CCA exhibiting artists Matthew & Julie Chase-Daniel will speak with Emily Wolf of the National Parks Conservation Association and Melanie Gisler of the Institute for Applied Ecology on the topic of art, ecology, and Earth Day!
About the hosts:
Matthew Chase-Daniel (né Chase) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1965 and lived in New York City in the 1960s. Chase-Daniel studied at the Ojai Foundation in Ojai, CA, at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York (B.A.), and in Paris, France, where he studied cultural anthropology, photography, and film (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes & Sorbonne). Since 1989, he has lived in Santa Fe, NM with Julie Chase-Daniel. His work has been exhibited across the U.S. and in Europe. He is the co-founder, co-owner, and co-curator of Axle Contemporary, a mobile gallery of art.
Julie Chase-Daniel, from a longtime New Mexico family, has been working with Matthew since 1984 in New York, Paris, and since 1989, in Santa Fe—where they live with their son, Aquila. Polymath, lover of nature and animals, and practitioner of diverse esoteric traditions, Julie has been some measure of a poet, potter, and diviner for as long as she can remember. She is the founder of In the Family Way, a local non-profit dedicated to engaging the creative process to recognize the thresholds of family life as rites of passage and host of Mothering Change, a free online resource for I Ching divination.
Melanie Gisler is the Director for Southwest Office of the Institute for Applied Ecology in Santa Fe, NM. She studied biology at the University of New Mexico and obtained her advanced degree in botany at the University of British Columbia. For the past 30 years, Melanie has been working in ecological conservation with federal and nonprofit organizations in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. She leads multi-state programs to address shortages in native plant seeds, recovers endangered species and degraded habitats, and develops environmental education programs. Raised by an artist and an engineer in NM’s Sandia Mountains, she recognizes how the natural synergy between art and ecology helps us see and understand the delicate balance and beauty of our natural world.
Emily Wolf is New Mexico Program Coordinator for the National Parks Conservation Association, working to advocate and defend the ecological and cultural resources of New Mexico’s parks and connected landscapes and communities. She studied environmental science and political science at Kalamazoo college in Michigan, and earned a Master’s degree in 2018 from the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program. She has lived in New Mexico since 2012, working with various entities including Conservation Legacy restoration crews, federal, private, and tribal partners on Rio Puerco watershed restoration projects, River Source and the Santa Fe Watershed Association, and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. She is passionate about outdoor education and access, watershed-based approaches to conservation, and preservation of wildlife habitat!
