HerStory June 2024: Pattie Gonia

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It’s summertime, and who better to showcase this month in HerStory than a drag queen who is a huge hiker, outdoorswoman, and an advocate for both environmental and queer issues? That’s right, friends, this month, our colorway is inspired by the one, the only Pattie Gonia!

Pattie Gonia (pronouns: she/they) is the drag persona of photographer Wyn Wiley (pronouns: he/they). Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, the outdoors was always a part of their life. When Wiley came out as gay right after high school, they said they felt accepted up to a point (that point being as long as their gayness didn’t make those in their life feel uncomfortable). As long as they continued to present as straight, many folks in their life intimated, all would be fine. Wonder what those folks think now? 

After a short dalliance with drag in early 2018 that ended in that most ubiquitous of modern hells, nasty internet comments/trolls, Wiley put their high heels away, but how they felt dressed in drag continued to nag at the back of their subconscious. On a whim, they tossed them into their backpack on a trip later that year, brought them out in the forest for a photoshoot, and Pattie Gonia was born. It wasn’t too long before environmental activism became a major part of Pattie’s lifestyle and online persona. Folded into Pattie Gonia’s advocacy for the outdoors has always been environmental awareness and stewardship, as well as activism surrounding LGBTQIA+ issues and widening access to outdoor spaces for all. 

As a part of this advocacy, Pattie has founded and organized many efforts: she developed a job board for queer outdoorists; co-founded “The Outdoorist Oath”, a nonprofit working on diversity, equity, inclusion and environmental causes in the outdoors community; and partnered with major outdoor brands to build community and welcome marginalized folks into outdoor spaces. She partnered with the Audubon Society in 2023 for their pride month Let’s Go Birding Together (LGBT, get it?!), creating the most gorgeous music video (link here: https://youtu.be/Nuk55Z3e4hc?si=J9laJukHvAYB8MbN). They recorded a song with Yo-Yo Ma (celebrated cellist) and Quinn Christopherson (an indigenous Alaskan trans singer-songwriter) (link: https://youtu.be/2dKk1bIn8aU) about not giving up on the planet that had tears swimming in our eyes.

In all of her work, Pattie is inspired, first and foremost, by the queerness inherent in the outdoors, and their goal often is to take the masculinity that has dominated outdoor spaces and turn it on its head. According to her in an article in Outside magazine in 2023, “so many of my drag looks are taking very masculine outdoor gear and making it into the gayest little outfits you’ve ever seen.”

A little over a year ago, Pattie debuted a drag look called “The Pansy,” creating not only one of the most stunning pieces of wearable art we’ve ever seen, but also reclaiming a word that has been used to disparage and hurt folks in the LGBTQIA+ community. Mission accomplished, Pattie, because it’s stunning. AND, she did it in the forest, surrounded by nature. Here is a link to her Instagram video: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkeGXJNjwU0/. We have been so inspired by Pattie that this month, we dyed up a Pansy of our very own! Our hope is that y’all create something lovely in this yarn at a drag show, on the trails, or, the perfect combo: with a drag queen ON the trails! Whatever you do with it, we hope you spend a bit of time with the lovely and inspiring Pattie Gonia this summer. 

National Parks 2024: Stonewall National Monument

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

Stonewall National Monument is a 7.7-acre U.S. national monument in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

Whose land does it reside upon?

Greenwich Village was once a Lenape village called “Sapokanik,” meaning “tobacco field” or the “land of tobacco growth.” In addition to tobacco farms, the area was an active trading settlement and canoe landing area. Foley Square.

When was it established?

June 24, 2016

About this park:

Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGBTQ+ civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.

The monument sits across the street from The Stonewall Inn, a National Historic Landmark known for its involvement in the beginning of the modern struggle for civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans. The Stonewall Inn exists as a private establishment and working bar.

Why did we choose these colors?

This colorway is one of our faves, for so many reasons! The Stonewall uprising was a riot, and this skein contains a riot of colors. It’s also like we tossed every color from every pride flag into a cauldron and created this bright and beautiful rainbow of deliciousness. It represents the gayest pride, inclusion, love, and equality for all.

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/ston/index.htm

Instagram: 

Facebook:

National Parks 2024: Gifford Pinchot National Forest

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

Gifford Pinchot National Forest is a National Forest located in southern Washington State.

Whose land does it reside upon?

Lands administered by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest have been home to indigenous people since time immemorial. Tribes with historic ties to the area include the Mishalpam, Táytnapam, Sλpúlmx (Cowlitz); Cathlamet, Multnomah, Cascades, Wasco, Wishram, Xwáłxwaypam (Klikitat), Wayám, Skínpah, Q’miłpah, and Yakama. Most descendants are today citizens of several federally-recognized Tribes, including the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Nisqually Indian Community, and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. Citizens of the Chinook Indian Nation continue their efforts to secure federal recognition.

When was it established?

July 1, 1908

About this park:

Gifford Pinchot National Forest includes over 1.3 million acres of forest, wildlife habitat, watersheds & mountains, including Mt. Adams & Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Why did we choose these colors?

If you’ve ever hiked in the Pacific Northwest, you’ve seen a banana slug, and that’s our inspiration for this colorway. Banana slugs are a genus of North American terrestrial slugs in the family Ariolimacidae. They are often bright yellow and kind of look like a banana. But please do not eat them! 😉

For more information:

FS website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/giffordpinchot/

Instagram: n/a

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GiffordPinchot

National Parks 2024: Cape Hatteras National Seashore

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a United States national seashore which preserves the portion of the Outer Banks of North Carolina from Bodie Island to Ocracoke Island, stretching over 70 miles.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The area was first inhabited by Native Americans such as the Algonquins, Chowanog, and Poteskeet tribes.

When was it established?

January 12, 1953

About this park:

Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the nation’s first national seashore, was established in 1937 to preserve significant segments of unspoiled barrier islands along North Carolina’s stretch of the Atlantic Coast. Barrier islands are narrow, low-lying, dynamic landforms which parallel ocean coasts, are separated from the mainland, and are constantly moving and reshaping in response to storms, ocean currents, sea level changes, and wave and wind action. These processes continue to influence the islands today through the processes of erosion and accretion of the shoreline; overwash across the islands; and the formation, migration, and closure of the inlets.

Why did we choose these colors?

For more information:

NPS website: https://nps.gov/caha/index.htm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capehatterasnps

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeHatterasNS

National Parks 2024: Wupatki National Monument

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

The Wupatki National Monument is a United States National Monument located in north-central Arizona, near Flagstaff.

Whose land does it reside upon?

There are thirteen tribes connected to the lands and resources now found within the Flagstaff Area National Monuments:

When was it established?

December 9, 1924

About this park:

Nestled between the Painted Desert and ponderosa highlands of northern Arizona, Wupatki National Monument is an unlikely landscape for a thriving community. The early 1100’s marked a time of cooler and wetter weather, when the ancestors of contemporary Pueblo communities created a bustling center of trade and culture. For indigenous peoples, these sites represent the footprints of their ancestors.

Why did we choose these colors?

We used this photo of a storm brewing over the park as our colorway inspiration: https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?id=3F694876-155D-451F-6793CEC7057E02E9&gid=4013D115-155D-451F-67C4555AB2FB853D

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/wupa/index.htm

Instagram: n/a

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WupatkiNPS

HerStory May 2024: Linda Martell

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We have been blessed by Beyonce’s newest album, Cowboy Carter, not only for the amazing music, but for all we have learned about country music and its roots in the African American diaspora. There has been lots of grumbling about a Black woman singing country, and we are here to confront those grumbles and dispel the incorrect beliefs that country music is somehow a white person thing. Country music, cowboys, and the banjo are all direct descendants of the music and knowledge that Africans brought with them when they were forcibly kidnapped from Africa and enslaved in America. 

Linda Martell, born in 1941 and raised in North Carolina, was the first Black woman artist to play at the Grand Ole Opry. She was the first Black woman to be commercially successful as a country music artist, with her sole album, Color Me Country, reaching number 40 on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart. She was the first Black woman to perform on Hee Haw. Due to all of the usual suspects (racism, misogyny, and more racism), her career didn’t advance the way her talent indicated it should, and her legacy became mostly known, honored, and recognized by other Black women in country music. Until, that is, Cowboy Carter.

Martell started her singing career in R&B, in a group with her sister and cousins that never achieved much commercial success. After their group disbanded, she was “discovered” while singing at an air force base, and encouraged to break into country music with a record label called (yikes): Plantation Records (and yes, the name bothered the heck out of her, but she didn’t feel she could pass up this opportunity). She recorded her album with this label, and three of the singles hit the country charts, but support for a Black female country music artist in 1970 was neither strong nor wide-ranging. When the combination of the label lessening its support and promotion for her music in favor of a white female performer and the constant heckling and racism she experienced while on the road got to be too much, and finding a new record label just plain didn’t happen, Martell stepped away from the country music lifestyle. She had an expansive and musical life: running a record store in Brooklyn, performing non-country music on cruise ships, and even driving a school bus back in North Carolina. But, for a long time, it seemed her short-lived success was a flash in the pan and, this ground-breaking artist had been all but forgotten due to that hallmark of America, white supremacy. 

More and more in the past several years, Martell has been remembered, discussed, interviewed, and honored for the impact she made on country music. Her granddaughter is currently producing (and crowd-funding) a a documentary about her called Bad Case of the Country Blues: the Linda Martell Story; the trailer is up and available to watch (link here: https://youtu.be/uI-s7jK61UQ?si=UKUj8n00VOqQuMTO). Her influence is felt by every Black female country artist making music today, and many pay homage to her legacy. Rissi Palmer named her podcast Color Me Country, after Martell’s groundbreaking album of the same name. Maren Morris thanked Martell for her influence in her 2020 acceptance speech for winning Female Vocalist of the Year at a country music awards show. And, as we all know, Beyonce not only invited Martell to provide voice-over support on Cowboy Carter, but also named one of the tracks The Linda Martell Show.

Our April color is inspired by the Snapdragon, because they are ‘known to grow in rocky areas. The snapdragons tenacity and ability to bloom in poor conditions has led it being seen as a symbol of strength in trying circumstances, and we think Linda Martell has done just that!

National Parks 2024: Lorraine Hansberry Residence

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

337 Bleecker Street, in Greenwich Village, New York City, New York

Whose land does it reside upon?

Greenwich Village’s known history dates back to the 16th century, when it was a marshland called Sapokanican by Native Americans who camped and fished in the meandering trout stream later known as Minetta Brook.

When was it established?

2021

About this park:

The Lorraine Hansberry residence, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2021, is nationally significant for its association with the pioneering Black lesbian playwright, writer, and activist, Lorraine Hansberry. Hansberry resided in a third-floor apartment in this building from 1953 to 1960, the period in which she created her most important works.  

During her time in the building, she wrote her groundbreaking play, A Raisin in the Sun, in the apartment and, in 1957, first read it aloud there to her friend Philip Rose, who went on to produce it. In March 1959, Hansberry made history as the first Black woman to have a play staged on Broadway with Raisin’s premiere at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in Manhattan. During these years, she also became the first African American playwright and the youngest playwright to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play. An instant celebrity, Hansberry was photographed in her book-lined apartment on Bleecker Street for Vogue Magazine one month after the play’s premiere. A Raisin in the Sun, considered a classic, has become part of established literary canon and is taught in schools throughout the United States.  

The Hansberry Residence is also significant for its important role in breaking the barriers of the time that challenged traditional views of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Hansberry was a dedicated activist for social justice and she worked alongside civil rights activists, such as writer James Baldwin, and singer Nina Simone. She contributed to a variety of publications that focused on racial justice, communism, women’s equality, and LGBT causes in her lifetime. Many of these articles were written in her apartment at 337 Bleecker Street. Even before the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry privately began to explore her lesbian identity; she found community in her small lesbian social circle in Greenwich Village and had at least two relationships with women who lived close to her Bleecker Street apartment. While she was vocal about civil rights and other issues, she remained private about her sexuality, choosing instead to participate in LGBT issues anonymously through her writing, both before and after she achieved literary fame.   

Why did we choose these colors?

We used the photo of the residence on this page as our color inspiration: https://www.nps.gov/places/lorraine-hansberry-residence.htm

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/places/lorraine-hansberry-residence.htm

National Parks 2024: Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is a U.S. National Monument that includes the area around Mount St. Helens in Cowlitz and Skamania Counties, Washington.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The volcano lawilátɬa is listed (as Lawetlat’la) on the National Register of Historic Places and acknowledged as a Traditional Cultural Property of significance to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.

When was it established?

August 26, 1982

About this park:

At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. In a few moments this slab of rock and ice slammed into Spirit Lake, crossed a ridge 1,300 feet high, and roared 14 miles down the Toutle River.

The avalanche rapidly released pressurized gases within the volcano. A tremendous lateral explosion ripped through the avalanche and developed into a turbulent, stone-filled wind that swept over ridges and toppled trees. Nearly 150 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing.

At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. Wet, cement-like slurries of rock and mud scoured all sides of the volcano. Searing flows of pumice poured from the crater. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

A vast, gray landscape lay where once the forested slopes of Mount St. Helens grew. In 1982 the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.

Why did we choose these colors?

We used as inspiration many images of bright green lichen at Mt. St. Helens, including photos on this page: https://nwnature.net/lichens/index.htm

For more information:

NFS website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/visit/national-monuments/mount-st-helens

National Parks 2024: New River Gorge National Park

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

New River Gorge is located in southern West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The historic tribes most closely associated with Western Virginia are the Shawnee, Delaware, and Cherokee, as well as Iroquoian-speaking groups including the Seneca, Tuscarawas, Susquehannock, and Mingo.

When was it established?

1978

About this park:

A rugged, whitewater river flowing northward through deep canyons, the New River is among the oldest rivers on the continent. The park encompasses over 70,000 acres of land along the New River, is rich in cultural and natural history, and offers an abundance of scenic and recreational opportunities.

Why did we choose these colors?

We were inspired by the Spring flowers found in the park, and our colorway is modeled after the first photo in this Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5DkYnM7re/?img_index=1

The flower is a Pink Lady Slipper.

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/neri/index.htm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newrivernps

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newrivergorgenps

National Parks 2024: Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops and more here.

Where is it located?

The Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail is located on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The trail connects the routes traversed by the first people to inhabit the island (the Polynesians who originally came from Southeast Asia) and the more modern routes created after western colonization. The original booklet for the park (linked here), implores people to “Walk in the footsteps of the ka po‘e kahiko (people of old Hawai‘i) along the Ala Kahakai.”

The Ala Kahakai NHT contains the oldest and best remaining examples of the ancient ala loa and the sites connected by it, including remnants of several other ancient and historic
trails, providing outstanding opportunities to explore parts of the Hawaiian trail system and follow in the footsteps of the Hawaiian ancestors.

When was it established?

2000

About this park:

Established in 2000 to preserve, protect and interpret traditional Native Hawaiian culture and natural resources, Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail is a 175 mile corridor encompassing a network of culturally and historically significant trails. This “trail by the sea” traverses wahi pana (storied landscapes), ancient Hawaiian sites and over 200 ahupuaʻa (traditional land divisions).

The Ala Kahakai NHT contains the oldest and best remaining examples of the ancient ala loa, the major land route connecting the reaches of the coastal settlement zone of most ahupua‘a on the island of Hawai‘i. The ala loa was essential to the movement of early Hawaiian’s (ka
po‘e kahiko) from place to place.

Why did we choose these colors?

We were inspired by the gorgeous purples found on the shingle urchin, an ubiquitous creature in the tide pools on the trail. Click here to see a google search of this weird and wonderful urchin.

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/alka/index.htm

Instagram: n/a

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlaKahakaiNHT/