Seed Stories Soiree

• Learn about native plants' magic power to save pollinators & the planet!
• Package native seeds for a public art project to share native seeds with your community.
• Write mini stories or poems about native plants, selections will be featured on 'Seed Stories' packets of native seeds to be distributed during the 2025 Butterfly Mural Migration.
• Connect with other community members working in conservation and towards making a positive change!

Local public artist Jenn Houle and a guest writer will lead a writing workshop to guide participants to wax poetic about native plants. Community members are encouraged to collect and bring their native seeds to package and share for the Plant Paint Cross-Pollinate workshops. Plenty of native seeds will be available to package, please come whether or not you have seeds to bring!

Plant species include native milkweed, coneflowers, native mints, goldenrod and asters. Please collect plants that are true “natives”, and not hybrids or cultivars. Label with scientific or common names please. 

Cleaning and separating seeds from flower heads is very helpful. Be sure to wait until the plant stem is dried and no longer green, and collect seeds that easily release from the plant to ensure that they have reached full maturity. Follow @jennhoulestudio on Instagram for to see seed collection video tutorials or use the links below:

• Milkweeds: Common milkweed Asclepias syriaca, , Collecting milkweed seeds
• Coneflowers: Purple Coneflower Echinacea purpurea*, Pale Purple Coneflower Echinacea pallida*, , False Sunflower Heliopsis helianthoides* Collecting susan and collecting coneflower seeds
• Native Mints: Mountain mints, Bee Balm , Spotted Bee Balm Monarda punctata, Wild scarlet Bee Balm Monarda didyma Collecting bee balm seeds
• Goldenrod: Zig-zag goldenrod Solidago flexicaulis, Blue-stemmed goldenrod Solidago caesia Collecting goldenrod seeds
• Aster: New England aster Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, Blue wood-aster Symphyotrichum cordifolium, Tall White Aster Doellingeria umbellata, Collecting aster seeds
• If you have a favorite native plant and can collect a lot of seeds (enough to fill about 20 seed packets) please collect and share! 

*native to the United States not Massachusetts

‘Plant Paint Cross-Pollinate’ (PPC) is a public art mural project led by artist Jenn Houle that cultivates ‘botanical belonging’, decolonizes public and private land, and restores ecosystem health with native plants. Through community art and nature workshops, PPC inspires a cultural shift from echoes of colonization, lawns & imported plants, towards restorative land use: interspecies habitat for seasonal cycles in a shifting climate.
At Plant and Paint & Seed Stories workshops in Oct 2024 - Jan 2025, participants will paint Butterfly Mural signs then plant and keep the seeds of native pollinator-friendly species and share ‘Seed Stories’ personal connections to place & plants. The community will create 200 Butterfly Mural signs to display in their yards or join the upcoming 2025 summer Butterfly Mural migration, and Seed Story packets of native seeds will be distributed at partner sites including conservation land, public libraries and schools.

Special thanks to Collective Futures Fund Ongoing Platforms Grant, a regranting program hosted by Tufts University Art Galleries

Workshop Instructor Bios

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Jenn Houle is a public artist and native New Englander. Two decades of teaching art, endless naturalist curiosity, a deep concern for all living beings, and motherhood shapes her artistic practice. Jenn is a current Great Marsh Artist at Manship Artist Residency, and has created a ‘Dark Skies’ collaborative glow-in-the-dark mural and public program at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

Other art residencies include the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (twice, once evacuated during fire storms then returned to lead synchronous fireflies programming), Vermont Studio Center and is a 2024 ChangeMaker with Essex County Community Foundation. Ms. Houle is a grant recipient from the Collective Futures Fund, Puffin Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Essex County Community Foundation and Cornell Council for the Arts. A painter at heart, she received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and later an MFA from Cornell University. She currently teaches at Fitchburg State University and Northern Essex Community College. Learn more www.jennhoule.com.

Host or Publisher Jenn Houle