Summer Arts Series – Session 1
Visual Artist Rob Shetterly of “Americans Who Tell the Truth”
and scientist / author Robin Wall Kimmerer

Occurred on July 29, 2020

In partnership with Americans Who Tell the Truth, our first online gathering in this Summer Arts series featured presentations by visual artist Rob Shetterly and indigenous environmental scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, as well as some music.
Meet visual artist Rob Shetterly and his project, Americans Who Tell the Truth, a collection of more than 230 portraits and narratives highlight citizens who courageously address issues of social, environmental, and economic fairness. By combining art and other media, AWTT offers resources to inspire a new generation of engaged Americans who will act for the common good, our communities, and the Earth.
Meet Robin Wall Kimmerer, a mother, scientist, decorated professor, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and the widely acclaimed author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants.
We were also be joined by Thew Elliott, an educator and musician from the Greater Chicago area who works with groups ranging from students to congregations of various faiths to community activists.

For more than ten years Rob Shetterly has been painting the series of portraits Americans Who Tell the Truth. The portraits have given Shetterly an opportunity to speak with children and adults all over this country about the necessity of dissent in a democracy, the obligations of citizenship, sustainability, US history, and how democracy cannot function if politicians don’t tell the truth, if the media don’t report it, and if the people don’t demand it. Much of his current work focuses on honoring and working with the activists trying to bring an end to the terrible practice of Mountaintop Removal by coal companies in Appalachia, on climate change, and on the continuation of systemic racism in the US particularly in relation to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of the widely acclaimed book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Trippett. In 2015, she addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Learn more about Robin Wall Kimmerer and view her portrait as part of Rob Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series.

Thew Elliott (he/him) is an educator and musician in Aurora, Illinois (greater Chicago area) working with groups ranging from students to congregations of various faiths to community activists. He trusts the power of song to propel movements and foster human connection, and creates and gathers texts that he hopes will subvert destructive paradigms and bring joy.