Thanks for visiting.

First, cheers to trees. They save us, everyday. We need to save them.

“How to Draw a Tree” is a participatory art project bringing individuals living with mental illnesses together with trees for a year-long creative, care-taking, reciprocal engagement culminating in an immersive public sound walk at the Arboretum, University of Guelph, Canada and online here, created by visual artist Richelle Forsey.

You will find the sound walk for the first phase of the project called “How to Draw A Tree” on this site, and on a sign post with a QR code at the Arboretum for the site-specific walk, which I HIGHLY recommend if you can access it— the forest is a co-narrator there, AND provides all the visuals, which is the best art you will ever witness.

I am the storyteller in this first sound walk. Next year, we will be collaboratively creating three more sound walks featuring three students at University of Guelph in the second phase called “How to Draw a Forest.”

Reciprocal relationship building through collaboration and creativity is at the heart of this work, with the goal of combating isolation and creating social change where it is most needed.

In turn, we hope the work will help cultivate wonder for nature, so that we will care for it, as it cares for us.

This project is the result of an amazing group of people, I ended up calling The Tree Team— a very ad hoc and nontraditional mental health care team— all centered around love of and interdependence with trees.

Please check out their bios- and the information on the partners on this project.

One really incredible result of this project is a tree planting. Sister trees to each of the trees selected by myself and the students engaged in the sound walks will be planted on the Johnson’s Green, the front lawn of University of Guelph, as part of a dedicated mental wellness circle of trees, accessible to all!