A Vine neighborhood resident who raises bees, chickens and children — not necessarily in that order — educator Brenna Pixley might be hard to reach at the moment, as she is deep into final preparations for the second annual Earthcraft Skillshare ancestral skills gathering, which begins July 10.
The family-friendly “Earth-based event” will take over the grounds of Tillers International in Scotts through July 13 and will offer workshops led by more than three dozen artisans and practitioners, including wildlife tracking, winemaking, home funerals and foraging.
“I’m feeling a little sophomore anxiety since last year went so well,” Pixley says, reporting that 300 people participated in the inaugural three-day event in 2024. “I was so moved by the feedback from people, a lot of whom had never been to anything like this.”
Having studied or worked in anthropology, herbalism, jewelry, coffee, the arts and sustainable farming, Pixley says, “I have a pretty broad spectrum of interests, and Earthcraft is the pinnacle of everything I like to do distilled into one activity.”
Earthcraft Skillshare is open to all ages, for a day or the weekend, with camping and meals available. The event will include a Native American blessing ceremony to open the weekend, a Friday evening swordsmanship battle highlighting different weapons and tactics through the ages, and a kids’ camp.
“We invite people to slow down and explore ways to live more intentionally and in harmony with nature and to carry forward traditions that have sustained generations. These skills are not based on one culture — everyone’s ancestors did these things throughout time, on every continent. I think it’s more important than ever to take a step back from daily life and to work with your hands, to make food and eat things from the wild.”
How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve always been into being outside. My dad was an artist and outdoorsman, so I spent time morel hunting and fishing with him and his brothers. My grandma was from Appalachia, and she had a garden and did preserving, so I learned a lot from her as well.
I attended Kalamazoo Valley Community College for a while, then went to California and attended Long Beach College, where I studied anthropology and the arts. I returned to Michigan to study plants in this bio-region. I worked at Butternut Sustainable Farms, in Sturgis, picking flowers and foraging for fresh ingredients for fancy restaurants in Chicago. Getting back into this community I realized how much I loved being here.
Kalamazoo is the coolest place — the gift economy here is like nothing I’ve experienced. It’s a very traditional way of using people and resources. “Oh, you have a down comforter you don’t need? I have these plant starts you can have.” I started teaching for Tillers International and for KVCC’s food innovations campus. I still teach at both places in the areas of foraging, plant identification, home herbalism — everything to do with plants.
I attended my first Earth-based gathering after my first child was born, and I was hooked. I used to go to a lot of music festivals, but after my first Skillshare gathering, I realized I never needed to go to another music festival. I’ve taken my kids all over the country to these events, from tiny ones to gigantic ones with 600 people. I worked at some, attended some, and the more I attended the more I wanted to bring one to Michigan. I was ready to go, but then Covid hit. In late 2023, we got $10,000 in grants from United Way and the City of Kalamazoo. The event wouldn’t have been possible without that seed money.
Tell us more about ancestral skills.
These aren’t lost skills — they are still in use in cultures all over the world. In North America we are blessed to learn some of these traditions through indigenous teachers, Native elders and folks from right around here. We’ll have practitioners from all over teaching fiber arts, foraging, butchering, archery, wildlife tracking, shelter building, flint knapping, paper marbling, basketry, winemaking, bundle dyeing, shelter building, wild medicine, and more.
This year we’re going to do a deep dive on death, with help from the Michigan Death Coalition. We will be building a coffin, weaving a willow burial tray, making a shroud and having a home funeral class. It’s not going to be dark or morbid — it’s a deeply human part of life.
Does anything keep you up at night?
It’s quite intense to be the maestro of this kind of experience. And with a whole beautiful spectrum of people — non-binary, super-queer, liberal, punk radicalists, fundamentalist Christians, blue collar, white collar, doctors, physicians — I work to sort of be Switzerland, making a safe space for everybody to be copacetic together. I just hope this is something that’s going to last. Some of these gatherings are just a blip and they’re over, and some are multiple decades long. I want it to be like a homecoming, a family reunion.
What keeps you going every day?
I’m proud that people keep coming back. I was losing a little steam earlier this year, but people were telling me how excited they were to return. That web of volunteers and instructors — the community that continues outside of the event — that keeps me going.
— Interview by Katie Houston, edited for length and clarity
