Salt Tree Art
Brings to Light
A Salt Tree Art Lantern Festival
Welcome!
As we enter the season of long nights, Salt Tree Art wants you to help us shine through the darkness! This winter, our “Brings to Light” project will be raising awareness on four important ecological topics, and we’re asking you to take action and make a difference for our environment.
By joining the Brings to Light campaign, you’ll receive a weather-resistant votive lantern designed by Salt Tree Art’s collective. You can choose your favorite design or the most inspiring topic for you, whether you want to express your commitment to ocean health, forest conservation, pollinator protection, or art and science unity. Each lantern is a beautiful dedication to your passion for a better world and gives you a place in our growing community of shining supporters!
How to Get Involved
Join the Project!
Order your lantern using the form above (make sure to enter the mailing address where you would like the lanterns sent). After you receive your lantern, participate in any of the calls to action below on the topic you choose. Then use the tags #BringsToLight and @SaltTreeArt to share your engagement over social media and demonstrate your support for creative environmental activism!
You’ll also be invited to join us as we collectively light our lanterns during online celebrations throughout the winter.
Explore the project’s details below, and join us by ordering your lantern today! We’re excited to have you as part of this campaign to create a more sustainable and more beautiful world for all living things!
Lantern One
Ocean Health
The waves were so big and violent that it was unsafe to go into the water, and yet there was this delicate butterfly flying across the breakers and traveling on without any struggle.
Topic Overview
Oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface, creating a home for an amazing diversity of plant and animal life. From plastic pollutants to climate change, human activity has a major impact on these immense ecosystems and their inhabitants. Join us in taking action to preserve ocean health!
Campaign Actions
Reduce consumption of single-use plastics. Carry a reusable cup, use reusable bags when shopping, and avoid products with excess packaging when possible (or let companies know you want them to reduce their plastic packaging). Most of the plastic waste found in the ocean comes from the fishing industry, but unfortunately there’s no established accountability process for recycling or retrieving fishing nets. However, even household plastics break down into micro-particles that are very common pollutants in our waterways and oceans, ending up in the bodies of the oceans’ creatures.
Conserve water at home. Shut off the faucet while you brush your teeth or shave, minimize watering your lawn (or replace your lawn entirely with low-water landscaping) or washing paved surfaces, and consider ways of soaking up rain to prevent water run-off during storms. The water we use eventually makes its way to the oceans, along with any of the pollutants it collects along the way. By reducing our at-home water consumption and reducing stormwater runoff, we also help to slow the flow of chemicals from our lawns, our buildings, and our roadways, giving more time for natural filtration processes to clean contaminants as water flows towards our waterways.
Assess your carbon footprint using the resource below, and take action to reduce your emissions. Oceans have been a heat sink for the initial global temperature rise from climate change, protecting us from reaching severe temperature extremes, but becoming less inhabitable as a result. Coral reef bleaching, ocean life die-offs, and increasingly volatile hurricane and typhoon storm seasons can all be linked back to the carbon emissions fueling the climate crisis.
Lantern 2
Forest Conservation
The story of the gingko tree is one of resiliency. The tree evolved in the time of dinosaurs, and yet still continues to thrive. The gingko has stayed true to its original form while always staying adaptable to dramatic changes.
Topic Overview
Trees are vital to our survival – they capture carbon from the atmosphere, they filter air and water, and they create an incredible renewable resource for us when harvested sustainably. They also provide habitat for an extraordinary range of life while helping to build and stabilize healthy soil. Join us in taking action to conserve our global forests!
Campaign Actions
Become an educated consumer of forestry products. Understanding forest product labels and knowing ingredients that contribute to deforestation give you the power to protect forests through your purchasing choices.
Reduce your meat consumption. The meat industry propels destruction of forests to create pastureland and creates methane emissions that amplify climate change. Choose locally-raised meat from farms using sustainable or regenerative grazing practices, reduce your meat consumption a few times a week, or try vegetarianism or veganism to preserve forests worldwide through some simple dietary changes!
Connect with nature. Hiking, camping, and experiencing forests recreationally can give a big boost your personal wellness. Responsible recreation also creates an economic incentive for forest conservation, making sure that their contributions to ecosystem health are also preserved.
Lantern 3
Art & Science Unity
The creativity that went into the experiment was compelling, worthy of any wall or pedestal in a gallery.
Topic Overview
Darwin wrote “I think” next to an early sketch of his phylogenetic tree of life. As an accomplished artist and scientist, these words form a motto for those seeking truth. Though distinctive practices, art and science have a common purpose of exploration and discovery. Join us in celebrating the harmony created when we unite these two unique approaches to understanding our world.
Campaign Actions
Play with environmental education. Salt Tree Art’s Earth to Sky learning resource offers engaging artistic exercises designed to creatively introduce learners to environmental topics. With a broad variety of activities for all ages (from illustration, to dance, to writing, to research), explore the resource and experiment with connecting art and ecology. Environmental education for younger learners helps to establish lifelong eco-friendly practices, though adult learners can also benefit from a deeper understanding of the interconnections between different forms of life and human communities.
Learn about biomimicry and regenerative art. Nature can inspire art, and creative processes can help in healing nature. Discover more about these cooperative approaches to environmental renewal and innovative design.
Address an environmental need through art. Get creative! Build a bat box, decorate a street tree bed, make and distribute wildflower seed balls, or tackle any other project that can help your local ecosystem. Share your creations with us on social media to help inspire others!
Lantern 4
Pollinator Protection
She was dancing in the hive – waggling with eager vigor to share what flowers awaited her sisters.
Topic Overview
A third of the human food supply relies on pollinators for production. These small creatures have a huge impact on human survival, as well as on the continuing diversity of plant life around us. As habitat destruction and pervasive chemical uses have undermined the health and stability of pollinator communities, it’s become increasingly important to understand our role in their conservation. Join us in protecting and celebrating our global pollinators!
Campaign Actions
Create spaces for pollinators (no matter where you live). Plant milkweed to support butterfly populations during their seasonal migrations, build a mason bee house to create habitat for solitary insects in your yard, or create a windowsill bee hydration station to offer an oasis for your pollinating neighbors.
Learn the waggle dance. Honey bees use a series of movements to communicate the location of food and other resources to their hive. Their “waggle” dance is easy to learn, so celebrate the honey bee with your own waggle! Share your dancing with family, friends, neighbors, and the Salt Tree Art community to raise awareness on the honey bee and inspire everyone to protect our pollinators.
Support your local pollinators. No matter where you live, there are pollinators that could use your love. Learn more about your local pollinators, including what challenges they face and how to support them.
Winter Events
Celebrations of Light!
Winter Solstice Lantern Lighting Ceremony
December 21, 2020
Our festive online gathering celebrated the arrival of the winter season! The event included holiday shadow puppetry, guided meditation, and a virtual lantern lighting ceremony.
Midwinter Celebration
February 2nd, 2021
Imbolc marks the halfway point between the start of winter and the beginning of spring. Our midwinter celebration features stories and art from the four topics of the Brings to Light project.