Spinach leaves are sprouting at Willow Wisp Organic Farm in Wayne County even as winter frost covers much of Northeast Pennsylvania.
Tannis Kowalchuk walked through rows of parsley, bok choy and arugula in her greenhouse. She plucked a handful of spinach from the ground, offering a few to try.
“This has survived [the cold]. You can taste how sweet this is … because it’s been frozen,” said Kowalchuk.
She co-owns Willow Wisp, a 25-acre farm that grows over 400 types of vegetables, herbs and flowers in Damascus Township. The farm abuts the Delaware River, from which the operation siphons its water.
Pointing to a crop of miner’s lettuce, Kowalchuk described how miners in California would eat the vitamin C-rich lettuce to stave off scurvy. Claytonia perfoliata, to use its scientific name, loves cold weather but isn’t commonly found in Northern grocery stores.
“Only the vegetables that are easily stored and transported are what you'll see in the grocery stores. That's why it's fun to go to a farmers market, because you can get really what's local,” Kowalchuk said.
Cochecton, New York is a stone's throw across the river. Willow Wisp sells crops to four pantries: Union Square Greenmarket, Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, Narrowsburg Farmers’ Market and Callicoon Farmers’ Market; alongside restaurants on either side of the river. Plans are in the works to bring more fresh produce to markets in Wayne County, namely Honesdale.
Besides growing plants, Willow Wisp houses Farm Arts Collective, where agriculture and art feed off each other.
Kowalchuk started the collective in 2018 as its founding artistic director. Coming from a theater background, she was enamored with how nature inspires creativity. Artists who she had worked with in regular bricks-and-mortar theaters came alive while visiting Willow Wisp.
The collective holds plays and workshops in farming, music and food. Social justice and advocacy are at the heart of its work.
Farm Arts Company Manager Jess Beveridge calls the farm “magnetic.” Alongside running the collective, she manages Willow Wisp’s greenhouse and is a flower farmer.
“It's hard work farming and running a theater company,” said Beveridge. “It's hard, but at the same time, it's so rewarding, and it's so worth it when you see what you've done.”
Now, the two are putting together the sixth play in a series on climate change, “Paradise Lost: Scavenger Hunt.” It’s part of the 10-year series “Dream on the Farm.” Kowalchuk said Willow Wisp forces the audience to think about how the food supply will be affected by climate catastrophe like tornadoes and floods.
“We're asking those questions about climate change on a piece of land that actually feeds a lot of people…We are feeding 1000s of people every week,” Kowalchuk said.
By playing on John Milton’s poem, “Paradise Lost,” Kowalchuk said the show will consider the story of Genesis, “the Adam and Eve story that we are all very familiar with, having grown up in a Judeo-Christian world that America is a part of.”
“[The play will] take that story and…look at it through the lens of climate change,” Kowalchuk said. “And say, ‘Wow, we've all eaten from the tree of knowledge. We all know so much. We know exactly what we're doing. We have all the science under our belts and knowledge, and yet we're still kind of going towards losing this paradise through our action.”
“So, it's a question of responsibility. How do we really take responsibility, and then what do we do with our knowledge, and that responsibility … to not lose our paradise,” said Kowalchuk.
Audience members will travel around the farm in groups to stations, tasked with picking up ideas to protect the environment. The play ends with a group meal made from crops from the farm and a discussion about the show.
Last year’s play, “Conference for Those Still Living,” centered around a climate change conference with characters from all over the world, but the conference’s keynote speaker doesn’t show up.
Kowalchuk said it represented how climate change activists are in a “rudderless situation” as finding solutions “can feel really chaotic and like you’re losing your focus.”
Their 2023 play, “The More Things Change,” focused on a family who felt pressured to sell their organic farm to a company advertising it as a “biodiversity theme park called EcoLand.”
Farm Arts' success has brought it statewide and national recognition.
On Wednesday, the collective announced it won funding from the New York Creative Opportunity Fund, and on Jan. 14 it was awarded $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America award to fund “Paradise Lost: Scavenger Hunt."
The Challenge America award is Farm Arts’ third NEA award in three years. Each grant totalled $10,000 to support the “Dream on the Farm” series.
But that support is not guaranteed. The Trump Administration’s freeze on federal funding has nonprofits across disciplines worried they will lose funding.
With ongoing confusion over the status of Trump’s Jan. 27th executive order, which is facing legal challenges, Kowalchuk said communities like Farm Arts have to focus on “diversity, diversity, diversity” of income sources.
“You don't put your eggs in one basket,” said Kowalchuk. “You don't just say, ‘Oh, it's going to be all the lovely philanthropists in our community. It's going to be all the government, it's going to be all the ticket sales. We have to be as diverse as possible with all of our income streams as a flexible, young … arts and farming organization.”
Farm Arts also has financial backing from the local community. Its theater was finished in June and was mostly funded by community support.
“There's belief in what we're doing. People are participating in it. They're getting involved in raising the awareness and consciousness of environmental protection … We are definitely gaining community,” Kowalchuk said.
The struggle to make it in agriculture while advocating for the environment is “all worth it,” Beveridge said.
“We've been getting so much more help and community members wanting to be a part of it, that it just alleviates some of our stress as well, which is really wonderful. So yeah, we have a lot of support and a lot of love,” Beveridge said.
Environmental change is “not going to start from the big top down in Washington. You know, it's just not happening that way … it's happening from within our communities,” Kowalchuk said.
In serving the community, Kowalchuk is looking to start a paid internship program for high school and college students to work on the farm and in creating this year’s play.
Farm Arts Collective’s upcoming play, “Paradise Lost: Scavenger Hunt,” will be performed from July 24 to Aug. 3 from Thursday to Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at Willow Wisp Organic Farm, 38 Hickory Lane, Damascus.
Updates on play showings and information on getting involved can be found at their Facebook page and website.
