MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: KAY FERGUSON & JOSH VANA
/Kay Ferguson | Co-Director & Founder, ARTivism
Could you tell us who you are and what it is that you do?
I’m Kay Leigh Ferguson. In 2017, I bolted out of semi retirement to found ARTivism Virginia and create a supported connection between artists and activists. Educated as a writer, often employed as an actor and as an activist, I have taught writing, theater and organizing in more and weirder settings than can be named here. Activist teeth cut in early 80’s with Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. 20 years work with Live Arts Theater as janitor, board officer, fundraiser, actor, director, teacher and founder of their education program. Only now can I see that the uniting thread is and was always artivism. Approaching my 7th decade, I’m glad to finally know what she grew up to be.
What do you love most about the work?
Giving artists meaningful ways to share their time and talent with causes and communities that need both. Kicking the foul butt of the fossil fuel industry in my home state. The fierce, wise, diverse characters I have met and learned from along this way.
Has there been a light switch moment, a turning point, professionally &/or personally along the way?
Trump's election lit the fuse that blasted me out of my first effort at retirement. What to do? What could I do? I guess the light bulb moment was to understand that my wealth was the artistic community I was part of, that generally I can talk a dog off a meat truck and that I know how to build powerful volunteer teams. I wanted to get out of my blue bubble and into rural communities to understand what was happening. That's when I found out about the proposed Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley fracked gas pipelines trying to destroy this state. This very close line in the climate change sand picked me up by the back of the neck and hasn't let go since.
What are you currently working on, excited about, looking forward to?
Transitioning to my second retirement attempt right now involves taking stock of five years of work and preparing to hand it over to young new leadership. I can't wait to see what it becomes next. Also for the Mountain Valley Pipeline to bite the bitter dust. We're close.
What values drive your work each day?
Love. Justice. Service. But it's all love really.
Anything we missed that you might care to share (closing thoughts)?
Got three days?
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Josh Vana | Co-Director, ARTivism
Could you tell us who you are and what it is that you do?
I'm a musician who happens to be a justice issues person. I write songs, carry songs, and try to make noise good enough to rattle the system's rafters a little bit – a constant work in progress. I've worked with my Co-Director Kay Ferguson for about three and a half years now in various capacities, all in the valuable service of translating complex information into messaging that moves the heart, the head, and then the feet. ARTivism Virginia has been primarily focused on working with a coalition of largely frontline and environmental groups to halt the fossil fuel buildout in so-called Virginia and the region. That's meant event planning, messaging strategy, music and film production, and a whole host of other stuff. Mostly, as Kay will tell you, it's supporting connections between artists and activists, helping tell the story to the newcomer, and providing invitations for folks to show up ("with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that", as Arlo Guthrie might say. "And friends, they may think it's a movement. And it is.").
What do you love most about the work?
I love when people discover their power and start to feel like they are somebody to be messed with – not somebody who's gonna be run over. When they find a voice they didn't know they had. It can be both individual and collective. I love watching the floor disintegrate beneath the liars and oppressors who drag communities through hell, only to find that their subjects wanted victory more than a corporation does. I love witnessing the relief and overwhelm when someone in a frontline community finally experiences that victory – having had everything to lose. There is joy in resistance. There has to be. Because when they've got you in despair, they've won.
How did you arrive at this point in your work? What’s your backstory?
I've landed here in my role as Co-Director of ARTivism Virginia (emerging Director, you might say) through years of connecting with other activists and artists in the fight to stop the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines. I began to get educated and active around these issues in 2015 while living in so-called Rockingham County, coinciding with a broader political awakening in support of the first Bernie Sanders campaign for president. I helped form a solidarity group called RAPTORS there in the Shenandoah Valley, and started showing up everywhere I could within the confines of also being a touring musician and working at the Little Grill Collective in Harrisonburg. I've been working with Kay and a growing network of artivists since the summer of 2018, and that took little time to develop into a more full-time partnership to stop ACP, MVP, and similarly stupid ventures dreamt up by the geniuses in the fossil fuel and finance industries.
Has there been a light switch moment, a turning point, professionally &/or personally along the way?
After being active in the pipeline fights in our region for a couple years, I found that I could no longer keep the balance with my activism while being a thousand miles away at any given time. The urgency of our moment really started to tear at me. Early on, that moment was framed to me this way: We are in the hallway between extraction and export (speaking specifically to our geography). That essentially means that there is no safe place from the continued shale oil and gas buildout unless you are incredibly wealthy and can keep it out of your backyard. Even then, this latest stage in colonialism will find a way to extract what land and resources do not already belong to those in power. Obviously, when the Trump goons came in, everything hit the fan and they took every opportunity that previous administrations had teed up for them to obliterate what was left of the appearance of environmental protection via the federal government. Then all the permits were issued. They never stop with the permits. My understanding of how local, state, and federal agencies, the consulting class and legislatures cooperate to railroad everyday people has been a steep, continuing education – and it's taught me that the only way to change these circumstances is for us to organize and become ungovernable. In other words, the system is not broken; it's fixed and working exactly as it was designed. And it needs to be broken.
What are you currently working on, excited about, looking forward to?
We're working on Kay's transition to retirement, and my own transition to steer the ship a bit more in serving the coalition that we're so thankful to be a part of. Conditions shift rapidly in this line of work, and we're fortifying the structures that'll help us stay steady while leaving enough room for agility and creativity as the campaign to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline enters its ninth year. MVP is in serious distress, as are both the proposed Chickahominy Power Station and associated pipeline project from Louisa to Charles City County, so we're looking forward to the dominoes continuing to fall, and doing whatever we can to see these things go up in smoke. Figuratively, of course.
What values drive your work each day?
I think Kay said it best – love, justice and service.
Anything we missed that you might care to share (closing thoughts)?
Every single day, I say to myself, "We need more people." Apathy is always a challenge to beat back, but I think solidarity isn't as hard to find out here as it used to be (in the so-called USA). If you've got a fire in you that just can't stand injustice, that's potential energy waiting to be used, and boy is it needed. Everybody has something to bring. Everybody.