Earthen Vision

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Earthen Vision

Accompanied coaching journeys for professional development & strategic decision-making, designed for for creative, eco-conscious leaders and innovators.

Strategic sessions available online and in-person on the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, for organizations and professionals using creative, land-based approaches.

- Sarah West, MPA, BA(Hons), DKATI
Consultant & Environmental Arts Therapist

15/08/2025

Folks will often look longingly at art making, and say “I’m no artist.” They hold back.

When faced with a buffet of materials, handed supplies and offered gentle suggestions…. People just start to MAKE STUFF.

Naturally, easily.

The light in their eyes.

The joy and delight.

The release and playfulness.

The “gosh, I haven’t felt like this since I was a kid.”

It is so gosh dang heart opening, and this is the soul essence of what art therapy does.

The ability to create is in our bones.

And our hands remember.

27/07/2025

One of the major things my eco art practice has taught me is that of honourably working with.

When looking at all the earth provides to create with….

Bones, plants, sticks, shells, cloth, hides, stone…

…. I ask myself…..

Do I have the time?
Do I have enough desire to see this through?
Do I have enough stamina and will to truly try to make something of this?
Can the ecosystem sustain this use?

Because when it once was alive,

When it once was a plant or animal kin,

The stakes feel higher.

It cannot be as easily chucked aside like plastic materials, quick drawings, or materials in glossy abundance like magazines for collage.

I can dance on a floor full of collage scraps with delight, but staring at an unfinished hide in the corner or tossing a set of rotten bones I neglected for too long…. My goodness that has an impact.

Working with the eco arts cultivates intention setting, and seeing things through, as a direct, hands-on experience of creating with our plant and animal kin.

It means doing less, using less.
It means using material and time, wisely.

I look at the indigo I planted in my garden for the purpose of making dye two years ago. This year, it’s big enough to harvest. This year, it sinks in how INVOLVED indigo dye making is.

And I sigh, ever so slightly.

It’s not the kind of energy I want to bring to a plant or a project.

And it’s grown so abundantly, cradled in two years of desire for the bright blues of indigo.

It’s this very subtle tension of the eco arts that makes known the delicate balance of what it means to be in relation with the earth in a good way, that I’m so grateful for.

21/07/2025

“Beautiful and dramatic” as the editor put it - Completely delighted to be published again in an eco psychology journal, around my recent explorations of working with bones. Also so liberating to write with my true voice, unconstricted by any formal structure.

Please do have a read, it’s been great fun! (Sometimes Type 2 fun)

Open access journal, l*nk in comments.

12/07/2025

All the stoke to be facilitating a weekly drop in creative art pod in my community with fellow art therapist .art at the famous .bakery.

🪨 Every Thursday 5-7pm
🪨 Drop in, no registration needed
🪨 Art supplies provided
🪨 Treats and drinks for purchase

Oceanfront epic scenery included.

See you there 🌿

09/06/2025

One morning I looked around my space and saw whitening in the summer sun

humerus of black bear
sacrum of deer
spine of racoon
skeleton of snake
scapula of elk
vertebra of whale
tail of coyote

and many more.

They had all come to me, in one way or another, over the last year.

*excerpt from a wee piece I’m putting together for an eco arts journal

26/04/2025

Inspired by a basket I encountered in a museum, I wove a shellfish gathering basket made from the invasive ivy that’s growing on the land I live on. Woven loosely enough to let the wee ones and all the sand go with a swish 💚

I love seeing my vibe and clothing meld more and more with this land.

09/03/2025

Such joy. Fish leather drawstring pouch, made from kelp greenling I caught and ate, oyster that I harvested down the road and ate, worked with bear fat I rendered. A dear gift for a dear one 💚

03/02/2025

Sometimes, I can’t believe my lucky stars I’ve followed the intuitive pulls and cravings to land where I have, and craft the life that I have.

This dish… not just a dish. A bowl to hold that which is dear to me, that which is crafted and caught and collected in my immediate environment to nourish body and soul.

Rural, handmade life has its own set toils and issues. It’s not exactly easy, the remoteness, the added cost of living, the difficulty in accessing services….

But when one of the good people who provide me health care begins to speak about diet, and I share how I eat…. And they pause and look at me incredulously, then with sadness and a hint of awe, I wonder at how many, deep down, may crave the wealth of wellness that comes from eating easily, affordably and directly from our immediate environments, and the grief that comes when we can’t.

This craving reared its head for me unexpectedly 7 years ago on my walk about through my ancestral lands. I had been invited to a family’s small farm in Ireland, and over a few days, they served us the most glorious of foods they had grown or wild harvested.

Having grown up in the suburbs, on a typical diet of a lot of processed foods as a classic 80s child, I honestly just had no idea what I was missing.

I vividly remember sitting at this Irish family’s worn wooden kitchen table, looking around and thinking… “gosh, I would love this.”

More than I may realize, this subtle undercurrent of craving may have propelled my subsequent years, and I’ve seen it transform my mind, body, and lifestyle.

Eating this way weaves me intimately into the patch of earth I find myself on, and a sense of belonging flows with more ease.

💚 Food sovereignty 💚

……………

Seafood pasta dish in a white wine cream sauce…

🦪Clams - harvested down the road at low tide
🦪Shark - I caught and killed out front of my home
🦪 Milk - from cows down the road
🦪Thyme and parsley - grown in my garden
🦪Bear fat - harvested down the road that I rendered
🦪Garlic - from the farm stand down the road
🦪White wine - from BC
🦪Pasta - from the grocery store, goodness knows where (not THAT die hard yet 😉)

29/07/2024

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about place-based living.

About intentionally, actively cultivating a connection with where your feet are presently planted. Because… how else are we ever to feel like we belong?

This year’s recent move to the ocean has seen me fumbling with place-based living as I launch out onto and into the waters each week. Not just fumbling, but actually experiencing some significantly hazardous encounters with the natural world. And readily enough… it’s made my resolve, connection and relationship with these new lands and waters that much more sturdy, intimate.

These encounters are levelling me up in ways I could never have imagined, for which I’m so grateful. And as always, I’m working with art to help process and capture the journey.

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