​“Sometimes a person needs a story
​more than food to stay alive.”  
Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel
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   COMMUNITY PROJECTS
There is a story about a Hollywood producer who set up a TV in an African village. He wanted to experiment with what stories they liked best. For the first week everyone was enthralled, standing around it taking in every program in delight. But the producer noticed that when he came to observe them the second week, not as many were as interested in watching it, and that by the third week no one was even paying any attention to it at all. When he asked why, they said, "We already have a storyteller in our village." He said, "Yes, of course, but a TV has hundreds of choices for every kind of story you can possibly imagine." The people responded, "But our storyteller knows our stories."

​Story has a catalytic ability to build bonds. It calls us together, it creates intimacy. Our stories, when shared in community, are transforming, dynamic, healing. At the core of StoryArts mission we come together around an artistic, communal storytelling fire, where we honor and celebrate the daily events that make up all our lives.

​Overview of Our Community Projects

​“For the unfolding of the universe your creativity is as essential as the
​creativity inherent in the original fireball.” ~ Brian Swimme
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Mac Hartley's Elder Tribute was a fund raiser for the Encinitas Legacies Project. We asked Mac Hartley, a beloved, Encinitas community leader and life story teacher if we could honor him. It turned out many members of the community had been pondering the same idea, so we all worked together. First we approached the Encinitas Senior Foundation Board, which collaborated with us in producing the event. Then we contacted Mac's life story students, throughout the north coast region of San Diego, and created a staged, 2-hour program, based on Mac's life stories, accompanied with a high tea, at the Encinitas Senior Center.
Over 100 people attended this event, all of whom came to thank him for the contribution he had made to Encinitas, as well as the local North Coast area and in their personal lives. Both the City of Encinitas and the County of San Diego participated by proclaiming Mac Hartley Days.
Front Porch Gallery: A Story Art Reading was our first community based Youth/Elder story art event, which was held at Casa de Manana, Elder Community in La Jolla, in May 2003. This Reading was an introductory event to seed the concept of a Youth/Elder Project. For this event, attended by residents and their families, we brought together eight StoryArts authors and their grandchildren, to read selections of their published works, accompanied by an elegant afternoon tea. This reading was sponsored and funded by Front Porch Gallery.
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I Long to See You was a fundraising event for the Martha Neal Brown Story Arts Fund. Martha was a highly regarded and dearly loved, founding member of Storymakers, who created the vision for our Ten Year Community Celebration. Martha's 50th birthday video, a remarkable record of a woman's life, artfully created and heartfully performed by Martha herself, was shown to an audience of 60 friends and family members of Martha after her death, at the Solana Beach Unitarian Fellowship, February, 2004, ten years after she first performed it. I Long to See You was a fundraising event for the Martha Neal Brown Story Arts Fund.
                 
                  I Long to See You was a fundraising event for the Martha Neal Brown Story Arts Fund
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David, expressing his astonishment at all that his partner Eric had accomplished
in his life said, “And he’s not even famous?!”

Legacies:
​Youth/Elder Story Art Projects
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Vision
Legacies is a hometown, cross generational project that honors the important role Elders hold in our culture by celebrating them through Youth generated Story Art Works, culminating in an invaluable community legacy to be exhibited as the Elders' stories are told, at city-wide events.
Mission Statement
It is the great task of Elders in any society to pass on the fruits of their accumulated life lessons, embedded within their life stories, to the younger generation. Therefore a mature society always honors its Elders by establishing a way for them to share their wisdom. Without this rite of passage we continue to stumble again and again over ordinary obstacles life presents to us, as well as waste our fore parents' hard earned knowing without even noticing we are doing so.
Story Art Readings and Exhibitions are designed especially to bring Youth and Elders together to pass on the Elder's life stories through Story Art Works. By doing this, not only can we prevent losing our Elder's accumulated wisdom, a social tragedy, we can actually provide a way to preserve and invest our older citizen's rich life experiences in our Youth's budding creativity.
Project Description
Legacies brought together 25 pairs of Youth and Elders in a series of meetings and workshops in both Encinitas and Solana Beach California, urban beach towns in northern San Diego County, committed to preserving their rich historical heritage. Youth from elementary, high school and college levels interviewed Elders and created collage art books from their Elder's life stories, which became the basis of local Readings and Exhibitions. These projects were funded by private donors, the City of Encinitas, County of San Diego and the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation.

​Katie, speaking of her Elder, Lola, stated, “Lola is so incredibly cool that I decided if Elders are like her I am going to start volunteering at an Elder community so I can hang out with them.”
​These projects were funded by private donors, the City of Encinitas,
County of San Diego and the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation.
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​As Memoir Makers we are searching for the intimate moments in our lives, which we have long ago forgotten, to speak to us again, enliven us again, teach us again. We walk this path "alone together," listening deeply, needing to hear each other's stories in order to remember and tell our own. Our life's stories bring us home to ourselves, making meaning out of our journey's bone chilling trials and heart filled accomplishments. Our stories, now openly shared and fully received, build a bridge to a rich, enduring community.

MEMOIR MAKERS: 
​The Women's Project
​Twelve women, all of whom had previous experience with journaling and/or life story as participants in previous StoryArts projects over the years, came together for a year-long project designed to allow each women to tell her story, as a catalyst for the other women to write their story off of. They met monthly (2010). Each month an altar was created in the center of the circle to help the woman stage her story by placing heirlooms from her story on it. And each month after the leading lady told her story, other participants wrote in a blank Memoir Journal an I Remember The When entry. At the end of the year a Harvest Retreat art book making weekend was held, in which each woman made an art book to illustrate her story. Then a Diary Opening and Book Art Exhibit was held at the Encinitas Library. The art books were on display in the library lobby for four weeks, and a reading of the women's stories was produced. At the Diary Opening, members of the audience were also given time to write and read a short I Remember The Time When entry, which they then took home in a mini memoir. A Project Publication was produced at the close of the project. 
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​“That was when we partook of our own and one another’s innate, wild and immense wisdom — wisdom born of heroic courage, life-long devotion, stop-you-cold wrong turns, sweet human kindnesses, humbling struggles, and outrageously tasty passions… the list goes on and on.”

This project was underwritten by the Seth Sprauge Educational & Charitable Foundation

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MEMOIR MAKERS: 
​The Men's Project
Five men met between January and October 2012, during which time they each shared a story from their life. After the leading man told his story, everyone wrote and read a story from their own life, written in a blank Memoir Journal, therefore at the end of the project it contained personal stories inspired by each of the men. At the close of the storytelling sessions, a Harvest Retreat was held, during which a book art work was created by each member, based on his life. These art books were exhibited at the Encinitas Library in October, and a public reading was held so the men could each share a few of their stories with the community at large, including family and friends. Those in attendance also wrote an I Remember the Time When… entry in a mini memoir booklet which they then took home with them. There was also be a Project Publication and Slideshow produced at the close of the project.
This project was underwritten by the Seth Sprauge Educational & Charitable Foundation

HIDDEN TREASURES:
​An Encinitas Community Arts Project ​

"Art works improve the lives of America's citizens in many ways. Communities across our nation are leveraging the arts to make their communities more livable with enhanced quality of life, increased creative activity, a distinct sense of place, and vibrant local economies that together capitalize on their existing assets."
National Endowment for the Arts, 2013
​Hidden Treasures is a community art project training local emerging artists to use story arts to celebrate hidden leaders in Encinitas. This project will bring together five pairs of hidden leaders and emerging artists in a series of storytelling gatherings and story art workshops in Encinitas, a city committed to supporting the arts, to building a vibrant participatory civil life and to preserving it's rich historical heritage. Five artists selected from local high schools, Mira Costa College and the wider community, will interview six hidden leaders and then create story art works from the hidden leader's life stories that will be the basis of public readings and art exhibits held at the Encinitas Library and San Dieguito Heritage Museum.​ 
View our Hidden Treasures donors. 
See project details on our Hidden Treasures page.
Hidden Treasures is funded by the Seth Sprauge Educational & Charitable Foundation,The City of Encinitas and Mizel Family Foundation Community Grant Program, the Fletcher Family Foundation,the County of San Diego, Dave Roberts Office, and many generous local businesses and residents