Rising Stars: Meet Hope Carwile of Denver

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hope Carwile

Hi Hope, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I sit with the question of my story, how I got started, and how I got to this moment and time, many vignettes weave through my heart, mind and body. Like branches on a tree. All interconnected and nothing ever done alone. I could share the grief and losses on being raised by a single mother of 5 in the welfare system. Or how our family identity resonates with “Hillbilly Elegy” while also having a mother who protested the Vietnam War, volunteered at The Wall when I was young, and how my gay uncle lived with us during the AIDS crisis. My family also adopted my cousin born addicted to crack cocaine, who lives with disabilities, identifies as He/Their and is white and black. I could talk about the trauma, the high ACE score, however I am called to share the LOVE, the ART, the more than human world, community and the transformational power of grief and loss. Through all the verbal, physical and sexual abuse in our community I never doubted my mother’s love for me, her children, her poetry, love for music, nature and how she tried everything within her power to keep us safe, fed and housed. I ran away from home when I was 16 to live with my Father, a calm man, a painter when he was young, a man with little words, and my step mother, a minimalist, only ever buying what was needed. Calm and silence filled their home. Something I had not experienced in the home with my mother. Until then I had always found refuge in the forest, the more than human world and was taught to spend what money you have when you feel less than. Throughout my life I have been and continued to be gifted with meaningful relationships with elders who mentored me in ways of showing up as my truest self.
When I was 21 my brother was diagnosed with brain cancer and I returned home, at that time I considered myself an artist, a photographer, writing poetry with light, and loved visiting the Smithsonian, even practiced to be a docent at the Corcoran Gallery of Art which no longer exists. By the time I was 27 my brother passed away, a few years later, my mother passed from lung cancer, which metastasized to her brain. We were a dis-eased family. Homeostasis was really hard to come by with our ancestral history, and the lack of quality non-toxic resources available to us. My stepfather, who came into my life when I was 15, took on the brunt of it all. A hardened man with a huge heart. He gave me my first camera. During the time of my brothers and mothers passing I found myself in Denver living with a dear friend I met from high school who was born in Durango, she always said “You will love Colorado!”. In Colorado I sought education and guidance on how to age well, with grace, integrity, and most importantly unconditional love and joy. The mountains offered expansiveness, difficult peaks, cold winters, a place to go to when I needed to scream and the most colorful roadsides lined with wildflowers I had ever seen. Through my education and personal life, I found myself working and being with people who had been hurt, scared, tortured, and left alone. Mostly because of broken systems of care which tirelessly try to fix the vast gaps in trauma informed care, grief and loss, community, loving communication, nutritious real food, and the beautiful knowingness of being interconnected. I have worked in dis-ease care for over 20 years, mostly Long Term Care, which is not only for marginalized older adults, but also people like my adopted sibling, individuals experiencing dis-ease, and being unhoused for long periods of time. I have had the privilege of working with and learning from people many will never have the opportunity to engage with. A true blessing. I sit in a privileged life where I live on less financially then I have historically, and have more time to spend with the more than human world aka nature and the arts. The book “Buddhist Bootcamp” is a great guide for these times where over consuming has left us with less and in dis-ease.
In still quiet moments a vision from my twenties recently pushed me back into the realm of the arts. I am now 50. And just curated a show called “INCUBATOR” which had 3684 visitors, and is the first phase in a 5-part vision collectively called “Sequoia”. I am beyond grateful to Travis Vermilye, Andrew Palamara, Jaime Belkind Gerson, Katie Caron and Robert Turek, whom I met organically, and collaborated with me on the first phase of the vision. Again, nothing is done alone. And curating this show, to me, is the transformational power of grief and loss.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No road is smooth. And if it is, it’s brand new. I am grateful for all the struggles in my life. Like the seed of the Sequoia needs fire to sprout, I too have needed everything I have experienced to be who I am today. My greatest teachers have embodied profound pain points and uncomfortable truths. Which I bare witness too in a sacred nonjudgmental way.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My business is Hope LS Carwile LLC and I recently started a nonprofit called “IL” Integrative Lifespan to support in the upbringing of the art show, Sequoia.

Gosh, when I am asked what I do, I have found myself saying more and more lately, live, truly live, like it may be my last day on this beautiful earth. And then they will say, how do you make money?! Don’t get me wrong, money is a part of life, and I am grateful when I have it and have survived when I didn’t. Throughout my career in the moments I have found myself soley / souly (it’s both) staying for money, I get sick, burnt out, loose myself, and leave. I specialize in meeting people where they are in recovery and dis-ease. I am part of a diverse group of projects and programs aiming towards improving quality of life. My license is in clinical social work, and I practice many non-pharmological ways to support in loving communication, balance, grief and loss, aging and clarity. Mostly I listen and observe, and provide guidance when asked. It’s like being a guide in reclaiming wellbeing by stopping the outsourcing of ourselves and our communities. I also guide in nature immersions which nature then becomes the therapist. Which is so incredibly refreshing. We are nature and nature is us.

Artist / Creative
“Nature is creation, Science re-searches creation, Art expresses creation, and Technology mimics creation.” Hope Carwile

For Incubator, Travis Vermilye, Jaimé Belkind Gerson, Katie Caron and Robert Turek
explored communication during preconception, conception and birth. “Pre-conception”
includes ancestral history, DNA, trauma and environment, all of which influence the way
we navigate life. They condition our nervous system and the way we develop and
communicate.
Through the exhibition, visitors had an opportunity to slow down and reflect on their
own pre-birth, conception, birth stories, their being-ness, and how communication affects
all of it. The works of the artists provided opportunities to look deeply at our neurological
and energetic relationship with self, each other, nature, science, art, and technology.
Think of it this way: your neural pathways listen to our self-talk and communication with
others; depending on what we say those pathways will support a fight, flight, freeze, or a
rest, reset, digest response. The flow of growth and evolution can be blocked by the
way we talk with ourselves and each other.
Everything is interconnected.
What could happen to the collective consciousness if we considered how
communication impacted the pre-birth and birth environments? How do we contribute to
the collective wired consciousness in the way we communicate with ourselves and each
other? How do we celebrate being human? From preconception through birth, some of
us are asked to forget our natural intelligence and personal need for safety, care,
growth, and love. Incubator made space for us to remember.

*Please see the two write ups, and more on INCUBATOR (in attached folder in email) and https://cudenverexpgallery.org/past-exhibitions/incubator.

How do you think about luck?
When I think of good and bad luck, I think these are words of privilege, placed on people to make the happenings in their life all their own or trickery by something unseen. All may be true in some form, and yet it is not bad luck to be born a person of color, or LGBTQIA and good luck to be born white.
In my life and business, I have found listening to be my greatest tool in success. Then taking action on what really resonates in my being-ness. I wish this for everyone, it’s an innate human right. However, most things have been designed to keep us busy, while the disproportionately powerful get more powerful.

Is there any pricing information that is relevant to our readers? If so, and if you would like us to share it, please include details (in bullet form) below.
I have pricing for corporations, grants and surplus businesses. I also work on sliding scales and probono. Dependent on needs of individuals and entities involved. You can contact me through my website hopecarwile.com, or hope@hopecarwile.com. IL’s website will be up soon. Donations are welcomed. All proceeds for the art show go to materials needed, food for all hands involved and to pay the artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hopecarwile.com
• Instagram: hopecarwile
• Facebook: hopecarwile
• LinkedIn: hopecarwile

Image Credits
James Holden