I grew up off-grid, three miles up a dirt road and the closest town, Oakland, Oregon, was home to 800 lovely souls. This sort of childhood lent itself to innovation and creativity; the forest became alive inside my imagination. My sister and I created entire queendoms in those woods, and ruled them in our moss and twig crowns from atop the highest tree we dared climb. We sang songs only we knew the words to as we acted out scenes from our musicals in our mother's garden. I was a wild and free child, and as long as we were home by supper with our trusty black lab, Petie, no matter how mud-caked, bruised and scratched, we were welcomed by our parents.

 

Rachel Navone Dean received a Fine Arts Degree with a focus in painting from the University of Oregon. Soon after, she left on a three-month backpacking trip through SE Asia and failed to make it home for three years. She yearned to return to the forest in Bend, Oregon where she has been creating and adventuring since 2010. Navone is the manifestation of her memories born from sleeping in a tent down the Eastern Coast of Africa, getting hopelessly lost in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, nearly kidnapped by a wonderful family in India. She now creates her work in a DIY school bus conversion in the magical mountains of Oregon.

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