Meet the Artist

Hi, I’m Hania (she/her)! I am an artist, educator and social science researcher. My art weaves together the wisdom of youth, of social justice movements and of the natural world. I am a formally trained social scientist and critical participatory action researcher, a community nurtured educator activist, and a nature- and child-inspired artist. I imagine, dream, create and educate on Squaxin, Nisqually, Coast Salish, Cowlitz & Massachusett land.

The Story of Wombat Wisdoms

I’ve always created things, including messes. In elementary school, I made cards and sold them on the street with friends. In middle and high school, I convinced my mom to sell my cards to her friends at work. I had a thriving market (a.k.a., I sold a few cards) among her co-workers. Since then, I’ve continued to make cards, as well as block printed t-shirts and digital artwork, as gifts. After years of encouragement, I’m finally sharing my art more broadly with the world.

Wombat Wisdoms is the result of this encouragement. Wombats are marsupials that poop cubes, are incredibly strong (like move-one-of-those-huge-truck-tires strong), and hopelessly adorable. In groups, they are called “wisdoms,” perhaps after the ingenuity that goes into their complex burrow systems. 

Wombat wisdoms also represent something broader. They are inherently collective: intergenerational groups of beings, moving through the world in relationship with one another. In this way, wombat wisdoms represent what I hope to do through my work as an artist, educator and researcher: embody community care; acknowledge individual, intergenerational and collaborative wisdom; take part in and uplift collective action; and nurture relationships with each other and the world around us.

In this spirit, Wombat Wisdoms celebrates the wisdom of youth, social justice movements and the natural world. It taps into my inner child and the world of play, elevates wisdom of children and youth I work with, learns from and shares about social justice movements and generations of organizers that inspire me, urges us to towards radical love and accountability to take action towards justice, and captures my awe of the natural world and what it can teach us.

Look closely, watch slowly, act collectively, love fiercely. Wisdom is all around us, we just have to look for it. 

Behind the Logo

A story about a child, a spider web, and wonder. 

It started with a photo: me, age eight ish, looking down at a barnacle covered shell on the beach. This is how my mom pictures me, looking closely, often at the ground with wonder at small things in the world around me. Small things pieced together to form a bigger whole. 

The child in the Wombat Wisdoms logo is inspired by this photo. They have a wombat friend who is helping them look closely at a web made by their spider friend. The web connects a flower, rocks and the child’s art notebook. The spider writes the words Wombat Wisdoms. 

The spider web comes from a personal story. One day, when I was four or five, I watched a spider build its web from start to finish, between the wall of our house, and a wooden lamp post along the walkway that led to the front door. I haven’t watched a spider make its whole web since then, but I’ve watched and listened as water trickles through barnacles and seaweed on rocks at low tide; as anemones open their bright little arms as the tide comes back in as if embracing it; as hermit crabs cautiously poke their heads out from their shells to say hello to the world as if waking up from a nap. I cherish these moments of stillness and noticings. They remind me to look closely, and watch slowly. We can learn so much when we do. 

Spider webs also remind me of relationships and interdependence. It fascinates me how each strand is attached to another, and how if one strand detaches, other ones often allow the web to stay intact until the spider can fix it. That’s what collective care and solidarity allow us to do. They build a web of community so that when something happens, we are still supported. When we act collectively, and love fiercely, these nets form and are strengthened. 

The spider weaves the words because acting collectively and loving fiercely, through relationships and collective care, is what I hope to nurture through Wombat Wisdoms. The spider writes what we hope to become. A community learning from youth, organizers, educators, the natural world, all offering new ways of being with one another.  A community – a wisdom – looking closely, watching slowly, acting collectively, loving fiercely.