Salmon
Creek
Arts
Come to Salmon Creek:
Salmon Creek Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization offering year round programs at Salmon Creek Farm, a sanctuary of precious riparian and coast redwood habitat on Central Pomo land established as a counterculture commune in 1971, now a long term living art project shaped by many hands.
- 🎏 SCHOOLS OF SALMON CREEK applications open for spring and fall 2027.
- 🌈 SUMMER STAYS bookings open late 2026 for 2027 season.
Salmon Creek Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization offering year round programs at Salmon Creek Farm, a sanctuary of precious riparian and coast redwood habitat on Central Pomo land established as a counterculture commune in 1971, now a long term living art project shaped by many hands.
We cultivate expanding communities of artists, each coming with an intention and something to offer, learning from each other and the land. There is time to slow down, space to take a step back, the chance to live close to the land, to participate in its cycles, dwelling in modest hand-crafted spaces within a communal free-range wild wooded environment.
Schools of Salmon Creek is a free two month land-based student-run school in the spring and fall focused on the ‘embodied and living arts.’ Along with the one to four week Winter Workshops and skillshares they focus on the activities of life on the land through the lens of the artist: stewarding, cultivating, cooking, crafting, moving, and publishing. In the summer we offer one or two week retreats.
Salmon Creek Farm is located on 33 acres of second and third growth redwoods two miles from California’s Mendocino Coast. Old logging roads and foot trails criss-cross south facing slopes from sunny meadows, gardens, orchards, communal outdoor kitchen, and dance deck on top, to eight original commune cabins each nestled in their own nook of the terrain, across a ravine that bisects the land to abandoned off-grid cabins, and finally down to Big Salmon Creek in the valley. It is an especially good spot to feel your small place in the big cycles of life on earth.
Life with
the Land
the Land
Questions of quotidian domestic life are fundamental at Salmon Creek Farm. What are the local and global implications?
It can also be very sensual living this close to the seasons and the land...
It can also be very sensual living this close to the seasons and the land...
︎ ANIMALS: For many reasons SCF is vegetarian. Many carnivorous visitors have found it to be a helpful place to experiment with a plant-based diet for the first time.
︎ FOOD: We eat with the seasons and aim to grow, forage, and preserve as much of our own food from the land as possible and invite everyone eating from the land to participate in that seasonal process.
︎ WASTE: We do not provide receptacles on the property and guests are responsible for their own ‘trash.’ We strive for zero waste, shop for minimal/no packaging, and compost zealously.
︎ HUMANURE: All cabins have cute outhouses with sawdust lined humanure buckets that are emptied regularly to nearby compost sites where it transforms into the richest soil on the land, and after a few years is spread around as mulch at established fruit trees.
︎ WATER: Our water is collected from a spring on the land where it is filtered and pumped to the top of the ridge where it is stored, treated, and gravity fed to all of the cabins and gardens.
︎ HEAT: To stay warm from October through April we burn wood sustainably harvested wood from the land which we chop and cure throughout the year.
︎ FURNISHINGS: Local thrift stores have been the source for most of the cabin furnishings, with a special focus on ‘natural’ materials like woods, canes, ceramics, cottons, wools, etc. and promoting the re-use of local materials and products that still have life.
︎ PLASTICS: Just no. But once you try to completely eliminate them from your life, you realize it’s virtually impossible these days.
As the climate is changing, we change, and as with everything, we do what we can, just trying to move with intention in the right direction...
As the climate is changing, we change, and as with everything, we do what we can, just trying to move with intention in the right direction...
SCHOOLS
of Salmon
Creek 🎏
2027
SPRING session: Mon, Mar 29th to Sat, May 22ndFALL session: Mon, Sep 20th to Sat, Nov 13th
APPLY by November 1st, 2026
Schools of Salmon Creek is a FREE two month land-based student-run school for artists *of all kinds* offered every spring and fall at Salmon Creek Farm.
We carry on the legacy of the original counter-culture commune to this next chapter on the land by considering abundance, care-taking, climate, community, ecology, embodiment, habitat, inter-dependence, mystery, resilience, resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, sensuality, shelter, sustenance, and stewardship; getting off screens and out of doors; where the teachers are the land and each other.
For artists seeking a deeper connection to the natural world as a context for their work while engaging with other artists - we offer time, space, community, and the opportunity to participate in the daily life of the Salmon Creek Farm sanctuary on the Mendocino Coast. It is a good place to step away from daily routines and surrender to the cycles of life close to the land as part of an improvised artist community.
This is a space for active engagement, with the land and each other, not a residency to bring work in process, nor a conventional school where artists produce work alone in a studio. There are no typical indoor facilities or production spaces, just a desk in your private cabin, the triangle Dance Deck, the Outdoor Kitchen, the orchards & gardens, the riparian valley of Salmon Creek, and 33 acres of coast redwoods.
How can we awaken all of our senses and be attentive artists in the world today?
We carry on the legacy of the original counter-culture commune to this next chapter on the land by considering abundance, care-taking, climate, community, ecology, embodiment, habitat, inter-dependence, mystery, resilience, resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, sensuality, shelter, sustenance, and stewardship; getting off screens and out of doors; where the teachers are the land and each other.
For artists seeking a deeper connection to the natural world as a context for their work while engaging with other artists - we offer time, space, community, and the opportunity to participate in the daily life of the Salmon Creek Farm sanctuary on the Mendocino Coast. It is a good place to step away from daily routines and surrender to the cycles of life close to the land as part of an improvised artist community.
This is a space for active engagement, with the land and each other, not a residency to bring work in process, nor a conventional school where artists produce work alone in a studio. There are no typical indoor facilities or production spaces, just a desk in your private cabin, the triangle Dance Deck, the Outdoor Kitchen, the orchards & gardens, the riparian valley of Salmon Creek, and 33 acres of coast redwoods.
How can we awaken all of our senses and be attentive artists in the world today?
In some ways, you’re just another creature on the land, as soon as you arrive and as long as you stay, in communion with other creatures and the past and future humans: warmed by wood from the land that those before you may have chopped, sowing a garden and tending an orchard that may feed those coming after you, using water from the spring, contributing to the richness of the soil with your compost, while honoring and learning from indigenous knowledge.
It is a unique chance to expand your art practice while cultivating fundamental life and survival skills - that can provide a sense of agency and security to the precarious life of an artist - and who knows, they might even find their way into your art practice some day. Come with an open mind, the willingness to improvise, a spirit of generosity, the capacity to respond to the environment in adaptive ways, and a sense of adventure.
