Barbara Bickel

Trans Canada # 1 road stop winds. Photo by R. Michael Fisher Elbow River lookout near Sandy Beach Park, Calgary AB. Photo by Barbara Bickel Saskatoon berry picking. Photo By Barbara Bickel Sasktoon berries. Photo by Barbara Bickel Saskatoon berry stained finger around Alder tree trunk. Photo by Barbara Bickel

Motel Art on the wall Inside Mark Twain Cave. Hannibal, Missouir. Photo By Barbara Bickel Bike ride outside of Elk Point S. Dakota. Photo by Barbara Bickel S. Dakota cornfielf. Photo by Barbara Bickel cafe brochure Tall Prairie grasses S. Dakota Traverse Indian reservation. S. Dakota Sisseton Watpeton College in S. Dakota. Photo by Barbara Bickel double rainbow outsdie of Fargo N. Dakota. Photo Barbara Bickel Outside of Estevan Saskatchewan. Just past the Portal N.D border crossing. Photo Barbara Bickel

Front yard oak tree in Carbondale. Photo credit r. Michael Fisher cyprus tree at Campus Lake in Carbondale. Photo credit r. Michael Fisher Mystery tree at the Oakland St. Cemetary in Carbondale. Photo credit R. Michael Fisher Mother tree at the small downtown cemetery in Carbondale. Photo Credit Megan Sims Megan and Barbara in double trunk tree pose. Photo Credit Holly Courmier Barbara and Holly in mother tree hug. Phot credit Megan Sims Fallen Tree - mixed media drawing on wood, 36 x 24 inches, by Barbara Bickel, 2008

Mandala Gardens, sandstone & rock labyrinth. Releasing the dreams from the Diversity Dream Scroll gathering of students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Mandala Gardens, sandstone & rock labyrinth. Releasing the dreams from the Diversity Dream Scroll with students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Reading the dreams from the Diversity Dream Scroll with students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Reading the dreams from the Diversity Dream Scroll with students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Mandala Gardens, sandstone & rock labyrinth. Releasing the dreams from the Diversity Dream Scroll with students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Chelesea holding up the Diversity Dream Scroll during the performance ritual. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Mandala Gardens, Releasing the dreams performance ritual with the Diversity Dream Scroll with students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Throuhg the Moon Gate. Releasing the dreams performance ritual with the Diversity Dream Scroll with students, faculty and friends. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Margaret holding the Diversity Dream Scroll wiht the rising moon above the Moon Gate. Mandala Gardens. Photo credit Gregory Wendt Diana Tigerlily & Barbara rolling up Diversity Dream Scroll .Photo credit Gregory Wendt

Appalachia Artist Residency

Afterglow is the descriptor word that emerges as I reflect on the week Michael and I just spent as Visiting Artists at Appalachia State University in Boone, North Carolina where we inhabited the HOW Space downtown. This residency comes at the start of a juncture in our life where we are leaving my stable University position and stepping into a time of integration of the last 9 years of life experiences in the USA. Transitioning to a less stable and more fully co-creative life in Canada, this residency was transformative at multiple levels and a spiritual re-grounding for us as a creative couple. The following blogs will be mostly photos depicting moments of the residency; the Dream Scroll installation, the three Nap-ins that I facilitated with Education students, Montessori school children, and community members; the performative releasing of dreams; the labyrinth walking rituals in Katrina Plato’s grass labyrinth, a visit to Penland School of Crafts, artist talks, film screenings, and the Blue Ridge Parkway hikes and vistas that Michael and I sunk our beings into. We loved Appalachia and the people there who made our visit so rich; Art Educator Brooke Hofsess, Expressive Arts Therapist Katrina Plato in particular, and all the many students, faculty and people we met. I want to thank Shawna Caldwell for her documentation of the Nap-Ins. Such beautiful energy in these ancient mountains and in the people we met who call this place home. An extra thanks to Shawna for the new profile photo that I cropped from one of her photos.

Appalachia - Blue Ridge Parkway - rhododendrum forest Applachia Blue Ridge Parkway - mountain stream Appalachia - Blue Ridge Parkway summit ridge view Appalachia - Blue Ridge Parkway - rideg summit view Grandfather Mountain - Appalachia Blue Ridge Parkway - feet in the stream. Photo credit R. Michael Fisher

Montessori School children walking and sharing their dreams from their new Dream Scroll in their school garden. Photo Credit Shawn Caldwell Montessor student hanging their Dream Scroll in the cherry tree. The center of their school commnity. Photo Credit Shawna Caldwell Montessor Dream Scroll hung in the school cherry tree. Photo credit Shawna Caldwell

Barbara & Michael at HOW Space. Boone, North Carolina Katrina, Vicky and Shelby adding their dreams to the Dream Scroll. Photo credit Shawna Caldwell Dream Scroll Installation with blue tape labyrinth in HOW Space, Boone NC. Reading the Dreams at close of the Nap-In. Photo credit Shawna Caldwell Releasing the Dreams - journey down to the creek behind HOW Space NC. Releasing the Dreams over the flowing creek Vicky Grube clothed in and dancing the dreams of the Dream Scroll

Kate Lance photography as part of Divination Art fashion show by Alexis Kimbrell Alexi Kimbrell in motion Kate Lance Photography of Yamantanka embodied by Alex Lockwood Kate Lance Photography of Tezcatlipoca embodied by Eddie Kate Lance Photography of Oya embodied by Alexis

Photo by Aster Arseneau Of March 10th Nap-In in the Morris Library Photo by Aster Arseneau Of March 10th Nap-In in the Morris Library Photo credit Abdelrabman Abdelazeem in Alexandria, Egypt Photo credit Abdelrabman Abdelazeem in Alexandria, Egypt

Sphynx looking out over Cairo Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo Natural small lake in Cairo View of the Nile from Saria Sadek's home - Egyptian Art Educator Alexandria, Egypt

early morning view from Plaza Hotel Alexandria overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. outside my window at Safaa's flat Holy Friday noon prayers end at the mosque outside my window

Barbara Bickel with High School Student art High School Student Art High School Student Art , entitled "the pane of the world"- best of show

“We need to make peace with the planet.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave his last speech at my University in Southern Illinois on December 21st 2016. He seemed quite happy that it was “the last of his last speeches.” He spoke of delivering many “thousands of speeches” during his 10 year tenure with the United Nations. Having traveled to more than 150 countries he witnessed and experienced so much of the tragedy and possibilities of this world. On this day of winter solstice he spoke with clarity and calm to the 1,500 people sitting with rapt attention, hanging onto his words. I too sat attentive in my chair surrounded by international students, students, faculty, university staff and leaders, and community members. He spoke of “us living in a very small world” and called for all present in the room to “become global citizens.” He requested students to “let go of nationalism and look beyond the US.” He advised them to follow their passion but to “develop passion and compassion hand- in- hand, or passion may not go in the right direction.” The direction that leads to the “upholding of human dignity and human rights.”

His words “we need to make peace with the planet” spoke volumes to me for all levels of life on this planet, the human and more than human. May his words reverberate loudly, far and wide beyond this small town, crumbling university, State and country.

Moving to the US to teach in 2008 transformed me as a Canadian into a global citizen. The threads of my artworkings, within cycles of the moon and earth seasons alongside my artist collective, have stitched me into the fabric of the cosmos and earth in surprising and profound personal, historical, political and sacred ways. It is through my arts-based communication with trees most recently that I have received guidance and support for decisions and actions in response to the personal and political tragedies calling for attention and action.

Humans desperately require, what my poet friend Pamela Richardson wrote to me of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon on winter solstice, an experience of profound “Deep earth wisdom beyond time and words.” Pamela and Ban Ki-moon’s words re-solidify for me how we require a return to the global worldview of Indigenous wisdoms that teach the necessity of making all decisions with the future seven generations in mind. Not decisions based on individual nation states and personal gain, but for future sustainable peace with the planet and all of its inhabitants. This darkest time of the year and the darkest political time in my own life’s history, offers us the opportunity to deeply question our severed relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. The original wound of all colonizing nation states.

From the article Provoking a Curricula of Care: Weaving Stories of Rupture Towards Repair

A Métissage of Polyphonic Textualities

Honoured to be part of this provocative issue (with my co-authors Nané Jordan, R. Michael Fisher, Pamela Richardson, and Susan Walsh with Sarah Dorau) in the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies. The issue was lovingly curated/edited by Erica Hasebe-Ludt and Carl Leggo drawing from the creative scholarship at the Provoking Curriculum Conference at the University of British Columbia in 2015. May this quality of educational thought seep deeply into informal and formal spaces of learning worldwide

Vol 14, No 1 (2016): Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Polyphonic Textualities