Renée Rhodes
About
Renée Rhodes is an artist, gardener, and writer based in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. She makes interdisciplinary artwork, tends to gardens and grasslands, and writes stories—both for herself and various environmental and arts based organizations. As an artist, her social sculptures, videos, books, gardens, and walks explore ecological empathy, mimicry, interconnectedness, and the creation of place-based memory through somatic practices.
Maintenance Actions
Growing native plants and engaging in restoration work are the main acts of maintenance that fuel my other creative outputs. The main places for this kind of work these days are my backyard nursery and a secret meadow in Buena Vista Park (San Francisco, CA) that I tend to with two other artist friends—Cheryl Meeker and Alicia Escott.
Sometimes I get impatient and wonder what art is truly for in this moment. What use are metaphors in the face of such loss? But, I always seem to loop back around to the idea that art is a form of play and that play is a form of care.
*Information and wording taken with permission directly from the artist’s website and the Vesper Meadow Education Program’s blog post.
Habitat Mosaic Quilt (large)
Habitat Mosaic Quilt (small)
Habitat Mosaic Quilt detail