"I have come to understand that life is about creating and developing relationships in every part of life."
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– River Sauvageau
OUR TEAM
RIVER JOY SAUVAGEAU
Ms. River Joy Sauvageau is an artist, designer, lay minister, community arts activist, tipi maker and a longtime resident of the Ojai Valley in southern California. She is of French Canadian heritage and was brought up in the province of Quebec, Canada and in the Hudson River Valley in New York.
River has learned that creating and working with your hands brings a feeling of peace and satisfaction to daily life. This kind of manifesting, making things, is grounding and helps us to center in the here and now.
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"As a craftswoman I have developed relationships with the materials I use, with proportion and shape, construction techniques, finished products, their purpose and use, and with all my work, as a whole. The longer I work at my craft, the more refined it becomes.
As an arts activist I lead the creation of working environments that foster mutual support, creative expansion and peaceful cooperation. You can read more about this in Mandala Medicine Movement.
As a lay minister I support through council; listening and sharing in an environment that is consecrated with focus and intention, as in my Sacred Circle Gatherings."
SUSAN EVERGREEN HERICKS, Ph.d.
Susan Evergreen Hericks, Ph.d., has an artistic and psychological approach to being human. Her day-to-day work involves supporting PGI graduate students in the Depth PhD Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices specialization.
An artist and lover of beauty medicine, ceremony, and social justice, she has a varied background in academia (English, Theology/Ethics, Depth Psychology) as well as rites of passage work, wilderness guiding, ceremonial play and art. She has been actively co-designing Ojai’s annual community Mandala since 2009, involving hundreds of painters of all ages.
ZE'LEE SPARKS
Ze’Lee Sparks is a community oriented young woman who specializes in Collaborative Art.
She is a master networker and able to connect with all types of people - all orientations and ages. She is no stranger to the real life lesson of mortality. She has defeated cancer and is rooted in the profound and simple wisdom of the preciousness and beauty of everyday life.
In safe spaces she has been able to dance and to fully express herself and find healing. This fuels her deep desire to curate accessible, safe spaces for people to uncover their limitless expression.
She has provided art supplies at The Grape, in Ventura, for people to draw freely while being inspired by improvisational jazz. Using this improvisational method, at an LA jazz festival, she and others created one large group piece using spray paint. She has also provided safe sanctuary in nature and parks for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals. She had done this through Pop-ups offering art experiences, sound baths, sharing circles and dance for community connection.
“I have recently completed an entrepreneurial program for young people through Flourish Ojai. This program has helped me to grow what I have already been doing. I am actualizing my ideas about collaboration and community support into a business plan. My values and the principles of the Mandal Medicine Movement are perfectly aligned. I am excited to further my personal development with River and the communities we are blessed to engage with.
I am inspired by the community mandala paintings and last year I was part of the development and design team of the Ojai Day Mandala and will be going forward. I have had the pleasure of helping River expand her website and market the Mandala Medicine Movement. Our work together is being watered and tended to through love, care, and reciprocity. This is supporting our shared vision of community building through accessible collaborative art.”
RAMONA HILL
Ramona Hill is a community organizer in San Juan Bautista and founder of Crédo Studio, a local arts collaborative. She is a dancer, singer, songwriter and choreographer. Ramona is devoted to her family, her fundamental life purpose is to be a mother. Motherhood is about shepherding the next generation, both at home and in the community.
Currently, she is teaching “Healthy Cooking” in local schools and volunteering as a guitar instructor for “Guitars Not Guns” to provide musical enrichment and community support for low-income youth. Ramona has been instrumental in bringing the Mandala to San Juan Bautista. Her mandala journey began with meeting River in 2019 and being inspired to bring the MMM to SJB. It has become an annual tradition through her leadership. 2024 was the first year that all her family members, including her granddaughters, painted together in the mandala. This brought her great joy and satisfaction to be unified with both her family and community through this remarkable art project. “The magic of the mandala is the melding of our creative expressions. It meets every criteria that inspires my work in this world. I am excited to be part of bringing the MMM to other cities.”
