The House of the Forest | Project Description

My engagement with this 250 acres of forest began in 2006, with the acquisition of a cutover parcel that had been harvested after the ice storm in 1998. That storm damaged many acres of woodland in Maine, this parcel included. 

My ongoing relationship with this particular parcel of forest began as initiative of Newforest Institute, the non-profit I'd co-founded in 2006. In 2008, I initiated a women's community-based forest management project, in which a small, diverse group of women from the community and I engaged in creating a vision for the forest and some trail building. This initial effort was called The Women's Earth Project and was motivated by my belief in the importance of a connection with and love of nature in general, and of the forest in particular.

After Newforest Institute closed its doors in 2014, I realized there could be no viable Women's Earth Project without its first being a Woman's Earth Project. In other words, any community-based project would have to grow first, and primarily, out of my personal experience as a poet and artist.