CURRENT MISSION

channeling my energies into my sculptures and installations

ABOUT ME

I, Dawn Stetzel, am a visual artist from the United States. I am interested in wild foraging and exploring the margins of places, and I love to ride bicycles, look in dumpsters and trash piles wherever I go, and make my own sauerkraut. I love housesitting, pet sitting and chicken farm tending (and did this solid for 1.5 years on the central Oregon coast.) The last place I "officially lived" was in Massachusetts, on the northeast coast of the USA, where I finished my Masters of Fine Arts degree in 2007. I work mostly sculpturally and while I hesitate to label myself an environmental artist, I do push against the rampant consumerism and generation of waste that I see here in the states. At the end of January 2009 I finished a 2-month artist-in-residency in Brazil, South America.

In addition to Brazil, my journeys have taken me all over the USA, to Mexico, China and Australia, but I grew up on a small, 14-acre farm in Iowa, landlocked by rolling hills and fields of corn and soybeans in the middle of the USA. We had 90 head of sheep, alfalfa to bale and always had a full garden, processing as many vegetables as possible to last us the long, cold snowy winters. Growing up in Iowa taught me to work hard, to love getting dirty, and to "sing behind the plow".

I am a passionate, hard-working explorer most interested in taking the pathway through the back alley instead of the main road. I am full of energy and eager to absorb new experiences. I wish to learn new skills, new ways, as well as sharing what I know.

Here are some new things I have been doing: I have been going to the local martial arts studio to exercise: kickboxing fitness, combat hapkido and jiu-jitsu, which has been a hard-fun challenge that is pushing me in interesting ways. Not that long ago I my goal was to learn how to swim and to dance.....I started with contra dancing and swing and some other ballroom dance and I am still working on this goal. Recently I have been taking hip-hop dance classes that are so FUN! I also love any Zumba, DanceFit, UJam, Yoga/Pilates class. I am also learning to crochet. I had been volunteering at the cat shelter and working a few shifts at the doggie daycare/dog kennel. I was also working on making my own glue/paints/brushes/paper and other art supplies......quill pens out of goose feathers.....ink out of inky cap mushrooms.....iron gall ink out of oak insect galls.....plant and mushroom dyes....and more....

I have worked in the non-profit arts sector for quite awhile and was part of The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology for several years, www.sitkacenter.org, 2009-2015.

PHILOSOPHY

I try to follow that thread that runs through me. Better said by writer Annie Dillard in her writing titled "Living Like Weasels". Here are the last lines by Dillard:
"I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles."

Por qué estoy en Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I believe that a strong connection between humans is the only way we will survive as a species. Traveling via rideshares and via couchsurfing or via WWOOFing is a way to connect to strangers, to learn about other people, other cultures, and to learn to be less wary of each other, to learn that there are many different ways of living and doing things, and to learn to provide support for each other as well as to lean on each other for support when we need it.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have officially and unofficially surfed many couches and have house/cat/dog sat on the Oregon coast for a year and a half including chicken farm tending (110 chickens) and this way of living involves being flexible enough to jump from place to place and plug into other peoples spaces in a gentle, non-disturbing sort of way.....I am good at replacing things exactly how I found them.....dishes in the cupboard and pots and pans in the pantry. I did WWOOF for 6 months in Australia (February 2008 to August 2008), which is a way of traveling that involves working on organic farms in exchange for food and a place to sleep. So I hopped from family to family for 6 months and it was beautiful! I also had a job at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the Oregon coast in 2009 for 5 months that involved work-in-trade-for accomodation as well as a bit of money. (This turned into a long-term non-profit arts job that was fabulous!) I believe in alternative ways of existing in a place and in traveling (I wish hitch-hiking was not so frowned upon here in the states) and am a bicyclist/commuter and use any ridehare option that I can get, the online craigslist rideshare is great!

First official Couchsurfing for me was in Seattle, October 16th, 2008 and it was great! Thank you Victoria!

Intereses

peeking at things left on curbs and in alley-ways, walking instead of driving, making stuff instead of buying stuff, ethnobotany, social ecology, biking to get to places, harvesting wild foods, gleaning, seeing evidence of resourcefulness and a connection to place, anything involving the connection between art and natural science, smoothies in the morning, "sewing-bees-art-parties-skill-shares-zine-making-parties-or-any-gathering-where-people-are-making-stuff", brewing nettle beer, felting, and exploring almost anywhere outside

• pets
• cats
• dogs
• chickens
• arts
• humanities
• writing
• singing
• dancing
• ballroom dancing
• dining
• cheese
• beer
• yoga
• pilates
• zumba
• walking
• partying
• gardening
• shopping
• reading
• crochet
• cycling
• hiking
• swimming
• ecology
• science
• hitchhiking
• volunteering
• wwoof
• mountains
• dance
• hiphop
• hapkido
• cheesemaking
• jiujitsu

Música, películas y libros

One of my favorite, "get to know each other activities" or "ice-breaker" group exercises goes something like this.....going around the room, verbally name a book you are reading, or read recently followed by the words, "with a chainsaw".

Algo increíble que he hecho

As an adult learning to swim and to dance.....what a release and joy these 2 things bring!

Enseña, aprende, comparte

Things I know how to do that I'd love to share:

make kombucha
sew almost anything
thread a serger
make soymilk
make rope out of plant fibers
wild food foraging
live without a car in a place that's not easy to do so
live via house/pet sitting for over a year
make puppetheadthings out of old bike helmut
make cloth shopping bags out of t-shirts
make nontoxic-earth-happy glue
make sauerkraut
share my photoshop skills - CS2
make soft cheese
make yogurt
canning and pickling
almost anything to do with sculpture or making things
harvesting clams and preparing them for dinner
harvest nettle and make stinging nettle gnocchi
share my experience WWOOFing in Australia
making a sprout jar for your kitchen
how to compost with worms indoors / vermiculture
blacksmithing via coal forge
welding with oxy/acetylene and mig
make playdough
felting
make anything with papier mache
contra dancing
finding atypical adventure places

and more...

Qué puedo ofrecer a los anfitriones

Oooh, I love to do dishes......most hosts (especially my WWOOFing hosts) loved that I loved doing dishes.

Países que he visitado

Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, Puerto Rico

Países en los que he vivido

United States

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