Molly Van Avery is a strong believer in the transformative power of creative expression. With roots in queer performance art, Molly’s artistic practice is currently focused on embedding art into the geography of neighborhoods. She runs Poetry for People and designs projects that weave poetry in delightful, challenging, and intimate ways into people’s daily lives. Her most recent project, this house is not for sale, utilizes the realty sign as both a symbol for the themes of the project and as a structure for displaying art. The project brings together homeowners who purchased a previously foreclosed home with the assistance of the City of Lakes Community Land Trust and a poet and visual artist to think about what it means to acknowledge a home’s history and make a life in the wake of someone else’s loss. Molly can also be found riding her moving writer’s studio, the Poetry Mobile, around her neighborhood to write customized poems for people or deliver pomes to people’s front doors. She recently received an MRAC Next Step grant to build a backyard Poetry Shop where people can come to get a personalized poem year round. Molly is also deeply inspired by her position at Pillsbury House Theatre where she is the Artist and Community Coordinator. She runs the Naked Stages Jerome fellowship for emerging performance artists and the Art Block Program where artists in the neighborhoods surrounding Pillsbury House Thetare use their artistic practice to develop or strengthen their relationships with their neighbors. Molly holds an undergraduate degree is Social Ecology from Goddard and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University.
On teaching
“I think of myself more as a facilitator of student’s creative process and their own unfolding than a teacher who imparts information or expertise. I feel like I am successful when students leave their semester with HECUA feeling like they have learned how they learn, what they love, and the kind of support they need to thrive. I also hope that HECUA alums learn that there is never an end to asking questions. Artists live in the unknowns and make work from a space of profound questioning. Activists do the same. Both are charged with the task of reimagining the world and forging the tools to shape their individual or collective visions into reality. Over my many years of teaching with HECUA, I love seeing the anger that gets triggered when students dive deeper in their learning about structural and institutional forms of oppression, the passion that is released when students add their energy to community efforts already underway to create new systems, and the joy of waking up to the fact that they want to play an active role in their own learning. I see a HECUA semester as a critical point in a person’s development where they use a combination of courage and social/political awareness and inspiration to put theory into practice. I am honored to create a vibrant, dynamic learning community where we can all push our learning edges and explore the boundaries of our potential.”