Located in Troutdale, Oregon, just 30 minutes from Portland, The Verdancy Project marks the realization of a long-standing dream. This unique 4.5-acre property hosts a diverse ecosystem and is home to multiple undertakings that find common ground in the land. Home to the Project’s founders and their border collie, the property features a creek with a healthy riparian buffer, woodlands, wildlife, open fields, berry patches, frog pond, chickens, dye garden, and more. The Verdancy Project offers visitors a rich topography for exploration and inspiration.

Our Project’s vision sees the lush terrain as an ideal location for an artist residency. As well as various other environmental initiatives, including workshops,  a field guide of the property’s flora and fauna, a seasonal herbarium and an apiary. An artist’s studio and outdoor field station allow access to on-site creative work, and the entire landscape is left open for residents and participants to wander in private—an incredible opportunity for uninterrupted reflection and research. Our residencies are 1-2 weeks long to encourage parents, caretakers, and creatives with day jobs to apply.

Here, nature nourishes the arts and sciences, the mind and body. Welcome to The Verdancy Project—yours to explore in whatever way suits your creative, research, and activist pursuits!

The Verdancy Project (TVP) was created and is run by the Amidon family - Shannon, Bobb, and their daughter Sabine. 

After 20 years of living in dense urban areas, Shannon and Bobb sought a return to a more natural setting like the one Shannon grew up in. They wanted to raise their daughter in the kind of wild environment that was so formative to Shannon’s own early years, which has profoundly impacted all of her choices, leading her to a life of creativity and environmentalism. TVP is the result of this dream - a wonderland property providing research, respite, and creative opportunities to like-minded artists, environmentalists, creatives, and those who dream about a better world. 

SHANNON (co-founder, director) is an artist, environmental steward, beekeeper, and lover of books, insects, and paper ephemera. In her art career spanning 20 years, Shannon has been featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, curated group exhibits, garnered press, and participated in artist residencies all over the world, focusing on both art-making and ecological research. She has collaborated with other artists, scientists, activists, and researchers. You can see Shannon’s artwork on her website and follow her on Instagram.

BOBB (co-founder) is a programmer and music producer who enjoys collecting musical instruments and old monster movie memorabilia. His project, My Robot Suit features hand-built electronics and software, thrift store finds, and found sounds in addition to his usual synths and sampler. Bobb has remixed other artists, produced music for podcasts, performed sound design for consumer electronics, been a DJ for college radio, nightclubs, and raves. He has produced sound installations and experimental audio with duo Compartment and formerly released music as Malnoia.

SABINE is a precocious, creative, and social kid who loves to help out with all things pertaining to The Verdancy Project. When she is not in elementary school, she enjoys drawing, acting in local plays, and playing with her dog Beaker. 

As hosts, Shannon, Bobb, and Sabine hope that The Verdancy Project can offer others the opportunity to engage with the land as a means of nourishing their creative, activist, or research passions.

Our Board of Advisors

Brooke Kuhnhausen is a psychologist, practicing therapy and teaching in the Portland metro area, with a passion for relational, systems, and depth approaches to healing and life.  She is devoted to a vision of caring for the living earth through contemplative, creative, and tender-hearted activism, collaboration, and community building.  She loves the golden glow of local honey, gentle luscious roses, swimming in rivers, and the scent of a quiet forest.  She has a public talk called Feeling in the Anthropocene, and an article published in Deep Times Journal honoring the Black and Indigenous eco-feminism that fuels her.  She savors local art, music, yoga, and dance and collaborating with other imaginative and open-hearted people to find a deeper belonging with the earth and each other. 

Christine Rasmussen is an American artist raised in Pakistan, Vietnam and the United States. She earned her BA (Double Major - Art Practice and Peace & Conflict Studies) from the University of California, Berkeley. Rasmussen has exhibited in multiple juried exhibitions and her work is in private collections worldwide. Her work has been featured in Not Real Art’s Q+Art, ShoutOut LA, Artillery, Art & Cake and Voyage LA among others. She was awarded a Chalk Hill Artist Residency, was commissioned for the prestigious Artist Label Program at Imagery Estate Winery, and her work is in the Hilbert Museum of California Art. Rasmussen lives and works in Los Angeles, where she is represented by Billis Williams Gallery. You can view her artwork on her website and follow her on Instagram.

Joellen Sweeney is an actor, director, and teaching artist from Portland, Oregon. Her creative research focuses on immersive and site-specific performance; Joellen loves to create and support events that build connectedness between people and their environment. Joellen earned her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Spanish from Willamette University, and her Masters of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program. Recent regional credits include work with Artists Repertory Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Shaking the Tree Theatre, Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, Renegade Opera and Northwest Children's Theatre. She is also a co-founder of Bedrock Theatre, a performance collective that combines storytelling, live music and hiking in parks and wilderness areas. www.joellensweeney.com

Amber Wolf lived in Salt Lake City, Chicago, and San Francisco before Portland beckoned with its rich creative communities and ever-changing flora. She has deep love for the arts and believes that art is the foundation of a healthy society. She is an active artist and organizer in the postal art community and is thrilled at the opportunity to help art, artists, and the environment flourish through her participation with The Verdancy Project.