Black Mesa Art Fundraiser 2024 Catalogue

**Carmen Gonzales|**

Indigenouswaterwisdom

Audre Smikle| Not_so_aud

Lorena Bally| Lorenitaliveslife

Akira| _indio___

To Order, Note: Black Mesa Art Fundraiser, Title of piece, and Venmo the correct artist $$ amount to @Collectiveliberationsupport *Shipping cost may vary

Collective Liberation is a team of BIPOC organizers and storytellers who believe that no one is free until we are all free. We are building relationships with Indigenous communities across Turtle Island, who are requesting more people learn their stories and come to learn and support their ancestral ways of being, which are inextricably bound with the land.

We are fundraising so finances are not a barrier in connecting Black and Brown people from the city to organizing and supporting Diné elders in Black Mesa. Funds will go towards paying for gas money, groceries, and outdoor supplies.

Any extra funds will be donated to Indigenous Water Wisdom, the host of the free water workshop we are attending.

CArmen Gonzales

IG| Indigenouswaterwisdom | Custom Bracelets $25-$35 including shipping @Collectiveliberationsupport

Carmen Gonzales is a Navajo environmental specialist, water matriarch, permaculture designer, poet, and musician who has been dedicated to helping communities develop resilience by remembering our sacred relationship with water. Carmen has worked in the Environmental Science field for over 20 years serving Tribes and rural communities and is inspired by the hope of watershed restoration through the lens of indigenous wisdom. Always an “edge walker,” Carmen has been working to find the balance between good science, traditional ecological knowledge, personal healing, and cultural evolution. Carmen is driven by the vision of supporting the work of revitalizing watersheds and communities through strengthening relationships that nourish land and life to serve as a model for change that can ripple out and benefit all beings everywhere.

Water Is Life

*Hand Hammered Aluminum $25-$35*

We Are Water ( Bee)

*Hand Hammered Aluminum $25-$35*

We Are Water (Bear)

*Hand Hammered Aluminum $25-$35*

**Water Is Living**

*Hand Hammered Aluminum $25-$35*

**Walk In Beauty**

*Hand Hammered Aluminum $25-$35*

We Are Water

*Hand Hammered Aluminum $25-$35*

Skoden

*Gold Plated on 18” Snake Chain $35-$45*

Bear

*Gold Plated Mixed Metals on 18” Snake Chain $35-$45*

Native

*Gold Plated on 18” Snake Chain $35-$45*

Glass Seed

*With 24” stabilized bead pendant $35-$45*

Glass Seed (Gold)

*With 24” stabilized bead pendant $35-$45*

Audre Smikle

Ig| Not_so_Aud| 5x7 Ink Print $15-$20 to @Collectiveliberationsupport

A multidisciplinary artist that has worked on projects that scrutinized institutional whiteness and racial capitalism through the lens of Black Marxism and Black feminist theory.

She endeavors to live up to her namesake, Audre Lorde, by dedicating her life to activism, art and scholarly investigations of systemic racism and misogynoir. Her art uses themes of Afro-futurism and use collage, activist artwork, and archival work to create dynamic images ,and graphics. Dedicated to both racial justice and climate justice, Audre spends her free time volunteering, creating art ,and healing both the earth and her community.

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Illegal Immigration Started With Columbus, 5x7

Lorena Bally

IG| Lorenitaliveslife | 5x7 Ink Print $25 to @Collectiveliberationsupport

For Lorena, the creation of her artworks provide a moment of respite for her mind in saturated colors, fluid forms, and rich textures.

Blessed to have met many lovingly tended lands, clean waters, and flourishing plants relatives across the world. Her oil pastel drawings reflect some of the lands whose beauty she has shared with friends & lovers, and the moments stories of connection wonder that blossom from these experiences. She believes the liberation of humanity & the earth are intertwined, and that through relationship based in the land, we can find the answers to nearly everything we seek.

Lorena wants to encourage everyone to grow some tomatoes, toss some seeds bombs in an empty lot, meditate against a tree, or make an herbal tea! There’s no wrong way to cultivate your relationship with land.

Oil Pastels, 5x7 I spent some time in Guatemala working on the farm of forest ranger and Mayan farmer Pulga, who was converting his father's cattle farm into a regenerative food forest & environmental education center that "would nourish the ne

Cenote Portal, 5x7

I spent some time in Guatemala working on the farm of forest ranger and Mayan farmer Pulga, who was converting his father's cattle farm into a regenerative food forest & environmental education center that "would nourish the next generations of Mayan children with their ancestral foods." Pulga took us one day to this open-air *cenote*, full of the clearest, bluest water I've ever seen. Even plants at the bottom of the pond glowed green in the sunlight. At the bottom of the cenote, someone had made a circle with stones to highlight where the spring bubbled up, a portal to life itself.

Humboldt or Amsterdam?, 5x7

Each time I visited this Willow tree in Humboldt Park, I always wondered how many people made it their meeting place. Once I found a journal stuffed inside the trunk full of entries expressing hopes and desires from others who had rested on her long smooth branches. She has since fallen. One of my best friends and I spent a late night here three autumns ago. The park lights burned bright orange & the trees shielded our view from the skyscrapers of downtown. We could've been in any park in the world. We decided we had transported to Amsterdam.

The Next Generation of Resistance, 7x5

The grandson of an original Dine resister takes us sheepherding with his horses, which are the offspring from a wild horse herd that freely roams the land. He taught himself how to ride horses via YouTube videos and plans to build his own hogan on Black Mesa soon.

**Los Toboganes, 5x7**

My partner and I hiked out to the Valle de Cochamo in Chile and spent a few days and nights communing with the elements. We played in the roots of 3000 year old Alerce Andino spirits, listened to the wind in the valley, crossed rivers by hand-pulled air trolley. This day we rested next to the southernmost waters my body has ever entered: crisp, cold, clear. The waters showed me their power to yank me out of my mind and shock my awareness back into my breath and body. Medicine.

**Los Manzanos, 7x5**

ow delicious to fall in love hiking and hitchhiking the foothills of the Argentinian side of the Andes. Is there anything more romantic than the mountains?

Mexico Lindo, 5x7

I’m a kid of diaspora, wanting to connect with my roots in Mexico, blah blah blah, you know who we are and all about that complex. I thought I would begin that connection with this workaway, whose profile highlighted the host’s dedication to cultivating many ancestral varieties of Maiz. He had “In Corn We Trust” tattooed across his chest! But I quickly realized he and his finance were more interested in having flings with drunk volunteers a week before their wedding. Their land was beautiful though. Next time I’ll just go stay with a Tia in Tamaulipas.

Fall Harvest, 5x7

An ode to all the funky & colorful squash that arrive in autumn.

Swan Lake, 5x7

After the Texas Snowpocalypse of 2021, my cousin and I returned to our apartment after a week sheltering in a friend’s house. Although we still didn’t have running water or electricity, we were lucky our pipes didn’t burst and flood the home. Graced with a sudden pop of warm weather, we headed to Mayfield Park and were graced with the majestic presence of this swan gliding across the lake. She arrived with the intention to take our smoke spot on the shore and bullied us to hide behind some trees nearby. Everything was going to be okay

**White Sands, 7x5**

What was once the sea is now desert. One of my best friends and I drove out to this archaeological wonder and atomic weapons testing range. We read about the uses of yucca, did our best to identify all the plant relatives, and then embraced the sheer pleasure of sliding down the dunes in our socks. We took about 500 pictures until the sunset dyed the sands blue and gold.

Akira

IG| _indio__ | 8x10 Ink Print $22-$44 to @Collectiveliberationsupport

A writer and a philosopher for futures where people are not separated but belong to land.

Using photography to create portals to land for Black and Indigenous people raised and living in the cities in hopes that one they seek the love of the land.

Dedicating their life to maintain relationship to land through labor and stewardship of it.