Join author and green architect Nathaniel Corum and Austin singer/songwriter Patrice Pike for glorious week on the Colorado River in Utah’s spectacular Canyonlands National Park.

Launching on the Solstice, we will focus on community, gestalt, and architecture and design in nature. We’ll explore indigenous land use and community, nomadic art and agriculture. We’ll paddle, journal, and sketch a new vision for the way we inhabit our environment. We’ll design and build environmental art and collage from the occasional trash, debris, and natural flotsam and jetsam that we harvest from the riverbanks. (We’ll re-camouflage back into nature after we document the work.) We’ll discuss appropriate technology for mobile and off- grid systems, super-green materials and systems, indigenous technology and appropriate use of emerging technologies, salvage and waste-as- resource materials approaches, low-impact building techniques and foundation systems, and characteristics of “sustainable” communities.

We’ll learn how to sit in a circle around a fire and listen to each other much as the ancestral Puebloans did. We’ll learn to sing along. With the help of our OARS trip leader, we'll investigate ancient rock art and archeological sites and learn about the natural history of the Canyonlands as well.

Austin singer/songwriter Patrice Pike, co-founder of the Grace Foundation (an Austin organization that provides services for homeless teens), will play music and coordinate our open mic! Fun will be had, art will be made, and participants will become card-carrying eco-hedonists.

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