About the Artist and Writer
Greetings, readers of Big Planet Love! I’m Elena Stone, Artist in Residence at the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights (CWHHR) at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the creator of this blog. I developed this project to share my art while shining a light on women’s efforts, past and present, to preserve, protect and defend the earth that nurtures us. It combines my lifelong passion for creative practice, my love of the natural world and interacting with it, and my joy in telling stories inspired by women’s experience and thought.
An intuitive painter and mixed media artist, I approach my work as a spiritual practice for honoring the mystery of life and deepening my own relationship to the natural world, the cosmos and human experience. I aim to create work that invites others to look closely, engage authentically, and find their own meaning and connection, perhaps gaining inspiration, hope or healing. Most of my recent pieces are abstract and process-oriented; a second body of work is more narrative and figurative, with a mythic folk-art feel; both styles will show up in this blog. I’m a graduate of the Arts and Business Council of Boston’s Artist Professional Toolbox program, and my art has been shown through a variety of venues and organizations throughout the Boston area. I serve on the Board of the Community Art Center of Cambridge, which transforms lives and neighborhoods by helping underserved children and teens to develop powerful artistic voices.
In addition to my art, I bring the experience of many years as a social scientist and feminist educator to this project. I have a PhD in sociology from Brandeis University, where I became enamored of feminist theory and the use of qualitative research methods to understand and illuminate people’s stories, both of which informed my book, Rising from Deep Places: Women’s Lives and the Ecology of Voice and Silence (Peter Lang Publishers, 2002). I’ve been a core faculty member of graduate programs in Gender, Leadership and Public Policy, at University of Massachusetts Boston, and Women’s Health, at Suffolk University, where I developed and taught a popular course on Women’s Health and the Environment. Working in the academic and non-profit world, I’ve had the opportunity to engage deeply with and learn from diverse communities locally and globally.
So, two threads that have often felt distinct and separate have come together in Big Planet Love. I am grateful to Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights for providing a place for this weaving to unfold. To learn more about the Center, take a look below.
About the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights
Founded in 2003, the Center for Women’s Health Human Rights (CWHHR/ the Center) at Suffolk University is the first academic initiative in the United States to focus on women’s health as a human rights imperative. Working locally, nationally and internationally, CWHHR strives to advance the health and human rights of women and girls everywhere through advocacy, education, research, and leadership. The Center’s interdisciplinary approach embraces public policy, social science, the humanities, and the arts. Dedicated to research, teaching, networking, and advocacy. CWHHR collaborates with other academic and community organizations, convenes scholars and activists, and provides training, consultation, thought leadership and public programming on the links between women’s health and human rights. Most recently, the Center has become the home for Our Bodies Ourselves Today, an accessible digital platform for reliable and up-to date women’s health information and storytelling that continues the groundbreaking work of the iconic feminist publication Our Bodies Ourselves.