Paul Cienfuegos has been doing grassroots community organizing since the late 70’s in the United States, Canada, and Scotland. He co-founded Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (California) in 1996 <http://www.DUHC.org>. For the past decade, they have been exploring creative ways to move beyond challenging one corporate harm at a time (clipping the branches) and instead focussing their full energies on educating and organizing their local communities on how to dismantle the legal authority that corporations use that allows them to cause so much harm in the first place (digging up the roots). Paul passed the leadership torch to younger leaders in 2003, and is no longer directly associated with the organization. In 1998, their sister group (Citizens Concerned About Corporations) placed on the ballot (and won) “Measure F: The Arcata Advisory Initiative on Democracy and Corporations” which called on the city government to organize two Town Hall meetings on the topic question, “Can we have democracy when large corporations wield so much power and wealth under law?”, and to set up a new permanent standing committee of the City of Arcata on Democracy and Corporations, which Paul was a member of since its founding until Summer 2007. It is the first committee of its kind in US history, and works to “ensure democratic control over corporations conducting business within the city...” In 2002 it passed a permanent ban on any further corporate chain restaurants ever moving into the city. More recently, the city passed a resolution opposing corporate personhood, similar to the resolutions passed in Point Arena and Berkeley, CA. And it’s about to have its latest proposed ordinance debated by the city’s Planning Commission and City Council, with a vote expected in Spring ‘08. This would expand the existing corporate chain ban to include all corporate chain retail establishments in the city. For almost a decade, Paul has been leading workshops and giving talks on dismantling corporate rule and other topics. Paul (and co-author) are currently working on a book for mainstream Americans on how to dismantle corporate rule. Paul also owns an online bookstore: <http://www.100fires.com> which carries thousands of books to help create a better world. He can be reached at: paul [at] 100fires [dot] com or 707-443-4483.

Kiko, his wife, and our two boys live in a little mud hut in a big garden where he helps make compost, maintain the operating systems, watch things grow and try to figure out how to be an artist:

“The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man who is not an artist in some field, every man without a vocation, is an idler. The kind of artist that a man should be, carpenter, painter, lawyer, farmer, or priest, is determined by his own nature, in other words by his nativity. No man has a right to any social status who is not an artist.” (Coomaraswamy, Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art, Dover, 1956)

It took Kiko until 1994 to rediscover his nativity, but since then he has been using earth (cob, or adobe) to make ovens, buildings, murals, and other sculpture. Much of the work has been done in or with communities. He does some teaching in the schools, and is increasingly convinced that no one really teaches anybody anything, but anybody can (and should) learn to be an artist. Because art is the only sure way to get a full and unrestricted license to bring beauty into the world — whatever your nature.

Lydia has been building since she first stole her sister’s legos at age three. She operates Flying Hammer Productions, a natural building construction company and facilitates a variety of workshop from mudslinging to carpentry for women. You can usually find her in the mud, wrestling straw bales or just flying around by the seat of her pants...

Her work in natural building is the most daring and ambitious in the NW region, transforming ordinary opportunities into spectacular, new forms of artistic expression. Her work with homeless people at Dignity Village, to build affordable housing at $187.00 per dwelling is a miracle, and her “Women’s Carpentry” courses have been life-transforming for scores of women. Lydia is the lead builder in the City Repair Project.

Amanda Fritz was born and raised in England, but she says she grew up in Portland after moving to Oregon in 1986. Amanda believes that the real wealth of Portland is the people who live here, and the environment we share, envision, and create. For over a year, she has published a blog with photographs and information about Portland (and other topics that fascinate her) at www.AmandaFritz.com.

A Registered Nurse who works with mentally ill people at OHSU, and the mother of three fine graduates of Portland Public Schools, Amanda is currently seeking election to the Portland City Council, to fill the Commissioner position being vacated by Sam Adams. Amanda is a longtime City Repair supporter. Her favorite volunteer activities usually involve mud and/or tea.

Brandy Gallagher [previously MacPherson] (BSW, MA) is one of the original founders and developers of O.U.R. ECOVILLAGE, Shawnigan Lake (Vancouver Island) BC. She is also the Executive Director of O.U.R. COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION a Non-Profit Society dedicated to outreach projects (local and International), and the development of O.U.R. ECOVILLAGE as a demonstration/model sustainable village.

Her sustainable land management planning and ecological design work has made her the main proponent behind the Canadian precedent setting rezoning which has allowed for the legal/political/community framework containing multi-use allowances for ecovillages and shared land projects across Canada. Born and raised in community her life work has been focused around the development of ‘Sustained Community’. She is also the developer of TOPIA: The Sustainable Learning Community Institute which operates onsite at OUR ECOVILLAGE. With a deep compassion for people and place Brandy works with other communities/projects to find their way through regulatory and legal processes which challenge the development of legitimate models of land use, alternative building, ownership and governance. The intention to have all individuals & communities step aside from their rank & roles to enter into a more connected sense of community building is at the heart of this work.

Her most recently published work is a documentary titled “Creating TOPIA: The Journey of Developing a School of Sustainable Community Building.” Recently, Brandy has begun a new consulting business “Sustainable Community Solutions Consulting”.

Karen Hery is the founder of the Sunnyside Swap Shop Co-op which holds one time and ongoing events to support the recirculation of useful household goods while building and strengthening community. She is the facilitator/coordinator of the Sunnyside Family Swap Shop and Indoor Playground which opened in October 2007 and now has over 100 member families who use space inside the Sunnyside United Methodist Church at the corner of SE Yamhill Street and 35th across from Sunnyside Environmental School. This cooperatively run “Swap Shop” is a place for neighborhood families to gather, play and exchange books, toys and clothing year round. Karen uses her degree in Communication from UCSD and experience as a spoken word artist to bring groups and individuals in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Portland together to use the resources that we already have for more sustainable living. More of her history and information on the ongoing and annual events of the Sunnyside Swap Shop Co-op at www.sunnysideswapshop.org

Helen Hill is co-founder and co-director, along with 12 other art-intoxicated beings, of Bay City Arts Center at the Oregon Coast. BCAC (www.baycityartscenter.org) is a rollicking, runaway train with a happy face offering a diversity of children’s programs, original theatre, community art openings, concerts and many special events. In 2002, BCAC received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to partner with Portland’s City Repair to create a community supported vision plan for the City of Bay City; a plan which continues to positively influence the region. Helen is also a painter, muralist, and published playwright; her plays have been performed from New York to New Mexico. Communal affirmation, a desire to transform our isolation from each other and ‘lighten our steps on the mountain’ drives her artistic expressions. She is thrilled to be back for her third year as a VBC Presenter, and thankful for the wide, creative parameters and the vital, unusual work of the VBCers.

Sandra Davis Lakeman is an Emeritus Professor of Architecture from California Polytechnic State University, 1981-2006; and, University of Arizona. She is an architect, photographer and author of Natural Light and the Italian Piazza, the international exhibition and catalogue, sponsored by the Comune di Siena, Cal Poly, the Graham Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Primarily architectural and urban in nature including contextural landscape images, this exhibition opened in the Palazzo Pubblico, Cortile del Podestà in Siena, Italy in 1992; Portland, Oregon in 1994 and San Luis Obispo in 2004. In 1998, Natural Light and the Landscape of Tuscany opened in the Castello Aldobrandesco in Arcidosso, Italy. Lakeman organized and led 4 groups of students to Italy primarily in Siena and Arcidosso. These efforts involved study groups and exhibitions of the students’ Italian works and her photography. Sardinia, the Spirit of an Ancient Island is her work now in progress and is based on the villages, sacred wells and burial structures of the Nuragic civilization, 1800-238 B.C.

She raised her children, Dirk, computer engineer; Jenny, graphic designer; and Mark Lakeman, designer; in Beaverton and NW Portland, 1966-1975. Having completed only 4 of the 6 years in the Cooperative Program in Architecture at the University of Cincinnati, 1955-61, she left Portland to finish her education at the University of Oregon, 1975-77. She then began her teaching career at the University of Arizona, 1978-1981. [She had been the only woman in her class of 70 at Cincy and at Cal Poly, she was one of the first tenured women in the Department of Architecture.]

Her major interest has been the study of light, both in her photography and academically in design, theory and drawing classes. Light’s affect upon architectural forms and urban spatial environments and how people adapt within space has been the central focus of her work.

“In architectural and photography classes I endeavored to increase an awareness of light in the participants, not only the physical presence of light, but the metaphysical understanding of light as a metaphor of enlightenment.

Just as master architects design with light actually generating the forms of their structures, I encouraged the students to find the light in the image before finding the object. Thereafter, light can be the subject. Compositional clarity, the communication of meaning, photographic techniques and the phenomena of light were taught within the selected scenes. Tuscany has a completed lexicon to paint from that etches itself indelibly into ones’ memory, such as, the never forgotten soft plowed hills and valleys; the lone sentinel cipressi defining the hilltop; the many fields of sunflowers; the beckoning pathways that trace their way through deep waving grasses; the deserted farmhouses that speak legends of the distant past; all that makeup the passagi; the landscapes of Tuscany. And then, there are the mystical medieval hilltowns.”

This talk for the Village Building Convergence will be based on the massive library of 360º panoramic images shot in the heart of Italian villages, the communal center, the piazza. Single, twin and series images along with plan and section images will elaborate on the lessons to be learned from these amazing medieval architectonic structures, completely sustainable and functioning nearly a millennia after being conceived and built. The communal efforts of these masterbuilders was akin to the efforts now made by CityRepair and VBC, in that, decision making was a group effort over a long considered period of time. This is still the method of determining matters in the urbanistica of Italy.

Since 2001, Jenny has weaved her energy into a variety of community sustainability projects around Portland. With The City Repair Project, she co-founded the Village Building Convergence, facilitated Placemaking projects and workshops in dozens of communities in Portland and across the U.S, co-authored the 170-page Neighborhood Placemaking Guidebook and coordinated City Repair’s T-Horse and VisionPDX projects. Now, as Board member and Placemaking Program coordinator, she is helping City Repair evolve its unique programs for neighborhood transformation. Jenny is also honored to have participated in the birth of Tryon Life Community Farm, a seven-acre sustainability education center and intentional community. She co-organized the outreach and capital campaigns for the Save The Farm effort, in which thousands of people and groups across the region collectively raised $1.6 million in ten months to protect the land from high-impact development and instead offer a vision of integrated socio-ecological sustainability. Jenny continues to serve as a development and outreach connector for the Farm.

Last year, Jenny built upon these experiences and developed her own year-long tour of the U.S. and Africa, traveling as a “cross-pollinator” in order to explore the emerging ecosystem of grassroots changemakers, and building momentum through the interactions among the individual components. Now, Jenny has returned to Portland to weave the art and science of cross-pollination into Portland’s vibrant critical mass of changemakers. She is facilitating a year-long project among social justice and ecological changemakers of all types that fosters powerful linkages of communication and understanding without having to formally align organizations in mission, value or language, or create a new coalition or organization. For more information, she can be contacted at jennyleis@riseup.net or 503-548-8459. For stories and photos of her year away, check out: http://journeydejenny.blogspot.com .

Daniel Lerch is the author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, the first major municipal guidebook on peak oil and global warming. A program manager with Post Carbon Institute, Lerch has worked on urban planning issues for over ten years in the public, private and non-profit sectors. He is also a co-founder of The City Repair Project, an award-winning non-profit organization working on community public space issues.

Mr. Lerch has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Master of Urban Studies from Portland State University in Oregon.

Since the publication of Post Carbon Cities, Mr. Lerch has traveled to locations across the United States and Canada, delivering presentations and workshops to key staff and officials, university groups, and public audiences. To find out about his upcoming confirmed presentations and about presentation booking, see Post Carbon Cities Presentations.

Art Ludwig is an ecological systems designer with 27 years full-time experience in water, wastewater systems, energy, shelter and human powered transport. His specialty is complex, integrated “systems of systems.” Art has studied and worked in 22 different countries, consulted for the states of New York and New Mexico on water reuse policy, and given dozens of lectures and workshops.

He designed his own education in Ecological Systems Design, graduating from UC Berkeley. At Berkeley, he developed the first cleaners specifically designed to be biocompatible with plants and soil, and founded a successful business to manufacture and distribute them. Art has authored numerous articles (including one on water testing procedures) as well as the books “Water Storage” “Principles of Ecological Design,” and “Create an Oasis with Greywater.”

Tony Novelli began his environmental career on the first Earth Day in 1970 when he was 10 years old and his grade school cleaned up their entire town in the suburbs of Chicago. After a dozen years of learning trades with his father and a failed attempt at formalized education, he spent 9 years working in the financial markets, bicycle commuting and playing hacky sack. Burned out but hopeful, Tony moved to Tucson, AZ working for an upstart environmental remediation company. After being run out of business by misguided environmentalists, he continued work in ecoactivism, writing, graphic design, landscaping, and wandering the magical Sonoran Desert. For over 10 years he has been the lesser-known half of the dynamic duo known as DCAT (the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, with rockstar David Eisenberg), has been deeply involved in the natural and green building movements, is an arts and media activist, and also holds a part time position in Tucson City government developing sustainability related policy objectives.

Tony’s first experience with City Repair started when he met a crazy guy named Mark Lakeman in the woods in British Columbia, who’s presentation lasted all the way through dinner. That night turned his world around, connecting the beauty of the natural building movement with the inner city where it needs it most. Tony brought Mark to Tucson for a number of events, including the Urban Routes conference, which is still resonating years later. He loves Portland and while he’d love to visit every project going on, he invariably gets tangled up with muddy worksites and beautiful people. He still dreams about creating his own ecovillage in Tucson.

Born 1961 in Chicago, Illinois. Film / Video / Installation artist. Lives in Portland, Oregon, founder and janitor of The Oregon Department of Kick Ass

A filmmaker by nature, not by stress of research. She puts scholars to rout by solving through Nature’s teaching problems that have fretted their trained minds. Her iconoclastic work reflects an interest in place, relationships between bodies and landscapes, and all sorts of borders.

Working in experimental and poetic documentary forms, she produces films, videos and installations that explore the possibility of hope in contemporary society. She is a naturalist, born, not made: a true barefoot, cinematic rabble-rouser, of grand physique, calm pulse and a magnetism that demands the most profound attention.

I am ashamed to be an U.S. citizen at this point. I stay here to try and make work that will fortify the hearts and minds of those who live here. I want to show what we have lost sight of and to save the history of now. Poetic justice.

My primary focus is the region known as Cascadia, a place where optimistic people are gathering, trying to make a better world. I am having a lot of fun working with all of the incredibly talented artists who collaborate on the works with me. We all love being here. Here here.

Documentary in new forms is what really excites me. I consider myself an artist and an activist, and being a documentarian allows me to do both in one fell swoop. Hunker down to rise above.

Compassion is something I hope to have with me always while working on pieces, and I find, as the world gets crazier, my work gets more hopeful.

Starhawk is a writer, teacher, activist, and Witch who has been a long-term leading voice in the Goddess movement and a committed global justice activist and organizer. She is the author of several hallmark books in ecofemenism, women’s spirituality, and earth-based activism including The Spiritual Dance and The Fifth Sacred Thing. Her latest is Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. Starhawk is a veteran of progressive movements, and deeply committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism. She travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism. Her web site is www.starhawk.org.

Kat is a permaculture activist, designer, educator, networker and founder of the Urban Permaculture Guild. She facilitates workshops on natural building, permaculture, ecovillage design and eco-leadership as well as publicly speaks about eco-social design, city repair, and the power of placemaking. In collaboration with many wonderful colleagues and designers her work brings her to the Esalen Institute, Solar Living Institute, San Francisco Botanical Garden Society and UC Berkeley’s Sustainable Design Program. Trained in Ecovillage Design with the Findhorn Foundation of Scotland, Natural Building with Kleiwerks International, and Permaculture Design with the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, she also holds an MA in Creative Arts from San Francisco State University. She presently serves on the boards of two Bay Area nonprofit organizations devoted to peace, justice, and sustainablity, the NorCal Chapter of Architects, Designers, Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) in Berkeley and Bay Localize in Oakland. In 2006 she became one of a 1,000 Climate Project trainees, empowered to present a version of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth slide presentation. Kat lives and loves in Oakland, CA and is devoted to localization, believing it to be a key strategy towards sustainability and thriveability.

NALAWALLA is a transdisciplinary artist, teacher and performer dedicated to active crosspollination between the arts and ecology. Living on an off-grid, island homestead in the Puget Sound area, she facilitates the Bcollective, an umbrella organization which seeks to distribute widely the tools of bodybased arts for commonsense use in creation of healthy community, and to honor to these arts for this essential work. Bcollective’s participatory performance-workshops span a diversity of genres, being offered everywhere from festivals to farms, to preschools, ecovillage design courses and universities. For more information, or just to get in touch, visit www.bcollective.org, or email nala@bcollective.org.

Lisa Weasel: Think Globally, Eat Locally: Lessons from the GM Food Fight How much do you know about how the food you eat is grown and made? Who’s controlling our seeds, soil, and in turn, the future of food? Are there sustainable alternatives to the high-tech takeover of the global food system? What can we learn from grass roots, local food movements around the world? Lisa Weasel will share insights garnered from her work over the past 5 years with small farmers, agricultural ministers, and food and farming activists in Zambia, India, Thailand and Europe as they fight to resist the incursion of genetically modified food, and cultivate and celebrate local sustainable food systems in its place. She will also discuss how citizens can be proactive in local food policy and regulatory decisions. Uncovering how politics drives consumer preference and limits our food choices, this presentation will show us how and why we need to engage directly in food politics at both the local and the global level.

Lisa Weasel is the author of the forthcoming book, Food Fray: The Global Politics of Genetically Modified Food (Amacom, 2008) and a biology professor at PSU where she teaches courses on science and social justice, including the course Food Ethics and Sustainability Weasel was a member of Governor Kulongoski’s ad hoc Committee on Biopharm Crop policy in 2006-7, and is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Career Award. She is on the board of directors of the Greenhouse Network, sponsor of the Focus the Nation event on global climate change, as well as Growing Gardens’ program committee. She is a member of the Columbia Ecovillage and a founding member of the Sunnyside Piazza project, as well as the curator of the Salmon Street Poetry Garden. Weasel has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Harvard University and a PhD in molecular biology from Cambridge University.