High-Flying Beauty for a Wounded Woodland: Radical Joy Revealed

Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places. We hope you'll enjoy these doorways into places that are both familiar and surprising, and we welcome your suggestions, stories, and photos. Click here to subscribe.


Moscow Clayworks tent and barn at the beginning of the summer.

RadJoy t-shirt on tent after the woods were cut down.

The tent--still sporting the RadJoy tee--and barn with their mobile flag screen. All photos by Frank Goryl

High-Flying Beauty

for a Wounded Woodland

Frank Goryl, a ceramic artist and proprietor of Moscow Clayworks (MCW) in Moscow, Pennsylvania, writes in this week's Radical Joy Revealed about a recent challenge to the land behind this community studio and how the artists and students met it.

I have received several emails and calls about the flag project on the west end of our property, and since it's been a while since I've done an MCW update, thought it would be nice to do both. Since we opened MCW nearly a decade ago, we have been involved with the Global Earth Exchange, a Radical Joy for Hard Times project.

This past summer, a local developer began construction of a senior housing project, and they clear-cut the woodlot that borders our property. This prompted us to think about an environmental artwork to fill the visual void created by the construction.

Contrary to their past very creative offerings for the Global Earth Exchange, everyone at the studio was too dispirited about the damage to the woods to do much for this year's event. They did hang our 2017 Global Earth Exchange t-shirt from the door of the small tent at the back of the property . That lone t-shirt, flapping and fluttering in the breeze, inspired a bold, new idea.

We have decided on a flag project to enhance the view from our back door and have been happy with the visual results. Additionally, when the winds are strong the flapping and fluttering of the flags are enjoyable to hear. The 20 flags from countries outside the U.S. above the pole barn are those that [my wife and two sons] Susan, Evan, Aaron and I have visited together. They have been arranged alphabetically.

We can't necessarily make the damage to beloved places disappear, but there is almost always something we can do to live with those places, even as we take delight in our playfulness and creativity!

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Radical Joy Revealed.

It's easy to make beauty anywhere! Here's how!

New from Radical Joy for Hard Times founder
Trebbe Johnson: a book filled with ideas for creating simple, imaginative, collaborative gifts of beauty for hurt places in nature and in your community!

To order click here.

Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community of people dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss, and making acts of beauty there, we transform the land, reconnect people and the places that nourish them, and empower ourselves to make a difference in the way we live on Earth.

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Each week Radical Joy Revealed comes to you free of charge with inspiring stories and suggestions for living with endangered places in creative, life-affirming ways. It takes thought, imagination, and a sense of timing to uncover and write the stories, choose just the right images to accompany them, and prepare them for distribution, and we could use your financial help. Please show your support of Radical Joy Revealed by making a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization.

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