Calendar
Upcoming Events
Native Plants, Healing, and Us
On Monday, August 29, 6 - 7:30 PM, meet us at Transformative Arts for "Native Plants, Healing, and Us" - a plant workshop led by Thanh Mai of Moon Baby Medicine. 🌱🪴
This workshop is an introduction to native and medicinal plants, their role(s) in the environment and our communities, and the ongoing impacts of colonialism, ranching, and city development. There will be an introduction to native plant medicine, details about specific native plants, and some of the many health benefits they provide. We will focus on so-called southern California, from Tovaangar to Syuxtun.
Despite mass agriculture, water and soil depletion, and many invasive species, native plants continue to grow - through concrete, between highways, below cemented riverbeds. Most of these plants have adapted over time, filtering out more pollutants, developing waxier roots to retain water during drought, and so on. These plants serve as both remedies and reminders, that we are able to tend to our healing and the land around us.
Participants will be given fresh herbal tea during the workshop, as well as dried loose-leaf tea to take home.
The workshop is free and all are welcome! To protect our community, we are limiting space to 15 participants so sign up now to reserve a spot. We will also be checking COVID vaccination cards and/or a negative COVID test at the door and ask all participants wear masks while indoors.
ABOUT THANH MAI
[Thanh] Mai (pronouns: they/them) of @MoonBabyMedicine is a plant tender based in Tovangaar. Thanh grows, dries, and prepares blends of medicinal teas as a way of [re]connecting with the plant traditions + exchanges in their lineage. They work specifically with plants of the southeast Asian + Pasifika diaspora, and Chumash + coastal Natives of Southern California. Thanh encourages folks to learn about the native plants + traditions in their area and support Indigenous-led land work.
Thanh created Moon Baby Medicine to provide herbal mutual aid and learning opportunities. Thanh provides medicinal teas to @DignityandPowerNow, which distributes care kits to families with incarcerated loved ones. They hope to work with farms, cooperatives, apothecaries, land trusts, and businesses to encourage land rematriation and uninhibited space for Native plants.
Native Music Poetry Workshop
Come on down to Transformative Arts Saturday 8/27 for a Poetry Workshop led by Kinsale Drake! Learn to write poems about memory and music. We will be writing tribute poems to an artist, song, or genre that we particularly admire. Themes align with BLACKLIST ME, The Chapter House’s upcoming exhibition.
The workshop is free and all are welcome! To protect our community, we are limiting space to 15 participants so sign up now to reserve a spot. We will also be checking COVID vaccination cards and/or a negative COVID test at the door and ask all participants wear masks while indoors.
ABOUT KINSALE DRAKE
Kinsale is a writer and narrator whose work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, Yale Literary Magazine, TIME, NPR, Torrey House Press, Abalone Mountain Press, LACMA, NYU Gallatin, and elsewhere. She previously served as a National Student Poet; she currently edits Changing Wxman Collective. She is an Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow, and the winner of the J. Edgar Meeker Prize for Poetry, the Academy of American Poets College Prize, and the Young Native Playwrights Award.
She is currently working on a poetry collection about genealogies of Native music, blacklisting, censorship, erasure, and survivance; her favorite musician is Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Beading, Land Acknowledgement, and Restoration
Join us Friday, August 26 for “Beading, Land Acknowledgement, and Restoration”, a hands-on beading workshop led by Kimberly Robertson (Mvskoke). This is an in-person event at Transformative Arts at 410 S Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013.
Each participant will be gifted a bead kit at no cost. We will bead collectively to operationalize Indigenous knowledge and connect to our ancestors and community. We will be making keychains that include a variety of materials but we also believe our beading practices should respect the local ancestral stewards on whose lands we bead. To do this, we often work with materials offered by the land in a sustainable manner and this particular project will feature acorns to honor the Tongva lands we occult in downtown Los Angeles.
No prior experience with beading is necessary to participate. If you have access to some, please bring a small pair of scissors and a small pair of jewelry pliers. If you don’t have them, we will have some on hand.
The workshop is free and all are welcome! To protect our community, we are limiting space to 15 participants so sign up now to reserve a spot. We will also be checking COVID vaccination cards and/or a negative COVID test at the door and ask all participants wear masks while indoors.
ABOUT KIMBERLY ROBERTSON
Kimberly Robertson (She/Her/Hers) is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and an artivist, scholar, teacher, and mother who works diligently to employ Native feminist theories, practices, and methodologies in her hustle to fulfill the dreams of her ancestors and to build a world in which her daughters can thrive. Robertson is an Indigenous anti-violence advocate who has received trainings and certifications from Sacred Circle, the former National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women as well as the current National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. Robertson is also an active member of the Los Angeles Indian community and is currently the co-creative director for Meztli Projects’ Ready to Rise Initiative.
Robertson earned an MA in American Indian Studies and a PhD in Women’s Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012. She is currently an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her scholarship and creative practices: center Native feminisms, the ideas and practices of ceremony, storytelling, intersecting subjectivities, dislocation, decolonization, and Indigenous futurities; focus on Indigenous resistance to sexual and gendered violence; and include screen-printing, collage, beadwork, installation art, and zine-making.
Lauren Nicole Paint Workshop
Join The Chapter House and Lauren Nicole as she leads you through an intuitive painting workshop, where participants learn more about their personal connections to artistic elements and the emotions they evoke.
The workshop is free, all supplies will be provided, and all are welcome! To protect our community, we are limiting space to 15 participants so sign up now to reserve a spot. We will also be checking COVID vaccination cards and/or a negative COVID test at the door and ask all participants wear masks while indoors.
ABOUT LAUREN NICOLE
Lauren Nicole (LN) is a Southern California-based artist, who works in a variety of styles and mediums, primarily focusing on painting and writing. Her emotive, vibrant, and colorful work centers around freedom of expression and emotions, which can be seen in her signature LongNeck (LN) portraits.
Combining elements of her Indigenous heritage (Tongva, Chumash); beadwork, and Native plant relatives are commonly incorporated into her work. Lauren encourages viewers to expand their view of what Native and Indigenous art and storytelling look like. Her work has been shown at The Muckenthaler Cultural Center, The Potocki Center for the Arts, and La Gallerie Numerique.
Virtual Poetry Workshop
Learn to write poems about memory and music! We will be writing tribute poems to an artist, song, or genre that we particularly admire. Themes align with BLACKLIST ME, The Chapter House’s most recent call for submissions.
Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a writer and narrator whose work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, Yale Literary Magazine, TIME, New World Coming (Torrey House Press, 2021), her zine Hummingbird Heart (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022), and elsewhere. She is an Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow, and the recent winner of the Academy of American Poets/Sean T. Lannan Poetry Prize, and the Young Native Playwrights Award. She has been recognized as one of Time’s “People Changing How We See the World.” Her work is forthcoming in Poetry Online, Poets.org, The Languages of our Love (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022), and elsewhere.
Young Green Thumb(s)
Held in Barnsdall Park, this workshop is an introduction to growing in pots, growing at home, and 'gardening' with limited resources. For folks who have been cut off from land-tending, farming, and other traditional lifeways, it can be intimidating to start. We will discuss sprouting seeds, working with limited spaces, and connecting with plants.
Attendees will be given several (sprouted) corn seedlings and biodegradable peat pots. A limited number of grow-bags will be available as well.
This workshop will be part of an ongoing urban gardening series, followed by digital talk spaces, in-person seed swaps, and more.
Workshop will be held in an outdoor space. Masks are highly encouraged and folks will be able to attend while also social distancing.
Attendance is limited to 30 guests. Admission is free! Please register ahead of time by clicking the link below.
Wellness Workshop
Join The Chapter House for a Wellness Workshop in Alhambra Park on Sunday December 12 from 12 PM to 1:30 PM. Facilitated by Deoné Newell (Diné), we will practice mindfulness and breathwork.
Breathwork will begin promptly at 12:15 PM. Please refrain from eating 2 hours prior to breathwork beginning. We'll have snacks and Navajo tea available after breathwork!
Please bring a water bottle, a yoga mat, a blanket, and an open mind. We ask everyone who attends mask up when appropriate and physically distance.
We recommend a donation of $10 for this event! Financial assistance is available as well, just shoot us an email at info@thechapterhouse.org. Space is limited so sign up ASAP!
TCH x TKP Community Art Night
Join The Chapter House and Seeding Sovereignty for a community art night February 11 from 5 PM to 7:30 PM PT! Our guest artist DeAnna (IG: @makwikee.co) will lead us through a painting session as we enjoy red rose tea and community!
When you register, you will receive an art supply box that includes -
- 5x7 canvas
- 12 pc acrylic paint set
- Seeding Sovereignty / Kakichihiwewin stickers
- Kakichihiwewin pin
- 2 Seeding Sovereignty patches
- The Chapter House sticker
- 2 Red Rose tea bags
- A tea light
- Juniper incense
- an N95 mask cover
Native Wellness & Empowerment Workshop
Join us downtown this Saturday November 6 for a Native Wellness and Empowerment Workshop. Led by Deoné Newell and featuring performances by Kelly Caballero and Isabel Trevino, we will experience the healing power of breathwork, mindfulness, spoken word, and empowerment practices embodied through the Native lens.
Deoné Newell is a Navajo/Black entrepreneur, filmmaker, actress, writer, breathwork facilitator and life coach. Featured in Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 2017’s CEO’s to keep an eye on, Deoné has gone from strength to strength in the tech industry, film industry, and now as a personal life coach. As a woman who hails from the Navajo Reservation and has seen the effects of systemic oppression and generational trauma firsthand, Deoné has dedicated herself to making ancestral connection and healing, and its forgotten wisdoms, accessible to as many womxn as possible, to break generational patterns and step into true self-discovery, abundance, healing, cultural change, and spiritual sovereignty.
Kelly Caballero is a singer- songwriter, performer, poet, and jeweler. Her body of work focuses primarily on highlighting the multifaceted and complex lives of Indigenous peoples born and raised in urban settings. She recently performed her poetry in collaboration with the great cellist, Yo- Yo Ma. Her work has been featured in partnership with The Ford Theater, Hollywood Climate Summit, The Hundreds Streetwear Brand, We Rise LA and much more. She continues to share her personal experience and stories of life, love and Indigenous resilience through her work as a Tongva woman.
Beading, Land Acknowledgement, and Restoration (Workshop)
In this hands-on workshop, Kimberly Robertson (Mvskoke) and Olivia Espericueta (Descendant of La Jolla Band of Luiseño) will explore the ways in which beading circles and workshops can serve as an Indigenous method to activate our people's well-being and help us heal from historical and ongoing injustices.
Each participant will be gifted a bead kit and we will bead collectively to operationalize Indigenous knowledge and connect to our ancestors and community. We will be making keychains that include a variety of materials but we also believe our beading practices should respect the local ancestral stewards on whose lands we bead. To do this, we often work with materials offered by the land in a sustainable manner and this particular project will feature acorns to honor the Tongva lands we occult in downtown Los Angeles.
No prior experience with beading is necessary to participate. If you have access to some, please bring a small pair of scissors and a small pair of jewelry pliers. If you don’t have them, we will have some on hand.
Admission is always free and all are welcome! Register via the link below.
