We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brooke Ripley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brooke below.
Hi Brooke, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
When it comes to the climate crisis, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of eco-anxiety, to feel like we have no power in this global event. But, if we look at it from the perspective of nonhumans, of the microbiomes we’re losing, the endangered animals, of the plants that cannot spread their seeds to more hospitable areas in time, we actually have quite a lot of power. We are able to plant native species in more hospitable areas to preserve biodiversity and support our soil ecology. We may not be the people destroying entire ecosystems for mining, but we are the people buying from the companies that do. This is a large, complex system that, while we do not each have the same amount of power, we have more power and agency in this than nonhumans. So, for their sake, we must do what we can. We must have optimism.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Brooke Ripley is a multimedia artist who works with speculative fiction to represent the experience of climate crisis. In doing so, she unveils the failures of our anthropocentrism, our tendency to prioritize ourselves over all else, and how it ultimately harms us. Inspired by her experiences growing up in a rural farming community and her work as an advocate for low-waste living, she creates with radical care in mind. She received her BFA in Fine Arts from the Columbus College of Art and Design, with minors in Art History and Social Practice, and is currently a third-year MFA candidate at Ohio University in the Painting and Drawing Department. Her work has been featured by the Ohio Art League, the Atlanta Artists Center, and the Wild Goose Collective.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
In my journey towards a sustainable artistic practice and personal life, I have found that the ability to take accountability is particularly important. Accountability leads to learning, as we disarm our defenses and listen to others. Along with that, celebrating the communities I am a part of has been so helpful to my development. No matter what area we work in, we are creating and contributing to things that will be experienced by other people, whether directly or indirectly. So, being an active member of your community, whether physically, digitally, or otherwise, gives you the chance to get outside of yourself. For three years now, I have been a part of the CREATE! Event at the Boardman Arts Park in Delaware, OH, and the people I have met through that experience have informed my practice as an artist. I am grateful to the intense, playful discussions I have had with passersby curious about my work at their art fairs and I am grateful for the opportunity to excitedly tell people that the flowers they are painting are not just any flowers, but native flowers. It gives me hope for the future and for our ability to come together and enact change.
Finally, having a “why not” attitude has been integral to my growth as an artist, as I moved from traditional painting to world-building and land art. I create my art to exist in a fictional gallery space from the year 2247, a year beyond the apex of the climate crisis. The jump from safer art to this theoretical space was terrifying, but I kept telling myself “why not?”, and doing so has granted me the opportunity to present a holistic representation of the climate crisis, with the optimism of a future for us beyond it.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I am always interested in working with different communities to learn from them and to uplift them, particularly through the paint-by-number installations I create. So, parks, schools, and community centers are great collaborators to work with.
With my land art practice, in which I use native biodiversity to revitalize land and reconnect with our local ecology, I love to work with individuals who want to support the environment in even the smallest plot of land and parks who want to educate their community on these wonderful plants that support the lives of so many insect herbivores.
Contact Info:
- Website: brookeripley.net
- Instagram: brookeripley.fineart
