“As we have been weaving Willow, the Willow has also been weaving us. We are learning that weaving takes place on many planes, not just the material.”
An excerpt from our recent blog by Aislynn Blair and Rachel Turner.
As for the material….Here’s a sneak peak of our 20 foot Willow Rose installation in collaboration with @yustinaa
Come check it out Sunday @mountpisgaharboretum
We’ve had the honor of working with Installation artist Yustina Salnikova as we bring to life, the Willow Rose.
Yustina Salnikova is an artist with a vision to bring environmental awareness and social change through sculpture, painting, dance, installation art, and the transformation of public spaces. Her work explores themes of reanimating the “inanimate” and reimagining “waste” by finding ways to love and be present with the things, habits, places, and people society has historically cast “away.” She draws on her understanding of the relationship between social, environmental, and urban structures from her studies in environmental science & policy, and sustainable design at UC Berkeley to guide her art. She believes art can not only be a vehicle for education and storytelling but can also be used to provide urban and municipal functions through biomimicry. Ultimately, her work aims to transform her personal relationship with the variety of crises of our time into a prayer for a more connected and equitable world where no one and nothing is “discarded.”
Check out her work @yustinaa
And get your tickets to the wildflower festival @mountpisgaharboretum for MAY 17TH
In 2019, two artists and dozens of volunteers hand-recycled over 5,000 lbs of plastic to create what would become the Guinness World Record holder for largest recycled plastic sculpture: Ethyl.
What started as waste was sorted, cleaned, and reassembled piece by piece into an 82-foot blue whale. Even the soap used to clean the trash was recycled from found laundry and soap bottles.
On Earth Day, Ethyl is a reminder of how quickly waste accumulates, and what becomes possible when we reuse what we already have.
🖌️Art & Artist: Ethyl by @joeldeanstockdill & @yustinaa
📍location: Originally commissioned by Monterey Bay Aquarium for Crissy Field, San Francisco, later sold to Meow Wolf and placed at Santa Fe Community College @sfccnm
(all permits, sales and production by yours truly @Building180 )
🤝Partners: @montereybayaquarium@meow__wolf@hub_gram
family dinner
reclaimed/recycled paper, cardboard, drip line, bed sheets, glue & paint.
the first iteration was on display at the "coming home" group exhibition at the @pineboxcollective on April 4/5th, 2026.
Last year, I fell in love with puppets and paper mache.
I had the opportunity to participate in a puppet show with a few dear friends and that started a chain of inspiration. What a joy to collaborate with friends in this way!
I have always loved puppets and thought they were a powerful story telling tool and an amazing way to combine sculpture and performance art. Now I am obsessed and excited.
Also, I don’t know why it took me so long to explore paper mache as a trash/ cardboard artist… What a magical medium!
My show this past weekend was inspired by this process. (I will share photos once I process them). There is much more to come on this thread!
For now, here are some photos from last summer’s puppet show– The Woman of the Woods
I didn’t actually make any puppets for this show. I performed and helped the story come to life.
Puppets were made by @chanterelliee@mattwbaum@scraps_____@joeldeanstockdill & @katnoc .
The next puppet show with our troupe is planned for May!
Grateful for this creative community!
Photos by the incredibly talented @michaeldrummnd
A few friends and I are hosting this show next weekend. It's been a while since I really made art just to make art (not as my job). This has been an exploration of doing so again. It's been hard and vulnerable to find the groove again. I am excited and nervous to share this with the public. My piece isn't quite finished but I invite you to come anyway.... it will probably be a nice time.
~~~ about the show:
Coming home:
Remember that feeling? When you returned to a place you grew up in? When you arrived at what feels like home, for the first time - unexpectedly?
We refer to the spaces that have rooted us as home. What about all of the places we create within ourselves to feel at home in our bodies? What about all of the places we have been that remind us we are not feeling at home? What about all of the attempts to find home, meandering within and without…. With no clarity and a lot of faith….
Play is what happens in a home, so what do we do to create new technologies of play? Is anything new or is it all ancestral and we are playing our part in a world dominated by modernity and exclusivity?
Coming home to oneself is a human dignity practice. What we each define as home is to be special and cherished, and respected. Aside from literal nutrients, creative expression is also grounding and cathartic - nutrition for the nervous system and soul.
~
We are a group of millennials collectively running a peer-to-peer MFA group project that involves an art show to present our work. Together we are exploring the collective’s inner-excavation to expose revelations surrounding stewardship, home making, connection to digital life, relationship to land, storytelling and queer intimacies.
<3
Happy equinox & lunar new year
I meant to post this on the lunar new year but so it goes..
The snake sure lived up to its reputation last year
I shed my skin alright
Got intimate with life and death,
The most I ever have.
Something new,
Yet all the same
Cycles and cycles
Rebuilding themselves
While transforming
This year I..
Watched the grass closely,
met death
said goodbye,
Processed ,
Listened,
Buried,
Grieved big,
Planted flowers,
witnessed birth,
Unearthed,
Met new life,
Harvested abundantly,
Danced fearlessly,
Tried on new heads,
Grieved again
Whiteness love old and new,
And promises true and empty,
Planted roots,
Felt the abundance
Kept grieving
Kept moving
And now I stand in awe
Grateful.
Dear Horse,
I'm rearing & ready to go.
here are some scenes from the past year and some change, some of the happenings and the people & projects that kept me sane. love you all beyond words. endlessly grateful. I will come back and tag folks later<3
I see that people are posting about 2016. I don’t understand the trend, nor do I usually participate in these sorts of things, but I got excited because 2016 was such a monumental year for me personally. Also, the nostalgia is nice right now…
It was the year my art career journey began, and the year I met many people who changed my life drastically. Here's an overview of the year through the projects I got to work on!
1. Started the year closing a chapter by building a little stage and dancing on mountaintops together with the sweetest friends from college.
2. In February, I joined Bamboo DNA for my first full festival build for Okeechobee Music Festival. We built the “HERE” stage, along with 3 other areas/ stages. I started my bamboo building journey and met lifelong collaborators in art & life. I loved the plant integration into the stage.
3. I spent a few months at Oralia Ranch working with Bamboo DNA, prepping for numerous events. I learned so many skills from many lifelong friends and mentors.
4. I helped build a bamboo bridge and “the Compass” area at Lighting in a Bottle Festival with Bamboo DNA.
5. I learned a lot about rigging while working at Bamboo DNA’s installation at EDC. Six towers connected by solid and suspension bridges.
6. Went to Boom Festival in Portugal, where we spent over a month building the Chill Out temple. This consisted of building a 110’ tower, tipping it at 8 degrees on a giant hinge, and connecting it to 13 radial posts. Carlye, Claire, and I got to paint the designs on the sails.
7. Joel and I decided to try working together. After spending some time in Portugal, we went to Ireland to build a sculpture for the Children's Hospital in Dublin, Ireland.
8. After some time in England, we traveled to Australia and built Taz, the Tasmanian tiger, for Earthcore Music Festival
9. We landed another commission in Australia and built Gonzo, the flying fox, for Pitch Music Festival.
10. We ended the year in Thailand, prepping for our project at Wonderfruit Festival.
Thanks for reading.
Hope it was a welcome distraction from the doom scroll.
Now I urge you to go outside, give someone a hug & call a government rep.
It’s the last day of the capricorn season…
I have so many feelings about the state of things.
However, today, all I offer are some words about goats…
It’s been one full year of goats
And what a journey..
These creatures have taught me so much…
(About Birth, death, containment, escape and so on.)
And almost drove me mad…
Absolutely bonkers..
Tested patience to new degrees..
While also providing the juiciest love and nourishment for the tummy and the soul.
As many mothers and other life tenders know…
Milk is magic, milk is life, milk is god
I really understand now.
Thank you @sotough.sotender and @deergodvstheworld for the endless support on this journey.
And of course Joel for being willing to go on it with me.
One of the best pieces of advice Molly gave me is “ be more stubborn than the goat”— I feel like this broadly applies to a lot in life right now lol
Another nugget that sticks out is “ if you have two hours, it will take ten minutes. If you have ten minutes, it will take two hours”- wisdom from another goatherd @saint_johns_wort_
I feel my relationship to time changing. I’m hoping it a good thing…
Reach out if you ever want to chat about goats.. It has become one of my favorite and most frequent topics of conversation .
Our goat project is centered on dairy, regenerative grazing and meat.
Last February, @joeldeanstockdill and were commissioned for a window display in downtown San Francisco.
The piece is called Give and Take and you can find it at 901 Market St.
I never made it to the location but I hear it’s really hard to photograph because of the busy
street, so here’s the best photos we have and a description.
Give and Take, consists of a continuous landscape across two windows. A valley made of trashbins spans the windows. On one side a giant human hand throws a ball made of various trash.
On the other side a coyote made out of cardboard receives the ball. The scene sits among a
desolate sky blue background.
This is a conversation about the cycle of consumerism and the way excessive waste permeates the cycle on all levels. It is a conversation about how humans relate to land and the non human beings that live on it. It asks, are your relationships responsible, reciprocal or are they laden in excess?
This is my first window display so there was definitely some big learning, and many things I
would improve upon next time!
The piece will remain here till January 12, if you happen to be in the area and want to check it
out:)
Thank you Hudson Properties for the opportunity and @building180 for the connection!
Wanted to pop on to say..
Thank you..
Yeah you
However we have crossed paths,
in whatever way our lives intermingled,
in whatever way you have witnessed me,
believed in me, loved me, supported me
Or even disliked/ disagreed/ hated me..
THANK YOU
Lately I’ve been overwhelmed by gratitude.
I am in constant awe of the grand dance of life
And all the amazing beings I’ve encountered along the way
Just know that your support of me, my art and my work in the world is felt in everything I do.
I feel so incredibly lucky to know you.
To witness you and learn from you.
I am who I am because I crossed paths with you. However big or small.
So again, thank you.
Sending out big love and gratitude
Happy new moon~
Photo by the incredible
@genu_ous ❤️✨
