Carrie Brunk and Bob Martin work with people and organizations to envision and enact a better world. We lead with our art, cultural and community organizing, transformative facilitation and stewardship of the land.
Carrie Brunk on the land at Clear Creek. (photo by Erica Chambers)
Carrie Brunk
Carrie currently works as a facilitator, producer and educator to support transformative personal, cultural and systems change. Her approach is informed by over two decades of experience in social change movements, cultural and coalition organizing, non-profit management, event production, popular education, leadership and organizational development as well as a range of artistic interests and endeavors. Carrie has dedicated much of the last decade to building and stewarding a solar-powered off-grid farm, artistic venue and retreat through Clear Creek Creative where she co-curates powerful eco-cultural experiences that connect people with the possibility of living in harmony with nature and one another.
Much of Carrie's current focus is the Ridgeway Transformative Leadership Experience, a program she designed to support Appalachia’s post-coal transition to a brighter future. Ridgeway is an intensive year-long experience that brings together cross-sector cohorts of regional leaders to focus on personal development, interpersonal awareness and network-building (more at RidgewayLeadership.net). Carrie is also the producer and an ensemble artist for Clear Creek Creative’s Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man, an award-winning immersive eco-cultural experience now touring nationally. The Ezell project is inspired by and arises from ongoing community efforts throughout Appalachia and globally to transition away from fossil fuel extraction and domination more broadly toward resilience and renewable resources within ourselves, our relationships and the land.
As a facilitator and coach working with folks near and far, Carrie has supported a wide range of incredible collaborators up to good work in the world (many of whom you can find here). Her approach is informed by personal experience and self-guided study as well as training with the Social Transformation Project, Presence-Based Coaching, generative somatics, the former Social Justice Leadership (SJL) and through joint programming of SJL and the Rockwood Leadership Institute. Carrie’s work and perspective is also influenced by travel and cultural immersion abroad and throughout the U.S. as well as studies in economics, politics and history during a year-long Fulbright Fellowship at Oxford University. Her artistic and production work has been supported for over 15 years by the Kentucky Foundation for Women who recently honored Carrie with the Sallie Bingham Award.
At home on Clear Creek in the Appalachian foothills of Kentucky, Carrie shares in the joy and responsibility of the woodlands and gardens, the mountain spring water, the off-grid power system, the community gathering infrastructure and all the rest. She serves as a co-host, curator and producer for what happens on the land through Clear Creek Creative ranging from abundant local farm-fresh performative feasts to rustic artistic residencies and learning exchanges to all sorts of other productions, festivals, celebrations and more. She has had the beautiful opportunity to discover herself as a creator in this setting through personal and collaborative endeavors in writing, theatrical devising & costuming, performance, visual & ceremonial installation, ceramic & multi-media works, sustainable & vernacular building as well as culinary & healing arts.
Bob Martin on the land at Clear Creek. (photo by Erica Chambers)
Bob Martin
Robert (Bob or Bobbyb) Martin works primarily as a community theater artist and cultural organizer, producer and educator to support people and communities in transformative change. His approach is informed by two decades of work within cultural organizations, community advocacy non-profits, schools and universities, businesses, media firms, theater and film companies. He works intergenerationally and interculturally and has collaborated in projects ranging from rural Kentucky coalfields and farmlands to the urban centers of New York and New Orleans.
Bob's current artistic focus is the touring and development of a solo performance, Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man, a piece that explores the root causes of domination behavior and land-based trauma in rural Appalachia. Ezell arises from years of research and content development in rural Kentucky through first-hand story gathering and devising as well as prior Clear Creek Creative ensemble work including Land, Water, Food Story and Where's That Power Gonna Come From?. Ezell premiered at Clear Creek Creative in 2019 and has toured nationally to nine communities ranging from the northeast to the deep south and west coast since its opening. Ezell has received awards from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, the National Performance Project, the Network of Ensemble Theaters, the Kentucky Arts Council, and Alternate ROOTS.
Bob has co-written, devised and/or directed dozens of community performance projects including The Shiners and HomeSong I, II, III with Owsley County High School and OCAT (Owsley County, KY); Higher Ground: Talkin’ Dirt and Higher Ground: Find A Way with SECTC (Harlan Co, KY); The Homecoming with the Cowan Creek Community Center (Letcher Co, KY); Los Voces de las Apalaches with the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center; Red Hook High and Rise Above at the NYTVFF (New York, NY). He is a mentor teaching artist with Partners for Rural Impact and a leader in the use of community story projects as a strategy of regeneration and equitable development, inspiring communities to reframe their narratives and rebuild their communities. In support of this body of work, he was also a co-conceiver and producer of the Hurricane Gap Community Performance Institute which offers training, network-building and collaborative inspiration to community story practioners throughout East Kentucky.
As an educator, Bob has taught undergraduate courses at Berea College and Eastern Kentucky University and has worked continously as a teaching artist in schools for students of all ages for over two decades. In addition to theatre and story-specific offerings, Bob provides professional development and facilitation focused on creative community engagement strategies, public speaking, media training and digital story development, cultural asset mapping, arts education curriculum design, team-building and project visioning.
Bob is an active member and former Board Chair and Treasurer for Alternate ROOTS and also recently served on the board of Carpetbag Theater (Knoxville, TN). Recent training and collaborative influences include residences with the Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab (New York, NY), Double Edge Theater (Ashfield, MA) and Mondo Bizarro (New Orleans, LA). Bob holds a MA in Applied Theater from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Professional Studies and a BFA in Classical Theater from the HARTT School. When home on Clear Creek, Bob is responsible for maintaining the off-grid homestead and community gathering grounds as well as driving the tractor and co-curating and producing works of transformative art, learning exchanges and artistic residencies, all sorts of other productions, festivals, celebrations and more.
Banner photo at page header by Erica Chambers.