Spring 2026

An invitation to the wild

Ann Stokes knew something about the wild. One of her final wishes was to leave her conserved land untamed. She was unique in her thinking, and her wish remains fulfilled as Welcome Hill remains a wild and sacred place.

There is something about the wild that shifts the way we create art and the way we move in the world. Out there, we do not need to follow the straight lines of our rigid culture. Branches twist. Water flows around rocks. Life and death move in a circle. Spending time in that kind of environment changes how we approach life.

Creativity demands flexibility. It rarely arrives on command, and it does not thrive under constant pressure. When we step into the wild, we step into a space where not everything is controlled or predictable. At Welcome Hill, the freedom to be wild women – free women – is built into every structure, and into the land Herself.

Where does imagination come from? Albert Einstein famously took daily, leisurely walks through the woods and meadows of Princeton, New Jersey (Ann Stokes’ home state). Other thinkers have often shared that the natural world kicks up the dirt of their subconscious, growing ideas like plants that begin in nutrient-rich soil. Ann Stokes left us a wild place to do just that.

There is no rush at Welcome Hill, only subtle gifts, like the way a tide comes in or the way light shifts across a landscape. When we spend time in rhythms of the wild, even briefly, it eases the pressure to produce or solve something immediately. Creativity needs space to unfold, to circle back, to change direction.

Our Mother Earth nourishes us in her very existence. Countless studies prove that the natural world reduces stress, anxiety, and changes chemicals in our bodies. The simple act of observing nature cultivates focus. Nature is sanctuary and refuge; Welcome Hill is sanctuary and refuge.

The wild invites us to imagine possibility. Ann Stokes lived this truth. She understood that a place not designed or edited aims beyond perfection. It is full of trial and error, growth and decay, constant change – like us. Seeing that up close can make it easier to take risks in our own lives. Our existence can be rough, evolving, and entirely essential in today’s world, in all of its nonlinearity.

Begin in the wild. A short walk. A cup of tea overlooking the forest from the porch. Follow the wild, bumpy dirt road that Ann Stokes left to be traveled.

A shape of a tree or the hoot of an owl can stay with us long after we’ve left Welcome Hill, the land working Her way into our thinking without effort. The connection between the wild and creativity is simple, and easy to overlook. When we make space for it, even in small ways, it’s all right there for us. It always has been. Thank you, Ann Stokes, for being a woman who knew that we need to be wild and free.  

Resident Spotlight

Fiona Morehouse credits the land at Welcome Hill as part of the inspiration for her artwork. In her own words, she describes how her residency in the Lean-To has shaped her work

"Rewilding for me feels like a kind of remembering my way back to my true self. It often requires quietude, slowness, self-awareness, and a sacred sense of place. This all happened at Welcome Hill, where I was invited time and again to step into an embodied relationship with the land and the more than human from above, below and beyond. The ferns, the forest, the stone, the trees...they all seemed to whisper h e l l o. It’s OK to let go. We have you. As if its aliveness was welcoming my aliveness.

Being in a body that was used to serving other bodies, the freedom of movement in time and space opened something wild inside me. At Welcome Hill, it wasn’t about doing, it was about softening and allowing. So, I would sit with the same oak tree every day. Breathing together, I was literally inspired by her presence. I took pictures of her from above and below and then painted 3 large scale versions with oil on paper. Through fluid movement I was able to slip into a world inside a world where I could sleep, paint, walk, sit, write as it wanted to come — naturally.

My time at Welcome Hill planted a seed where a wild garden would begin to grow. I started to think more like a forest. I would take more time alone with the mountains, in wild waters, walking barefoot at twilight, incubating in dark spaces. I would write love letters to trees and paint their response. I would make choices that would free me from patriarchal patterns.

I am still rewilding today — shedding stories, identities, histories that have been stored in my body for generations. I still listen for the voices and look for the openings. I still remember how Welcome Hill offered an opening to the wild sacred world inside myself.”