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Thorn&Alchemy Art is moving! We're currently under construction right now, thanks for your patience! 🦇🦋💜

We're taking a break from orders to focus on recharging & ensuring our move goes smoothly!

Make sure to read all the way to the bottom if you want to know what our plans are for the future! If you're looking for items that benefit the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, or you placed a recent order, read just below this message! 💜

✨ Orders placed last week (4/1-4/7) will go out this week (on/before 4/12)️. The shop will be closed for the time being, but, see below if you'd like to order native plant earrings from the Homeland Return Collection!
✨ Homeland Return Collection (fundraiser for @nevadacityrancherianisenan) items still available!
Fill out the order inquiry form here to order!️
✨ Fundraising totals & financial updates will be posted soon!
✨ The section titled, "Re-evaluating, Reframing, & Rest" has more specific info about Thorn&Alchemy Art going forward if you're interested!

Rough Funds Raised (3/7-4/8/24), needs to be donated:
🍉 PRCS (@palestineredcrescent) $40.33 (+$72 from March donation that wouldn't properly process)
🍉 UNRWA (@unrwa): $28.33
🍉 PYM (@palestinianyouthmovement): $15.33
🧡 CHIRP (@nevadacityrancherianisenan): $32

Homeland Return Collection (Community Support)

Given the importance of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe's acquisition of their ancestral homelands, we are using the remaining time we have outside of moving to focus solely on these orders!

✨ 80% of proceeds raised from items in this collection will be donated directly to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe for their Homeland Return Campaign! ✨

To order, fill out an order inquiry below:

Order Inquiry

Homeland Return for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe

The Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe has a time-limited opportunity to purchase 232 acres located on a historic Nisenan Village site called Yulića near Nevada City, CA.

Tragically, the Nisenan People & their Ancestral Homelands were the epicenter of the environmental and humanitarian disaster in the wake of the discovery of gold in 1848.

Today, the Nisenan continue to struggle under the devastating legacy of the Gold Rush, forced assimilation, the unlawful termination of the Nevada City Rancheria (reservation) in 1964 & resulting landlessness.

Although the NCR Nisenan have gained significant progress in building visibility, support and recognition by the State, local government, and the public in recent years, they remain largely without access to their Ancestral Homelands.

The purchase and rematriation of Yulića provides a tremendous potential for stability and healing for the Nisenan people, the environment, and the fabric of the Nevada City community. Acquisition of this property allows the Tribe to reclaim their ceremonial and cultural practices, provide much needed Elder housing, & to renew their relationship with the land and its more than human-kin.

GoFundMe

To learn more about this cause, check out these links:

✨GoFundMe Link (Donate Directly Here)

Further Reading:
✨CHIRP Instagram
✨Nisenan.org
✨Nevada City Rancheria
✨ArcGIS Cultural Sites of the Nisenan People

Learn More (CHIRP's Website)

"While we might be simply appreciating beauty when buying and wearing a pair of earrings that represents some aspect of nature, all of the time, thought, research, and creative energy going into making these pieces is all going back into nature, to give it what it needs - attention and intention. Whether we are standing on a city sidewalk or a meadow, we are still connected."

-Shelly Covert, Spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe & Executive Director for California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project

✨ About Shelly

Shelly's Blog

True Conservation: Remembrance, Reimagination, & Revitalization

In essence, Western scientists, in MANY cases historically, have discussed & conducted ecological research upon the base assumptions that:

✨ The environment upon which they collect samples was not altered whatsoever until its "discovery" by settlers (despite ample evidence of indigenous peoples residing in these areas for millenia), and therefore any statistical differences noted between samples must be simply attributed to the species as they are, since they're assumed to be unaltered

✨ Indigenous folks don't have an understanding about caring for the land (which is not only absolutely false, but many, if not MOST Indigenous Tribes consider the Earth as if she were a relative, and treat her accordingly)

✨ Nature is "better off" being left alone to its own natural processes, and that no human interaction is needed for the health of the Earth AND humans

Here's a few links discussing Indigenous Knowledge Carriers at the intersection of science & why this is ever-so-critical:

✨ Shelly Covert's Blog Post
✨ An uneasy alliance: Indigenous Traditional Knowledge enriches science

True Conservation: NCR Nisenan

All info sourced from CHIRP website (linked)

"From a tribal lens, humans are nature, and True Conservation involves humans returning to the land and creatively reimagining a future in which ancient wisdom and modern society are merged."

According to the CHIRP website, there are three pillars encompassing the ideas behind True Conservation from a tribal, but more specifically, a NCR Nisenan tribal lens: Remembrance, Reimagination, & Revitalization.

"Together, through the acts of remembering the ways of the past and bringing tribal wisdom into the future, reimagining what is possible in light of this tribal knowledge and modern technologies, and revitalizing both cultural and environmental practices, the Tribe hopes that the land at Yulića may one day be a model of Indigenous innovation and reciprocal healing."

Re-evaluating, Reframing, & Rest

During this time, we'll also be re-evaluating the direction that we want to take Thorn&Alchemy Art.

Simply put: we've been nearing burnout for several months now, and while making clay items has been a joyous experience in some cases, it also has become quite exhausting & hard to keep up with. There's a ton of different things to try (mediums, techniques, & entirely different art forms), so rather than continuing to be pigeonholed in one area, we're going to experiment with some more accessible art forms to see what *sparks joy* so to speak.

By no means is this a "goodbye"! However, even after having this business for a year, we're still learning, growing, & figuring out how to navigate our disabilities & when they intersect with managing day-to-day operations (especially when symptoms can change DAILY/over longer time periods).

We'll see you soon 💜

-Ashley 🦇🦋💜