top of page

All Posts


Dear Friend of Unity Through Creativity,


Join us for an hour-long, free webinar called From Turnover to Teambuilding: 3 Keys to Inspiring Committed Employees. The training will be on Wed., March 12 at 11:00 am PST, 12:00 pm MST, 1:00 pm CST and 2:00 pm EST.  Bring your magic markers or colored pencils and a piece of computer printer paper.  We'll be exploring how to build TRUST - the foundation of all relationships in business, in our family life and in our democracy.  To register click here.





We can't wait to put hearts and minds together. Once again, to register click here. Hope to see you there,


The UTC Team


Dear Friend of Unity Through Creativity,


This month we share artist/educator Sonda Folk Cheesebrough’s Selfless Act of Kindness. We honor her as the representative of all K-12 teachers who devote their lives to the growth and well-being of the children in their care. Last week, we remembered Daniel Dancer's 900 student "Art for the Sky" earth-mural in Morgantown, West Virginia, inspired by Sonda's 2012 Singing Tree of Diversity. We spoke with her about her experience facilitating the 22nd mural of the Singing Tree Project.


Sonda started her journey as a painter. She became a teacher begrudgingly, only to discover that teaching was exactly what her soul needed. The subject matter and the direction of her art  were transformed after working with children.


“I started creating art that projected innocence and hope. It is the part of myself that I got validated from children and it’s the part of myself that I want to share. Children have a great positivity, they always think everything is going to be okay, and the trust that they put in us is just so beautiful.”


“Everything I learned that’s worth knowing came from elementary children”


Sonda was continually inspired by her students' uncensored, spontaneous generosity and kindness. Time and again she saw that the children, who can seem like black holes of need that know no bottom, were her teachers in countless selfless acts of love. 


She taught students from over 50 different countries in the Monongalia County School system in West Virginia. Every student was fascinated by the cultures around them and proud of their own culture. She cultivated an environment where the children shared stories, food, and experiences. They researched the shapes of leaves from trees in their country to add to the Singing Tree. Over 900 students contributed to the mural.



Two years later, Sonda and her students had the joy of seeing the Singing Tree of Diversity transformed into a massive "Sky Art" piece by Daniel Dancer. The students didn’t know what they were making as they put on different colored t-shirts and curled up next to each other on the ground. They trusted that it was okay not to know what was going to happen and had fun doing something on a massive scale. It wasn't until the students watched the video of the process that they saw the whole and understood the power of what they had created together.



“Working with children is the most important job we do. There is nothing of more consequence than helping children collaborate together and be kind to each other. I am clear that I always get back more than I am giving when I am working with children.”

With the Singing Tree Project, Sonda was willing to try something she had never done before, taking up the invitation for the whole world to create a painting together and making the impulse her own. She trusted her heart in a selfless act of love that continues to serve her students and the world.  


Sending you joy in these uncertain times,


Laurie and the UTC Team


Dear Friend of Unity Through Creativity,


Today we are focusing on the interdependent process of Life on Earth. The culture of the U.S. is steeped in the idea of rugged individualism. The fact is that individuals humans ONLY survive because of a community, and an ecological community at that. We are alive because of the oxygen given to us by the trees. Though our arms are like branches and our feet are like roots, the vast differences between trees and humans nourishes the fecundity of planet (when people aren’t narrow-mindedly destroying forests for short-term gains.) Every life form plays a role in the eco-system. If there was not diversity, there would be no Life on Earth. 

 

Cultural diversity grows out of the unique lands of our planet that shape a peoples' food, music, dress, language, technology and ceremony.  How blessed we are to be enriched by so many cultures in this time, instead of being restricted by the fear of “Stranger Danger” that has plagued humanity for hundreds of thousands of years.


In 2012, visionary art teacher Sonda Polk Cheesbrough celebrated the importance of diversity with her students in Morgantown, West Virginia. She facilitated The Singing Tree of Diversity on a corner wall of the school, adding the Blue Ridge Mountains under the tree floating in space. Her students decided to add leaves from many different kinds of trees on one trunk to symbolize diversity and inventing a new species in the process!



Her work went on to inspire Daniel Sky, a Creative Activist who makes giant images by organizing groups of people wearing different colored T-shirts into designs. His work is inspired by upon the Nazca lines of Peru.  He reproduced the collaborative mural that Sonda had first painted with her students, bringing together 900 North Elementary School kids and staff in Morgantown, West Virginia. How magnificent to see his version of The Singing Tree of Diversity on such a grand scale.  We were able to get in touch with Daniel to hear his thoughts about collaborative art and the Singing Tree Project in the interview below.  We are reaching out to Sonda to hear her reflections as well.  Stay tuned. 



Daniel Sky answers the following questions: 


Q: “Why is collaborative art so important to youth?"


DS:  Art For the Sky is more important than ever because it provides a powerful antidote to the fragmentation and disconnection that dominate modern life. In an era where digital screens and individualism often take precedence over real-world collaboration and community, this form of participatory art offers a rare and profound experience of unity, perspective, and interconnectedness. Each person is a single pixel. No one pixel or paint drop is more important than any another. The parts combine to make the whole and everyone experiences the magnificence of creating something larger than oneself.


With so much of life happening online, the opportunity to physically gather with hundreds of others to co-create something never-before-seen fosters a deep sense of belonging and shared purpose.  The concept of focusing and seeing the whole beyond just the parts is crucial in a time when people often get lost in details and divisions. Art For the Sky allows participants to experience firsthand the power of stepping back and seeing the bigger picture, seeing the whole—a perspective that is desperately needed in facing the monumental challenges of the modern world.


This work isn’t just about making giant pictures however—it’s about helping people feel interconnected, see the whole, and understand that each of us plays a vital role in shaping the world. In a time when cynicism and fear dominate the headlines, Art For the Sky offers a moment of awe—showing that when people come together with a shared vision, they can create something truly magnificent.



Q: What transformations have you witnessed?


DS:  During the final assembly, when I witness kids suddenly seeing the result of their collaboration for the first time, they explode in expressions of wonder, excitement, belonging and awe. I am hopeful that something “clicks” inside them in this moment and they suddenly understand the power of collaboration and long-term thinking. The experience of being part of something so large and awe-inspiring can spark a sense of agency helping kids feel like they can make a difference. The ephemeral nature of these works teaches them that beauty doesn’t have to be permanent to be powerful—an important lesson in creativity and letting go.


I always tell the story of one kid who was in one of my first Art For the Sky images. When I ran into him 25 years later he said it was the only thing he remembered  from elementary school. He said that it made him feel really good that he could see how he fit into the whole . . . that without him, it would have been different.



Reflections on the Singing Tree Mural Project:


DS:  WOW . . . I am simply stunned by all the Singing Tree Murals created over the years! The Sky-Art Singing Tree rising from the Earth, all made of people feels like a giant mash-up of all the murals I’ve facilitated come to life and enacted in real-time on a beautiful spring day in West Virginia. Every single participant carried with them their own ancestoral relationship to the Tree of Life and in the depiction of the falling fruit, blowing leaves and melting glaciers, demonstrated their concern for what is happening to our beloved planet.



The diversity of every human’s mind, heart and soul is the resource we need to make a world that works for all beings, instead of a world that works for a few privileged and power hungry beings.  Look at the beauty that happens when diversity is honored instead of repressed.  


Laurie and the UTC Team

bottom of page