History

Madrona Arts is an Oregon-based nonprofit. It was founded in 2008 by Diana Hartel with a group of artists participating in a community multi-arts project called Inner Geography. That project addressed the social ecological issue of the outsider/outcast. Excluding, rejecting and casting out others is the basis of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and is the root of genocide. How can we address issues of human population and ecology when we create such division among ourselves? Read more about the Inner Geography program.

Since then our attention has been on the ecological crises of watersheds in our region. Recognizing the growing need to focus on the environment, Madrona Arts was formed with the intention of raising ecological awareness through art. Our first major project is the Klamath River Basin.

Madrona Arts is the Pacific Northwest incarnation of the NY-based Bronx Community Works, a social, environmental, and cultural organization founded by Diana Hartel in New York in 1993. That non-profit was dissolved in 2006 and its programs are now self-run within partner organizations. Community Works focused on urban park eco-restoration, community gardens, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, fiber arts, and spoken word arts. Its most successful program was Planet Hot Plate—cooking and nutrition groups that used music, poetry, prose stories, and mindfulness training to raise awareness for change in food choices and preparation.

Collaborations included the NYC Parks Department, South Bronx public schools, The Natural Gourmet Cookery School, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Beth Israel Hospital, Housing Works, Greyston Foundation, and 35 other organizations including transitional housing programs in Harlem.