Cranbrook Conversations: Monique Gray Smith

Monique Gray Smith is an Award winning, bestselling author, speaker, and consultant. Her books cover a broad spectrum of ages, topics, and emotions. Monique’s most recent book, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults, received the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award for 2022. Originally written by botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, Monique’s adaptation includes illustrations by Nicole Neidhardt. This writing shows how wider ecological understanding comes from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants and animals around us.

 

Join us in a “walk and talk” conversation, filmed this fall, about the land Cranbrook sits on, the meaning of “reciprocity” with nature, and how we can be responsible care takers of the land and be in community with our Indigenous neighbors.

 

Her conversation concerning love, “Love is medicine, learning from each-other is a precious practice, positive change is possible, and it is all our responsibility to step into the work that is possible,” is an opportunity for us to learn about the stories and wisdom of Braiding Sweetgrass and Monique’s beautiful and powerful illustrated stories of wisdom, and human connection, and shared responsibility. 

 

Monique was joined in conversation by:

Kevin Adkisson: Curator, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research 

Nina Blomfield: Decorative Arts Trust Marie Zimmermann Collections Fellow

Michael D. Stafford: Director, Cranbrook Institute of Science

Carla Young: Director of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Access