Under These Tangled Vines

2011-10-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

G R A P H I C - R E C O R D I N G
Ah! Now I see...

Here's how it works: I stand beside the facilitator and illustrate, in real time, the concepts or obstacles discussed in the gathering. As I draw, people see their ideas spread across large paper, bringing spoken content of meetings to life and enhancing the effectiveness/enjoyment of the discussion through:

Memory! Participants remember an average of 60% more than if the material were shared solely in written or spoken

Engagement! Graphic recording acts as visual feedback, acknowledging the contribution of all speakers, and cultivating engagement across the spectrum of participants

Big Picture Thinking! Graphic recording supports systems thinking, and connection of ideas above and beyond the politics of the group

Clarity! "Seeing" the problem leads to accelerated decision making, wider creativity and innovation

The Creation of a Visual Record! Your group is left with a dynamic and accessible visual record of the event to refer to and share with others.

Recent clients include:
Rawality Reversing Diabetes House
Generation Waking Up
Community Learning Center Schools

Google

Margaret Wheatley, Barbara McAfee, and the Bay Area Chapter of the International Coaching Federation

Bioneers Conference

Responsible Purchasing Network (RPN) and Association of Bay Area Governments

Live Real and the Community Food Security Conference

It would be a delight for me to contribute to your work in this way - please contact me for rates and availability. I look forward to collaborating!

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Margaret Wheatley and Barbara McAfee: A Call to Fearlessness 2011

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World Cafe at Bioneers 2011: What is one commitment you are making to yourself as you leave?

World Cafe at Bioneers 2011: How can we link arms across generations?

World Cafe at Bioneers 2011: How can we lift up the Youth Food Bill of Rights?

World Cafe at Bioneers 2011: What is your intention while being at Bioneers?

World Cafe at Bioneers 2011: What is your burning question?

An image of the division of labor in the brain:

Which senses do you use in your problem solving and visioning?

World Cafe/Bioneers Planning Meeting, Sept 2011

House Meeting, October 2011

Talk on biodiversity, August 2011

2011-09-08T17:11:00.000-07:00

Life Purpose Halfway House

watercolor and collage 2010

Hymn to the Sacred Body of the Universe (for Drew Dellinger)

watercolor 2011

2011-06-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

I'm crossing a bridge, can you be a cable?

I have recently been accepted to Next Gen: Art and Social Change, a 14-day leadership program in Oakland (hooray!). I writing to ask for your support to make that study possible!

One of the greatest challenges I have faced as a creative person is confronting the idea within myself that creativity is inefficient and nonsensical, while I live in a world where there are very specific crises to fix, and fast.

In this last year, I came to realize how deeply I had swallowed that utilitarian pill, conducting an exiling of my own artist as though I lived in a place like Stalinist Russia! I see how essential my creative practices are to buoy me as I live and work in this world: it isn't spreadsheets or articles that cultivate courage and faith within me, but rather the work of songwriters, story tellers, illustrators. It is the work of people who have a Picasso face twisted both toward the creative and the social, celebration and suffering, twisted in prayer and gratitude, all at once. It was the work of people like me!

As I look at the broken world around me, I see I'm not unique in this: those of us involved in social change need the creative process to teach us how to rebuild: We start with a vision, with a yearning for something very different than what is in front of us, and show up again and again to midwife the pieces coming together. We lose faith, we turn around, we see the commitment as mad. But nevertheless the vision calls to us, like a song, insisting its possibility: the empty page will become a drawing, the notes will flow together in a waltz, and yes, our city can look much different than this.

Attending Next Gen is a unique opportunity for me to bridge the two worlds that speak to my soul, and step more fully into my calling as an artist and musician. I know in my body we need much more than logic to power the huge about-face needed in America in the next crucial four years. As I turn 28, I feel I am being called to greater discipline as a creator, a human being to facilitate emotion toward "motion," and I believe Next Gen will provide me with a community to accompany me on the journey.

The total cost of the training is $1,200. I have made a deposit of $200, and am 1/3rd of the way toward raising the remaining $1,000 by July 15th. If 10 were able to sponsor me at $100 each, or 20 people at $50 each, I'd be off to the races! A gift of $10 or $20 is also invaluable to me, and I will thank every gift with a print of one of my collages. You can choose a print from my blog, (you are already here!)

To make your donation, you can do so online, here.

With great gratitude and delight in your companionship,

Melanie Ida Chopko

2011-03-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

Confessions of Sustainable Me: Eucalyptus

watercolor, ink

8x8

2011

2011-02-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

Design Portfolio, 2011

Earth House Center
Report for Breakthrough Communities Project, 2011

Performance Poster and Postcard, 2009

www.jeanrohe.com

Palm-size flier for tabling, 2009

Flier, 2010

www.ediehartshorne.net

Educational illustrations on wood for Added Value/Red Hook Community Farm, 2008

www.added-value.org

Website design, 2010

www.ediehartshorne.net

Album Cover Artwork and Silkscreen, Neighborhood Shifts, 2007

www.imdavidmoore.com

2011-01-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

Stronger Pull

for Ajeet Singh Matharu (1983-2010)

watercolor on found painting 9x12

2010

Muir Beach

pen and ink 5x7

2010

Artist as Boab [I Dreamed An Answer to My Question]

watercolor, ink 9x12

2010

2010-07-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

December 2009:

Auction and Cocktail Soiree

G o i n g,

G o n e !

L i v e - A u c t i o n - a n d - C o c k t a i l - S o i r e e

6 p m - S u n d a y, D e c e m b e r - 1 3 t h - 2009

The Tin Can Phone Society cordially invites you to a live auction and

cocktail party to toast Melanie's upcoming departure

for sunny California, and to facilitate her separation

from her material possessions.

Slick or pin your hair, visit an ATM, and join us with a date in

auction dress (think clothes for an art auction, or livestock

auction, or 3AM Tokyo fish market)

Cocktails, hors d'ouevres, and browsing at 5 P M.

Live Auction will commence promptly at 6 P M

Everything must go! Free box and door prizes

-- no one leaves empty-handed.

There will be a wide selection of items on the auction block:

furniture, houseplants, books, music, kitchen wares, as well

as dazzling drawings and collages by Melanie herself.

Large items will be auctioned individually, smaller items will

be grouped in thematic lots.

Sample Lots Include:

Free-lancer's Friend

The Ethical Epicure

The Stay-cation

Back to the Drawing Board

Time Traveler

Sample Lot 8764: Summer Love

6 CDs of sultry-cozy music, oscillating fan, Our Bodies, Our Selves

2009-08-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

July 2009 at chashama North

New work from my three week art and local food residency

at chashama North in Pine Plains,New York.

Fellow residents and cooks included Carissa Carman, Su Yeon Na, Crystal Gregory, Michael Berrens, Seldon Yuan and Eliza Stamps.

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"It can operate in depths unknown to the mind..." (Will Keepin 2004)

12x15 collage, gouache, image transfer, ink

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"We will meet your capacity to inflict suffering..." (MLK, 1957)

20x24 collage, gouache, ink, image transfer

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The Great Work Before Us (Thomas Berry 1999)

labyrinth book 9x12

collage, gouache, ink and image transfer

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Alphabet Index (series of 20)
3x5 collage, gouache, ink

2009-06-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

ALL YOU NEED IS A PHONEBOOTH

with Jean Rohe, Jon Sasmor, Ryan Schrock, Stephanie Ann Whited and Lisa Lin

To bring an element of play and community into June 19th's National Day of Action for the American Clean Energy Act, I made a life-size red phone booth out of cardboard where folks could use their cell phones to call their representatives.

Recognizing that these necessary calls often go undone because of how intimidating they can seem, we took a minute to walk each person through the key words and points of a sample script, took a breath with them, and stood beside them while they called.

We tried to “design for behavior” in the action, providing a district map of House Representatives in the NYC area, and a list of phone numbers for their Washington offices. While many people asked to take away information to call later, my work as a saleswoman has taught me that it is often now or never; similar fliers tend to pile up on my own desk! We invited folks to join the thousands of others on this Day of Action by standing with us right then to make the call: “We just know you probably have a long to-do list at home, lets do it right now, together!” This was often responded to with a laugh while they took out their cell phones. We also gave out squares of thank-you chocolate.

On our info table was a diagram based on the writing of Joanna Macy, a scholar of deep ecology and general systems theory, who places this action within a larger context. Macy writes that actions like these are one of three elements that are interdependent and necessary to shift our society from one of Industrial Growth, to one that is life sustaining: 1) Holding actions (actions that slow the destruction, and hold the line); 2) Creating new structures (actions that get to root causes and that shift whole institutions); and 3) Shifting consciousness.

2009-03-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

I played harmonica and sang with the yogurt maker and cajón player, Marco. On Sundays his neighbor dresses up like a Mexican cantador, and sings fronteras (Mexican ballads) to the tourists in the plaza. After sharing some dried fruit, he thanked me with a long ballad, sang with arms in an arc in front of his little chest.

Under the grape vines, in a finca (estate) outside of Lunahuana.

Bottling pisco into the night, with a dinner of crackers. "My sons are single, and they work hard, like mules. We have two sons for you!"

2009-03-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

Una anciana, an elder, each known from down the street by their manta (wool shawl).

I ate fried bread in the rain with mate, while province's teachers gathered around to read the results of their placement test.

Miguel, who showed me the mountains and how to make sopa del campo, milk soup with potatoes, beans and fresh cheese.

Leaving Yauyous

Buying fruit from the bus window, a few kilometers before the driver stopped to swipe a giant avocado off the road, gifted from a full truck.

2009-03-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

In September 2008, I returned to Governor's Island to deliver over 65 Lettuce Action Cards to NYC Department of Parks Comissioners Betty Chen and Adrian Benepe.

2009-03-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sunset in Lima, after eating ceviche, raw fish "cooked" in lemon and onion.

Abuela, already done with the mopping at 7:30am when I woke up. "Sol de mierda," she muttered every day.

Abuela's pensatorio, thinking place.

2009-03-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

The last boat of the day, Las Tuinas.

Raúl pulling sea urchins from the rocks at low tide.

Crossing the moon-beach at sunrise, to reach Las Frailles beach.

My cabina in Puerto Lopez.

2009-01-31T19:01:00.000-08:00

The famous Piscina de La Virgin, thermal baths of Baños. After salsa until four in the morning, the town drags itself out of bed at 7am to sneak in before the crowds. I burned my mosquito bites away while gossiping with the old ladies of the town, one of which wore her bathing suit inside out.

Melcocha, fresh taffy, hangs on knobs in the doorways of Baños, tugged and whipped around like hair, flavored with coconut, blackberry, peanut.

The longest fruit I´ve ever seen.

Sugar cane, ground in hand cranked mills on the sidewalk into panela, sugar syrup.

Fresh spices at La Plaza Market, Baños.

More beautiful decaying walls, in the morning.

Parsad and Lolita making a cake in the Vrindavan Hare Krishna kitchen, outside of Baños.

From inside the temple.

The dishwashing station of my dreams, with river water flowing all day and night.

2009-01-31T18:42:00.000-08:00

Domingo and Jose, in the endless confusion about Ecuadorian telephones and area codes.

Studying new words with Ebeth after reading Dr Suess in Spanish, sitting under the laundry lines.

Onward to harvest bamboo.

I crossed a swamp in the dark to sleep at Mirador, and see piwi trees in the morning noblina (fog).

Ebeth and Tsen-Tsuk, who woke me up daily with "Chica, chica, chica!" (Girl!) and preferred Japanese action movies from the 70´s to finding bugs in the jungle.

2009-01-31T18:10:00.000-08:00

Secret waterfall in Parque Podocarpus; climbing down mostly done on my butt instead of my feet. At some point I asked "Do I have mud on my face?" and my friend Marco replied, There isn´t any place where you don't have mud."

Hiking back from Parque Podocarpus, in the south of Ecuador.

The bus never came, so it was three Americans, five kids and a decal of Che in the back of a truck, all bumping along the road back to Vilcabamba.

Bromeliads of the cloud forest near Vilcabamba.

Goat milk by the glass, fresh from the truck that makes rounds around Vilcabamba.

Monastary outside of Vilcabamba, where the nuns fed me crackers and cream cheese, and said they wish I were Catholic.

A one hour stop along the road north to Gualaquiza so the bus driver could eat lunch.

Open air school bus!

2009-01-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Quito, Ecuador

Cebollasa in Ambarto (onion soup with popcorn and toasted lupine nuts)

2009-01-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

La Descansa, the resting place, San Antonio Community near Puyo, Ecudador

2009-01-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

Walking on the carretera to find Arutam

After sunrise, the mirador of Shuar territory

Timeteo and Graham while it rains (again)

Melida, after feeding the chickens platanos

Lida in Arutam

Lida and Vicki before sunset

Juana Vargas, mother of Arutam Community

2009-01-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T07:18:00.000-08:00

near Mendez, Ecuador

Between Macas and Cuenca, el paramo (the highlands)

2008-11-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

2008-11-30T19:58:00.000-08:00

2008-11-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

2008-11-30T19:55:00.000-08:00

2008-10-28T19:41:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK, NEW ORLEANS
Public Installation on Subway Platforms
New York, 2005

2008-10-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

In collaboration with FIGMENT, a celebration of participatory art and creative culture on Governors Island in New York Harbor, Carissa Carman and Melanie Ida Chopko presented Lettuce Lane. The project installed an interactive roadway median planted with lettuce seedlings, sprouts and edible wilds for participants to harvest their own locally grown salad. This agriculturally based performance prompts participants to engage with concepts of local and slow food production, edible foraging, and heirloom seeds. Accompanying the installation, a limited edition, collaged field guide, Lettuce Eat, identifies a variety of specialty greens and sprouts by their variations in leaf shape, taste and history.

Reminiscent of the wildly successful Victory Gardens of WWII, in which front lawns were transformed into farm gardens to produce 40% of the nations food supply, Lettuce Lane highlights the underutilized capacity for food production in New York City. The installation includes a Lettuce Action Center, in which participants can complete a thank you note to various city agencies for their support of urban food production, and request further collaboration for the local food production movement.

2008-10-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

LETTUCE LANE
Boarding the Governor's Island Ferry

LETTUCE LANE
Governor's Island Clown Car

LETTUCE LANE
Assembling the traffic median

LETTUCE LANE

LETTUCE LANE
After the rainstorm

LETTUCE LANE
Tasters filling out Lettuce Action Cards

LETTUCE LANE
Remaining lettuce plants bequeathed to Governor's Island firemen and their garden

LETTUCE LANE
documented by visitor Sheevay

2008-10-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

WITH DISHES ON THE BRANCHES
May 2008

2008-10-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

BIRD ATTIC
Fall 2007
PIGLET
Fall 2007

PARACHUTE
Fall 2007

Publish Post

2008-10-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

SOMETIMES I SWELL UP WITH HOPE (FOR UTAH PHILLIPS)
September 2008
TEXT: Sometimes I swell up with hope yes, we can be lighthouses, trees; yes, the most powerful glorious thing in America is a long memory (like Utah said) and yes, observing and sharing and laughing is the way ears begin to open, hearts begin to soften towards their secret belief that yes, there can be a world much different than this.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (FOR DAD)
July 2008

THANK YOU HUGO
March 2008