Freedom Farm bios

Everyone here connected at the Occupation on Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. Some of us spent months there while others came to the plaza recently. All of us are committed to freedom and social and economic justice and are creating a world where these values are the foundation of human existence.

I would like to introduce you to everyone one at a time and tell you a little about each of them.

Charles Holsopple

Charles Holsopple, of Global Shelter Projects, suggests that revolution be thought of as an awareness of the rotation of perception.  He recalls an artshow in Chicago:  "BE NOT AFRAID."  This message written again and again, in every possible language.  The Global Shelter Project (for which he brainstorms signs, "TURN IT AROUND," "YOU ARE HERE."  "YOU ARE HOME.") a system design wherein all 7 billion people of the planet will have access to food, water and shelter.  "If it can be done, or, with that possibility, it must be done."

Charles is an engineer of ease.  A comfort technician, an ergonomist, locating "where things fit, himself... a misfit."  He does not profess enlightenment, but understands, in our stubbornness, we have not released grief, attachment to resistance, to violence.

To create these prototype shelter systems is an investment in our future, not merely a trinket for now.

Bob Ballard

Bob drove his RV from Southern California in early October and joined the occupation of Freedom Plaza when it started on October 6, 2011. He is an award-winning singer/songwriter/composer and the founder of the Hearts Of Fire Project, a non-profit organization that empowers homeless people through artistic self-expression. Since he has been in the Washington, D.C. metro area, he has participated in a number of actions and performed his music at local events. In addition, he is writing articles for on-line publications and blogs about his experience at the occupations and is also writing a book.

Deb Van Poolen

Deb is from Ashland, Oregon. She came to Freedom Plaza in December after participating in the Occupation in Ashland. Deb is a highly skilled organic farmer and is helping us create a large garden here in the back yard. With her help, we have planned the garden layout and are preparing the soil for planting.

  

Matthew Michel

Matthew is 28 years old, born in Covington, Kentucky and has lived in many places within and without the United States of America. He moved to New York at the age of one and then to Nevada and Texas where he lived and studied while growing into the stunted and physically unattractive body he now inhabits.

Matthew is a writer of short fictions and screen plays; for this he remains uncompensated and dissatisfied with the large vacuum left absent by a lack of laughter for his humorous works. He has worked in films, music videos and musical touring in addition to hospitality and art space diplomacy. Matthew has met the lovely Angelica on a long peace trek in Pittsburgh and has vowed to cook her potatoes (that is, cook potatoes for her.)

Angelica Gatewood

Angela is here in Fairfax, Virginia through her association with the Occupation Movement. She spent a little over a month helping at the Pittsburgh encampment, often spending a great deal of time in the kitchen helping to prepare and transfer meals and maintain order and fairly sanitary conditions.

After meeting and teaming up with her best friend Matthew and cruising Pittsburgh Vanuary Van style (a traveling art van project of Bryan, Matt and all the people of Southside), they (with friends Fluffy, Sunshine, Driftwood and Dog Hitchhiker) set rubber and gasoline to asphalt and began a three-day trek to Washington, D.C. After spending their first few days in the Capitol, Matthew and Angelica decided to remain on Freedom Plaza.

Angelica’s mission is focused on resistance – one on a daily and personal level. She enacts change and advocating for peace by honing in on whatever exists within her psyche preventing peace from radiating out of her heart and releasing it with understanding. Angelica is practicing patience so this understanding can make itself clear to her through its natural process of development.

She is now involved with her friends and colleagues at Fairfax Freedom Farm in growing a food garden and harvesting the yields to share them with the other human beings spending their time and finding their eats here on Planet Earth.

Winston

Winston Jerome Lindsley, descendant of Sir

Winston Churchill, is an entrepreneur and

mechanical engineering instructor who has

worked in the Middle East and Russia

for many years.  Now, he is refocusing his

energy to create a more safe, democratic

world for friends in Bahrain and elsewhere

on Earth (this includes Fairfax, VA, as well

as Australia and Thailand.)  He is offering

his time and resources, in addition to

considerable expertise and labor, to create

a thriving food forest, sustaining activists

and activism.