Meet Sasha Emoniee | Earth Artist & Herbalist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sasha Emoniee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sasha, what matters most to you?

At the root of my offerings is the value of reciprocity and bridging a connection between nature and community. It guides the way that I work, live, and create because I am interested in being part of a world that values generous exchanges that support, protect, and celebrate the land and the people who inhabit it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I create Earth centered experiences to bring people and nature into harmony with one another and reframe our perspective on the land, specifically the vibrant landscape and nature space that Los Angeles offers us. Existence on Earth is a playful tactile experience, so I love offering art that allows people to journey with nature through all of their senses. Between edible art installations that reflect natural landscapes using herbal foods and Earth materials; immersive seasonal dinners that allow you to interact with themes not only through the palette but through sound, touch, and space; guiding plant walks and interactive herbal workshops that encourage people to get curious, adventurous, and hands on with with the land through sight, touch, smell, spirit, and mind; writing guidebooks that take you through the energy of the season through recipes, rituals, and nature; creating sanctuary space as a devoted gardener, planting ecosystems full of wildflowers, native plants, and ancestral foods and offering the things I grow to the community through commune apothecary, the apothecary I have created for Earth based offerings. Most central to my work is my interest in creating the moment of spontaneous peace, stillness, and awe that sometimes finds you when you are in wild spaces.

The ways in which I create feel like the natural unfolding of my path. As an herbalist and artist, I’ve been on creative teams, been a recipe developer and writer, food styled on sets, and done so many other odds and ends which have allowed me to treat this work as a craft that is honed and developed with time and diligence. Being open to receiving the different ways in which creativity is expressed is one of my cornerstones and right now the vision of my offerings is installation based, so I am really looking forward to creating more large scale earthscapes for people to play within.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Los Angeles offers so much to us, between food, art, and nature, you could spend a lifetime here and not experience it all so what I’m loving most changes constantly. The Hollywood Farmers Market is a Sunday non-negotiable for me. I feel close and connected to the farmers and where my food comes from. At the market, I always make sure to stop by El Machete, Dave’s Gourmet Korean, Weiser Family Farms, Ricks Produce, Shear Rock Farms, Tomorrow Bagel, and always Logans Gardens who is an incredible grower that carries unique and ancestral seedlings for the garden. Right now, I would start my morning at Laveta Coffee, the Andante is a really amazing treat. I love breakfast at Amara Kitchen in Altadena after a walk down one of the nearby trails, Millard Canyon is magical on a weekday. On a weekend, I will usually go deep into the pine tree filled area of Angeles Forest and find a nice mountain vista perch or wildflower meadow to explore and have mountain top tea, which is my personal favorite way to sit with tea. If you come on a week that it’s happening, the event “listen to music outside in the daylight under a tree” put on by Floating and Leaving Records is a staple for me, it’s a beautiful ambient and jazz centered community event where you are bound to run into friends and just have a great time listening to music outside, as the title suggests. I am really a museum and exhibit die hard and love spending time in places where I can learn and be immersed. Time spent at places like Philosophical Research Society, Huntington Gardens, Natural History Museum, and the MOCA is constantly inspiring. Los Angeles is a place where there are daily community led exhibits and experiences being offered, just by walking around in neighborhoods like Chinatown or the Arts District you are bound to stumble into a cool show being put on by independent artists. For dinner, I would take my friends to Santo in Silver Lake or Lasita in Chinatown. I’ve had only amazing experiences at both and feel they are delicious, approachable, and intentional. The most special place in the city is Tea at Shiloh, if you know you know. It’s a space for the dreamers, true tea lovers, artists, world builders, and all curious beings

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My path is the amalgamation of every California Redwood forest trail, every Mary Oliver poem, every wonderful homemade meal from my organically minded mother, every Alice Coltrane song, every tactile art installation that helped form my curiosity around the senses, and every sanctuary, teahouse, and garden that’s held me and allowed me to discover my full whimsical self. Over the past few years I have been so supported and my visions have had the space to come into reality thanks to my friends at tea at shiloh, a Los Angeles teahouse that is beyond a teahouse, a true portal of creativity and oasis for community.

Website: https://www.communeapothecary.com/

Instagram: sashaemoniee

Image Credits
Margot Renate Carly Hildebrandt