This art call is a collaborative creative project with Treesisters International inviting women to tell the story of their love and advocacy of our global forests. Co-creating an investment in global reforestation efforts with 50% of proceeds from entry fees directed to Treesisters Reforestation Projects.

Inviting a return to our place as the ‘Restorer Species’, collaborating with Earth in emergent, creative and regenerative ways, which reflect our respect, love, interconnection and reciprocity in action.

We invite you to watch this conversation with MUSEA Curator, Shiloh Sophia, and TreeSisters Community Engagement Coordinator and Artist Liaison, Kathleen Brigidina, introducing the Mother Tree art call and sharing the story of this creative collaboration.

About the Mother Tree Open Call for Art

MUSEA Intentional Creativity Museum is honored to be hosting the Mother Tree Open call for Art, in support of TreeSisters International. We are inviting multimedia submissions of art that reflects women’s intimate connection with trees and the Divine Feminine and Mother energies which catalyzes and empowers women to protect and stand in union with our beloved global forests and one another. 

This will be a juried art call in which up to 50 multimedia submissions will be intentionally chosen for inclusion in the Mother Tree Art Exhibition (online). We will host a complimentary public Museum Show and Opening for the Mother Tree Exhibit LIVE online on April 20, 2022, in honor of the upcoming Earth Day. This Museum Show will be hosted by MUSEA Curator, Shiloh Sophia and CoCurators, with TreeSister Artist Liaison Kathleen Brigidina, who will share about TreeSister’s women-led global reforestation work and how artists are involved! At the show we will share the Mother Tree Exhibit – a celebration of the artwork and the co-creation of global reforestation, as well as an honoring of the Earth and the Mother Trees that keep our forests alive.

The Mother Tree Exhibit is inspired by MUSEA’s lineage and legacy of activism on behalf of women and girls and our precious home, the Earth. Co-Founders, Curator Shiloh Sophia and Jonathan McCloud as well as members of our Intentional Creativity Arts Guild, have been actively advocating for the health, wholeness, safety and freedom of women globally, attending the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as panelists and advocates of this work. As an organization, we recognize that the status of women is interconnected with the status of our global forests, as women and ecosystems are often experiencing the same or similar harms inside of current structures.

Through this collaboration with TreeSisters Nonprofit, women are invited to rise up in creative self expression to artfully express their desire for the healing, wholeness and regeneration of our precious global forests, which in turn is also holding a powerful space for the healing and regeneration of women! We are in this together. Intricately interwoven.

TreeSisters is a social change and reforestation charity that places tropical forest restoration into everyone’s hands. Through individuals and businesses that give back to nature every month, TreeSisters has so far funded the planting of over 22 million trees across 12 locations in Brazil, Borneo, Cameroon, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Madagascar, Nepal and West Papua. They fund a diverse portfolio of tropical reforestation projects that are ethical, community-led, expand natural forest cover, and aim to avoid further deforestation. Their projects support local communities and improve livelihoods, protect critically endangered species, and focus on gender parity and the participation of women.

TreeSisters actively encourage the cultural shift required to grow from a consumer to a restorative culture and encourage feminine leadership by providing resources, experiences and communities that inspire personal and collective action on behalf of the trees.

This creative collaboration between MUSEA Intentional Creativity Museum and TreeSisters International reflects the shared and heartfelt desires of both organizations to stand for the protection, healing and regeneration of our global forests which contributes to the protection and wellbeing of all living beings.

The concept of ‘mother tree’ comes from biologist Dr. Suzanne Simard who discovered that forests have hub or ‘Mother Trees’, which are large, highly connected trees that play an important role in the flow of information and resources in a forest.  These Mother Trees are symbiotic with intelligent and intricate mycorrhizal networks that support the tree in communicating, sending warnings, and supportive chemical compounds to other trees, specifically their young. These complex relationships contribute to forest resiliency, adaptability and recovery and have far-reaching implications for how to manage and heal forests from human impacts, including climate change.

This concept of the Mother Tree nurturing her young, has an expansive connection to our global forests nurturing life on our planet, providing us air to breathe, offering nutrients to the oceans, regulating weather systems and the hydrological cycle, providing home and shelter to humans and other-than-human beings, and cooling temperatures on land.

The wellness of the trees and the forest ecosystems connects to our wellness. We must stand for the restoration and regeneration of our global forests, visioning and working together to ensure they will continue to thrive for 7 generations ahead and beyond. 

This concept of the mother tree also represents our connection to our matriarchal ancestors – those who are there to support us, send us messages, share their wisdom, and provide us with guidance on our life’s journey. Therefore, there is an invitation threaded into this art call theme for women to connect with matriarchal ancestral support and their own ancient root systems. This is reflected in MUSEA’s Matriarchal Lineage of activism catalyzed through creativity and the many ways Intentional Creativity both inspires and bolsters women to participate in the holding actions for women and our global forests that are so vital at this time – often including this directly in our canvases. 

ART MEDIUM AND THEME:
We are inviting women to submit digital images or videos (for sculpture or 3D pieces) of artwork which expresses their intimate connection with the trees, incorporating elements of the Divine Feminine or Mother energies. Multiple mediums of artwork are encouraged, including but not limited to paintings, sculptures, collages, sketches, pottery, photographs, etc. 

Thematic elements may include, for example:

• Women together with trees
• Individual mother trees
• Networks of trees or forests
• Trees animated with feminine of Mother imagery 
• Connection to supportive matriarchal ancestors 
• Women in activism for the trees

SUBMISSION FEE:
$42 per submission – maximum of 2 submissions
*50% of net proceeds are directly donated to Treesisters International Reforestation Projects*

FUNDRAISING GOAL:
$5000 – the equivalent of 9000+ trees planted through TreeSisters International.

OPEN TO:
Self-Identified Women

MEDIUM:
Multimedia, digital submission (image or video) of any artwork that reflects the Mother Tree theme.

WRITTEN COMPONENT:
As MUSEA has a philosophy rooted in the power of Art + Story, we are asking each participant to share a short poem or writing (300 words or less) that reflects the ‘story’ of their submitted image.  *not required*

DATES:
Submissions open: February 8, 2022

Submissions Close: April 1, 2022

Jury Period: April 4-6

Jury In/Out Announcement: April 8

Museum Show and Exhibit Opening (live online): April 20, 2022 at 12 pm PT

The image featured in our Mother Tree graphic of a being in healing contact with a large tree is called ‘Healing Luna’. It was painted in the year 2000 by Intentional Creativity Art Ancestor, Teacher and Master Painter, Sue Hoya Sellars. Sue is one of the root teachers of Intentional Creativity, who taught that we can put intentional prayers for healing into the artwork we are creating. She believed that it had an impact on those who view, hold, or engage with the art – that it becomes imbued with meaning and has a ripple effect. Sue was also a lifelong activist who advocated for the rights of women and girls and the environment, and had personally been deeply moved by the story of the Luna Tree, that inspired the ‘Healing Luna’ Painting.

Luna is the name given in October 1997 to a 1,000-year-old, 200-foot-tall coast redwood tree in Humboldt County, California. This tree was occupied for 738 days by forest activist Julia Butterfly Hill, eventually leading to the tree being saved by an agreement between Hill and the Pacific Lumber Company. Shortly after that, however, in the year 2000, the tree was severely harmed by an act of vandalism in which a chainsaw was used to cut nearly halfway through her. Sue was heartbroken after hearing this news and chose to bring her grief and tears to the canvas. Curator, Shiloh Sophia, remembers this time in which Sue had broken down in tears of grief for Luna and had determined to paint her healing happening. This eventually led to the stunning and evocative ‘Healing Luna’ painting, which is a treasured part of the permanent collection that hangs at Musea.

Concurrent with Sue’s painting, and the devoted actions of many other artists, activists, and forest lovers, it came to be that a specialized medical team for the Luna Tree came together and devised a bracing system to help the tree withstand the extreme windstorms that would ensue in the winter. Many forest activists also came and supported Luna with herbal poultices and healing prayers. Miraculously, Luna survived the cut and to this day she is alive and standing.

In the philosophy of Intentional Creativity, the intentions we place into our creative works can have an impact on both the maker and those receiving what has been made. It is heartening to know that Sue’s painting of the healing of Luna was one of the many interconnected threads of intention for healing which brought this into being. That is why we have made ‘Healing Luna’ the feature image for our open call for art.

At MUSEA many in our collective believe that everything we do with love and healing intentions for our global forests, including the creation of art contributes to a powerful ‘healing field’ that creates the condition for this healing to come into form, and catalyzes beautiful holding actions. We are inviting multimedia submissions of art to the Mother Tree Open Call for Art which hold intention for the regeneration of our global forests. The funding that is made possible by this call will be invested into TreeSisters who have reforestation projects happening all over the globe. There is true reciprocity occurring within this collaboration, which will bring our healing intentions for our global forests into form. This is the heart of Intentional Creativity and work of MUSEA.

The Benefits of Participation

Being included in a museum exhibit is something you can add to your Artist Portfolio, and share with your friends, family, communities and beloveds. We will also be providing you with an official Artist’s badge of Inclusion in our Musea Intentional Creativity Exhibit that you can showcase on your websites and any place you wish to share it! You will be provided with media for promoting the live Museum Show and inviting guests to attend.  

The show will be featured on our iMusea Museum site as a unique Exhibition Page, and shared broadly with our 10,000+ international community, Membership, and Guests, as well as the Tree Sisters network. The Museum Show will be shared over our Social Media channels and housed on our Musea YouTube Channel. 

Your participation in our open call for art is a wonderful way to collaborate with our museum in support of women-led global reforestation!

Learn more about Treesisters on their website at https://www.treesisters.org

Visit iMusea.org Museum at iMusea.org