Mary and Peter Brower of Bluestem Farm, bringing folks together for a Crosshatch food preservation workshop. It's not about webinars—it's about learning in the company of your neighbors.
It's time for a new story for rural communities.
Rural communities are facing big questions about our futures—what do we offer? How do we hold our own in terms of economic development, and not rely on the whims of giant corporations? How do we create our own narratives, instead of buying into what urban centers believe us to be? How do we thrive as places in our own right? How do we wrestle with our often difficult and violent pasts?
Crosshatch dives deep into the complexities of these questions, and creates programs that get to the root of the rural—not just job creation but whole networks of thriving local economy. Not just entertainment but a reinvention of rural arts and culture. Not just land protection but developing economies that grow BECAUSE we care for natural places. Not just more farms and farmers but whole regional movements toward smart, ecologically driven ag and the economies that surround it.
Culture starts on the farm—and in the company of your neighbors. Sauerkraut workshop courtesy of Preservation Station
Workshops and Events
YouTube videos and online tutorials are just fine, but at Crosshatch we help you learn in community. When you take a workshop, you join your friends, neighbors and community members. Then you're not just building skills; you're building relationships.
A vision for an improved relationship with the living world
Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology envisions communities that are grounded in place: where people connect through stories, music, art, shared work, and food, and where the economy and culture are rooted in the restoration of the earth and its people.
We believe in the power of putting people in the room together. With food and music, whenever possible.
“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.”
—aldo leopold, from "The Land Ethic," A Sand County Almanac.
Mushroom production: a partnership between humans, dead trees and living fungus.