RIPE AREA 2025 artists & Contributors

Anni McCann is a lyric soprano and local Nevada City vocalist and instrumentalist, trained in opera, musical theater and dance. She's been performing since she was a child and one of her most cherished pastimes is singing to the plants in her organic garden. She'll be portraying the singing role of the Botanist. 

Andie Thrams is a Sierra Nevada-based artist  who uses wildcrafted materials to create paintings and artist’s books that explore mystery, reverence, and delight, while grappling with the vanishing habitats of our era.  She'l  lead wildcrafting and painting activities using oak gall & acorn inks and woodland journaling. 

Image  © 2025 Andie Thrams 

Lara Gularte, Poet Laureate Emeritus, El Dorado County, conducts  Ekphrastic poetry / writing workshops across community arts venues, literary circles and festivals including the Tahoe Literary Festival. She'll lead ekphrastic poetry writing using Haiku or Haibun forms and woodland themes to expand on an image  or element from nature.

Corina del Carmel is an international surrealist painter and sculptor. She'll be leading a collective mural activity to experiment with textures, colors, shapes as a form of expression based in visionary storytelling integrating plants and animals and our relationship with them as inspiration.

David Yapp is a landscape artist working predominantly in oils. He often leads plein air painting at Wakamatsu Farm and will be facilitating painting with oils  on the Lake Path with lovely views of Wakamatsu Pond and the surrounding woodlands as inspiration. 

Sara Raskie, Anishinaabe, caretakes a two-acre Nevada City food forest with  partner Tony Cervantes, Chichimeca. They'll share about processing acorns and manzanita berries as examples of the many local native foods that the local Indigenous Peoples have tended for millennia, and  lessons of living seasonally, caretaking, and abundance.

Marty and his group of dancers, Quezalcoatl Ocelotl, has been performing inspiring Aztec-heritage dances and ceremonies in the extended Sacramento area for many years. They will delight us with their blessing for the autumnal equinox and harvest season. 

Mia Andler, author of The Sierra Forager, has been foraging since she was a little girl in Finland and has studied the regenerative practices of earth based cultures around the world.   She'll be facilitating crafting activities with sustainably foraged materials from her local homestead.

Susan Hayne is an accomplished printmaker steeped in the diversity of printmaking, from woodcuts to etchings to silkscreens and embossing. She has lived in El Dorado County for 38 years and finds most of her inspiration right outsidher door. She'll be demoing printmaking techniques.

Rebecca Wilson is a teacher, homesteader, farmer, musician, nature lover, and dancer and is enjoying her life in Nevada City. She has a dancing and ensemble singing role in The Botanist.

Andrew Hibben is a Placerville-based landscape architect and garden specialist who loves growing and preparing his own vegetables and spending time in nature. He'll be contributing to the Sound Garden

Chris ("Crispy)"  is a dancerpoetsongwriterplaywrightclownsculptorbuilderfarmerconsultantloover living in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He'll be dancing and singing in The Botanist.

As the development director of ARC since 2016, Melissa Lobach advocates for environmental conservation in local communities through fundraising, special event planning, donor cultivation, public outreach, marketing, and volunteer coordination. She develops the RIPE AREA Festival with MTA.

Mark Verlander is the innovative graphic designer for RIPE AREA and MTA. Verlander Design creates complete identity and brand systems. Logos, brand imagery, AI, products, print pieces, websites, art, photography, music. Their design strategy and creativity brings projects to life. 

Elena DeLacy is the Executive Director of American River Conservancy, focusing on achieving ARC's goals to serve our communities by ensuring healthy ecosystems in the Upper American River and Upper Cosumnes River watersheds through conservation, stewardship, and education.