creative, and see where it takes us. We also looked at the pitfalls of technical jargon, and how to avoid them.

Space was made for individuals to talk about specific language issues they might be having with their own projects, such as “how do I reach out to people unfamiliar with what I do?”

Language is the workshop of consciousness, and if a shift in consciousness is really what’s needed, here is where our most powerful tools will be found.