Wild Possibilities: we wrote a grant!
We’ve arrived at a new vision for integration of sailing, video, artistry, performance, workshop, flow, fire, envronmental, and social impact lifestyle in tiny homes! This is big. I haven't had a working rationale about how everything braids together... I've felt it and trusted it all.
It's in a becoming stage of creation.
Read on (into dozens of my writing and musing hours) for the Audacious Voyage Grant presented by the Women and the Wind - you should watch their film. :) And keep your fingers crossed! 670 women applied from 72 countries... we hear Nov 1!
ABOUT THE GRANT
The Audacious Voyage Grant is created by Women & the Wind to support women undertaking bold, first‑time expedition projects that combine:
A real journey (ocean crossing, wilderness expedition, human‑powered travel, environmental observation).
An environmental thread (observing and documenting environmental change; no scientific credentials required).
A creative outcome (film, photo essay, written narrative, audio piece, exhibition).
Artful Adventures: Wild Possibilities
Two women, in love, sail a 1977 sailboat 1,500 miles from Florida to St. Croix, logging observations of the ocean's condition and weaving it into film, art, movement, and performance.
We are Laine and Gaea, embodying Radical Moon Love and following our passion for artful adventure. Our voyage began when we found our floating home, Uptown Girl, in Chicago. Now we sail toward St. Croix where our hearts met and fell in love on the journey of a lifetime. We were united by the elemental force of fire, shaped by international community, and distilled into a shared purpose: empowering women to rise together.
This grant meets us in Phase 3 of our journey, after major repairs, sustainability upgrades, and the hard learning curves of navigating hundreds of miles down the Inland Rivers to the Gulf. Each day at sea forms us into ever more capable and creative femme mariners, proudly shifting perceptions. Our calling to help women recognize their strength and potential is woven through artful adventure, somatic movement ritual, expressive storytelling, and a can‑do attitude for the repairs, fixes, and surprises that arrive with ocean life.
Women in boating remain few in an industry filled with cultural illusions that discourage us from feeling capable at the helm or in the engine room. We are here to remind others that we are as strong and wild as the ocean, as expressive as the wind, and that caring for the earth is inseparable from caring for ourselves.
We aim to show the majesty of the waters while living a low‑impact, high‑efficacy life. As proactive participants in the ecologies around us, we build skills to use resources differently and protect our natural world. Our purpose strengthens as we live a lifestyle requiring confidence, creativity, and repair—fixing, reusing, and maintaining what we have to reduce waste and keep items from landfills.
This voyage will unfold in unimaginable ways, influencing creativity. We will cultivate an archive of video practices, documentary storytelling, journal entries, photography, and movement that will flow into workshops, retreats, and performances when we arrive in St. Croix, and later, back in Chicago and beyond.
read the full application here
photo by Simon Rubenstein - Refracted Reality
We are two women artists already deep into a multi‑year, unconventional sailing journey, in love with the earth herself and committed to expanding our inspiration outward. Women are rare in boating, especially outliers like us who unapologetically claim our artistry, sail a purple‑sparkle vessel we restored and adorned, dance with silk and fire, arrive in costume, spout poetry, and create transformative community wherever we land.
This grant would propel us into a bold first: a larger artistic expression of our universal belonging, centered on radical self‑reliance, radical sustainability, and witnessing ocean health through her creatures, waters, and shores. Our voyage has been entirely self‑funded, and this support would allow us to share our passion for environmental issues and social justice—especially for women—on a broader scale.
We embody how women can be both technical and artistic, mechanical and mystical. These capacities are not exclusive or gendered. To protect our planet, we must be all things at once: logical, intuitive, problem‑solving, feeling, intellectual, and imaginative.
This moment marks a refinement of our self‑held magic and a step toward greater social and environmental impact. Pollution, reuse, renewable resources, and slow, low‑impact living must be spoken to with clarity and courage—and we are ready to do exactly that.
The Artistic Outcome:
LIVING ARTFULLY
We are Laine and Gaea, embodying Radical Moon Love and following our passion for artful adventure. Our voyage began when we found our floating home, Uptown Girl, in Chicago. Now we sail toward St. Croix where our hearts met and fell in love on the journey of a lifetime. We were united by the elemental force of fire, shaped by international community, and distilled into a shared purpose: empowering women to rise together.
This grant meets us in Phase 3 of our journey, after major repairs, sustainability upgrades, and the hard learning curves of navigating hundreds of miles down the Inland Rivers to the Gulf. Each day at sea forms us into ever more capable and creative femme mariners, proudly shifting perceptions. Our calling to help women recognize their strength and potential is woven through artful adventure, somatic movement ritual, expressive storytelling, and a can‑do attitude for the repairs, fixes, and surprises that arrive with ocean life.
Women in boating remain few in an industry filled with cultural illusions that discourage us from feeling capable at the helm or in the engine room. We are here to remind others that we are as strong and wild as the ocean, as expressive as the wind, and that caring for the earth is inseparable from caring for ourselves.
We aim to show the majesty of the waters while living a low‑impact, high‑efficacy life. As proactive participants in the ecologies around us, we build skills to use resources differently and protect our natural world. Our purpose strengthens as we live a lifestyle requiring confidence, creativity, and repair—fixing, reusing, and maintaining what we have to reduce waste and keep items from landfills.
This voyage will unfold in unimaginable ways, influencing creativity. We will cultivate an archive of video practices, documentary storytelling, journal entries, photography, and movement that will flow into workshops, retreats, and performances when we arrive in St. Croix, and later, back in Chicago and beyond.
photo by Chris Nightengale, featuring Sugarbush Bikinis and Gaea Lady silk veils
wish us luck!
This could be huge, especially for a voyage we are already on. :)
Consider Joining Gaea’s Patreon to help support us on our journey and receive behind the scenes, stretch classes, flow activations, photos, magic, and musings. www.patreon.com/gaealady your $3-33/month goes a really really long way.
with love!
gaea (and laine!)
