“The forest environment and its economy is now bitterly contested between those who

argue for a practice of careful use and long term sustainability, and those who see it in

terms of short-term profit.”                                                                                Gary Snyder, poet

 

In the early 1970’s poet Gary Snyder articulated the stark choice confronting the world to either turn towards sustainable living or ultimately face an uninhabitable planet. This prescient vision resounds today as climate change threatens all forms of life on the Ridge. Unlike other utopian back-to-the-land groups that were springing up during the 60’s and 70’s, the San Juan Ridge community established unexpected partnerships with industry and the Bureau of Land Management. These innovations created sustainable practices that proved economically productive and are now recognized as state and national models. Situated on unceded land of the Nisenan Tribe, the Ridge’s back-to-the-land ethos created a framework for protecting the land for the first time since the gold rush. 

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Marsha Stone, weaver and early Ridge homesteader, was browsing in the Grass Valley Bookstore when she came upon a book about the thousand-year-old Bayeux Tapestry. She immediately thought "We can do that!" and invited Jennifer Rain Crosby to draw the cartoons. In 2005 Marsha asked Mary Moore to join the project as embroider. Together they enlisted hundreds of volunteers and after 17 years of stitching, the community completed 12 tapestry panels totaling 85 feet that celebrate 50 years of collaborative community engagement by living lightly on the land.

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Through interviews with early homesteaders and the next two generations, A Radical Thread explores the community’s trailblazing activism as it shapes the future and continues their legacy for years to come.  Spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, Shelly Covert, contextualizes the tribe’s genocide and with it the suppression of their wisdom and cultural practices that left the land environmentally devastated.  She presents the potential power of a revival of the Nisenan’s cultural history to aid the mutual quest for sustainability and a future structure for land reparations.  The film uses the tapestry’s chronicles of the past to ask if the community’s founding ideals and values that are stitched in the tapestry can endure into future generations.

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One possible response to this question can be seen in the collective effort of the tapestry itself and the stunning visual realization of storytelling through image rather than words.  The film examines Marsha’s vision in the context of women’s handworks that have documented community life and political upheaval through textiles.  Seventeen years, hundreds of stitchers, and 83 feet of tapestry can only be realized by a community that values their collective commitment.  Each tapestry panel has a list of stitching contributors on the back, an archive of family, friends, and visitors.  The community’s shared knowledge is stitched into the tapestry and offers a road map for other communities and future generations.  A Radical Thread expands on this knowledge in a form that makes it available to audiences worldwide.

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