On September 23rd, more than 350 people attended our first annual Sonoma County Veterans Art Day. This was a free-to-the-public event showcasing 18 Veterans and their artwork, highlighting the positive effect that creative expression plays in supporting overall health and wellbeing.

The attendees joined us for food and drink, live music, large-scale winged heart installations, heart-making workshops for all ages, Veteran storytelling, information tables with local Veteran service organizations, and more.

This event was funded, in part, by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, and was a joint initiative among Life On Earth Art, the Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission, and The Veterans Art Project/VETART.

From September through November, we exhibited at the Museum of Sonoma County for Dia De Los Muertos.

We hosted workshops for hundreds of community members to make and include their art in the exhibit. They used Hojalata (tin embossing) to commemorate loved ones and family members who served in the military.

The exhibition included an ofrenda for the commemoration of family members and military service members who have passed away, and featured a parachuting Marine descending onto the main ofrenda.

This marked our fifth year of participating in this event, and an estimated 2,000 people came to view the exhibit.

Life On Earth Art tabled at the Connection is Prevention event at Santa Rosa's Old Courthouse on Sunday, September 10th.

This was an enriching community experience focused on how fostering connections can be key to preventing mental health challenges. Sponsored by the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, the 3-hour event offered mind-body skill workshops, community presentations, an advanced care plan workshop, and many community resources.

Life On Earth Art was one of 25 organizations tabling at this event, which was attended by more than 100 people.

Our monthly ARTS ALIVE! Program had more than 20 participants making paper mache winged hearts for our Veteran program.

Our founder, Tracy Ferron, presented to the American Art Therapy Association annual conference, “Creativity, Curiosity & Compassion” in San Diego. Tracy co-presented with two leaders of Rehabilitation Therapy Services at the California Department of State Hospitals in Napa—Camille Gentry, Chief, and Alicia Brewster, Dance Therapist and Program Assistant.

The presentation shared the roadmap to the creation of Unbound, their groundbreaking program combining creative arts therapies and innovative community partnerships. The large-scale art installation was created over 15 months in 2021-2022 with the goal of destigmatizing mental illness and uplifting patients and staff. We worked with 1500 people, including 500 psychiatric patients, 200 hospital staff, and over 800 community volunteers.

At the presentation, we were excited to screen our new three minute film, The Creation of Unbound, which tells the story of community participation in the creation of Unbound.

Since its completion, Unbound garnered top awards recognizing its therapeutic innovations and impact, and its stunning art and design:

— The 2022 First Place Award for Arts for Innovation from the National Organization of Arts in Health

— A CODAworx “Top 100” selection of global large-scale artworks in 2023.

— The Director’s Top Award in 2023 from the California Department of State Hospitals

LOEA returned to work with Journey Academy, a TLC Child and Family Services in Sebastopol to install the 6 foot heart created by Journey Academy students in 2023. The heart depicts the ideas and feelings of the students, addressing issues they see in their communities. Students spoke about the public bus system, autism awareness, and animal abuse, among other issues.

Our November ARTS ALIVE! night was a mixer bringing together many ARTS ALIVE! organizations at our Petaluma studio to mix, mingle, and meet each other in person. We provided food and drink, live music, art making, speed networking, item swapping, a Maker's Market, and lots of opportunities for connections and camaraderie! We were joined by 10 organizations that set up information tables, and by more than 120 individuals from our arts and non-profit community.

We announced the development of our large-scale art installation “Visions of Hope,” which will run from August through October of 2024 at the Marin County Civic Center. The installation will feature the art and stories of the incarcerated, will fill two large exhibition spaces, and is an opportunity for the incarcerated to create something beautiful together that will be seen and heard by the public. The intention of this exhibit is to advocate for criminal justice reform, show the important role of art as a tool for activism, and build artistic bridges between incarcerated persons and the outside world. This project was a collaboration with The People’s Commission for Integrity in Criminal Justice and the Transformative Justice Center of Monterey County.

Over three Wednesdays in December, we brought together about 35 volunteers who graciously helped paper mache winged-hearts. Their hours of work produced the winged-heart canvases which would be used by incarcerated men at Soledad State Prison in our heart making workshops.

Life On Earth Art hosted a special in-person event honoring Human Rights Day and the 75th Anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We were joined by community members to watch the live-streaming of this milestone event and to celebrate the activists and advocates, leaders and changemakers that inspire us all. Our participants joined in constructing paper mâché winged hearts that were then painted by incarcerated men at Soledad State Prison in early 2024.

Life On Earth Art’s Founder, Tracy Ferron, traveled to Palamós, Spain to speak and lead an art workshop for the Synergos Annual European Gathering, Re-imagining Philanthropy. Synergos is a global organization that has pioneered the use of bridging leadership, which builds trust and collaboration to solve complex problems.

After her talk, Walls to Wings, Tracy guided the 38 participants in her Tending Courage workshop which included expressive writing, erasure poetry and the making of individual tin feathers for a set of wings. These glowing wings served as the backdrop for a speech by Dr. Mary Robinson, first woman President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. With these beautifully crafted feathers and wings, our art team created a 9-foot winged heart, entitled Radical Love, which is proudly displayed on our studio wall.