I’m Yana.

Artist, writer, tree dweller. Based in Longmont, CO.

Born in Ukraine, my toddler years were spent flowing with the changing of the seasons and finding most of what I needed in the company of trees.

In Chicago, I traversed my diaspora, a widening disconnect from the natural world and ultimately from myself. If you can’t hear the land, how can you hear yourself?

Venturing abroad in my 20’s—weeks turned into months, turned into years. Often times, I was just passing through, though once or twice a new landscape promised a different version of my life.

Amid the transience remained one constant, I would be held by the land. In Earth’s embrace I learned to listen, to cultivate calmness and to celebrate all that is momentary.

Within words and objects, I contain wisdoms of the land. In fleeting moments I share the teachings of impermanence and my soft presence with those journeying through life’s final threshold and with those witnessing.