Touch Grass
a partnership between the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art and Georgia Writers Museum
Working with Steffen Thomas Museum of Art (STMA), this environmentally-focused exhibition explores at STMA, with artists and writers and audience, our place in the natural world: do we exist as a part of nature? Or outside of nature, experiencing the environment as a tourist or a consumer? The title is a play on the internet phrase “touch grass” or “go touch some grass” that may be said to suggest to someone that they have been online too much and are disconnected from the real world.
Studies show that the impact of experiencing art in person is as impactful as experiencing nature in person. Viewing art and nature on our screens is not enough – we need to touch grass. The invited artists in this exhibition have deep connections to the environments, as did Steffen Thomas. In viewing how these artists used different media to express that connection, we hope to spark curiosity, wonder, and a sense of custodianship about the natural world in students, as well as adults, who experience this exhibition.
*Exhibit is displayed at the
Steffen Thomas Museum of Art (4200 Bethany Rd, Buckhead, GA 30625)
Featured Artists
with special exhibition by Alex Huynh
Raven Waters uses a variety of paint and drawing media to capture people, animals, birds in their environments. Waters received a Fine Arts degree from Georgia Southern and lives (and paints) on a farm in southern Georgia with his partner, Janisse Ray (Georgia Writers Hall of Fame).
Senora Lynch is a contemporary clay artist who is an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina. Her work has been displayed in the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is in the collections of the NC Museum of History and the National Museum of the American Indian. Lynch is an educator who teaches many traditional arts as well as cultural competency.
Steffen Thomas (1906-1990) was a German American master artist who had a long career in Atlanta. He expressed the joy and peace he found in observing animals, in sitting by ponds, and walking in forests, through his art and his writings.
Alex Huynh is a young visual artist and photographer from Atlanta, Georgia. She wrote and illustrated the children’s poetry book From Tears to the Sea at age 13 and won a Gold Medal from the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.
Visit the Exhibit
TUE-SAT 11am – 4pm / displayed at the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art (4200 Bethany Rd, Buckhead, GA 30625)
Special Event: Holistic Writing
Holistic Writing
Sat, February 22, 2025
9:00 – 10:15 am
10:30 – 11:45 am
1:30 – 2:45 pm
3:00 – 4:15 pm
Part of the Georgia Writers Museum’s 4th annual Writers Retreat, the Holistic Writing track encourages new and experienced writers to explore our place in the natural world: do we exist as a part of nature? Or outside of nature, experiencing the environment as a tourist or a consumer? The title of the exhibit, Touch Grass, is a play on the internet phrase “touch grass” or “go touch some grass” that is said as a criticism to someone who has been online too much and are disconnected from reality/the real world.
Exhibit Tour with STMA Executive Director, Alyson Vueley
Poetry Workshop with Josina Guess
Choreographing Writing: Using Dance to Create Story with Carla Walters
Healing Writers Block with Stephanie Siegel
Special Event: Vulture Sister Song
dance, stories, ecology
Workshops: Saturday, February 22
Public Performance: Sunday, February 23
School Performances: Monday, February 24
Vulture Sister Song is an interdisciplinary performance and set of workshops bringing artists and community members together to celebrate the possibilities of vibrant interdependence. A herd of shapeshifting lanterns migrate through the space alongside dancing human bodies, while a soundscape of folk music, rock lullabies and storytelling about vultures lights up dimensions of humor, wonder and cruelty inherent in our relationships across species. Vultures serve as a powerful vehicle for these themes: their role in the ecosystem resonates both environmentally and culturally for communities grappling with toxic histories of exploitation and collectively envisioning a future in which humans move with others in right(er) relationship.
Cast: Ellen Smith Ahern (dance artist, NH), Jacob Elias (set designer/musician, NY), Josina Guess (poet/writer, GA), Kate Elias (dance artist, WA), and Pete Dybdahl (writer/musician, GA)
School Tours: Touch Grass
Touch Grass
January 25 – June 28, 2025
Contact STMA to schedule your field trip to experience Touch Grass this spring.
School Tours
K–12 public schools receive free admission for field trips to the museum with guided tour of the special exhibition. Thanks to an Operation Round Up grant from Central GA EMC, students on field trips will receive sketchbooks (that they can keep!) to do guided in–gallery drawing activities and then outside to experiment with drawing en plein air in the idyllic grounds of STMA.
In addition, each student will receive a guest pass to return to the museum for free with their families. Guest passes are printed with text in Spanish on one side, and English on the reverse. This exhibition is appropriate for all grade levels.
