Our Mission
When we first began talking about our personal ambitions, having a place where we could build and host a creative community of like-minded people stood out as unique and shared. We saw a place where writers, artists, and poets, or those simply inspired by them, would have an isolated and distraction-free environment to explore their creative ideas. It would be a space for individual retreats as much as impromptu or organised peer support groups, and intimate gatherings as much as structured workshops & seminars.
This began as a small spark of an idea we would build on borrowed land. It's become something much more wonderful.
Branigan Farm Creative Centre is a nonprofit organization that supports creative arts, education, and off-grid sustainable living. We value all forms of creativity as a way of grounding ourselves in our humanity, reminding ourselves that we are all connected to each other and to nature, and giving ourselves permission to slough off daily obligations and make space to imagine different ways of being in this world and any future worlds we might build together.
Meet the Team
Your Hosts
Jaime & Patrick
We are a husband and wife team of artists, writers, and dreamers. We imagined building a place where we could engage in our artistic pursuits, encourage others to learn about creativity and the natural world, and connect with our community through arts education. Branigan Farm Creative Centre is that place.
Patrick is a retired paramedic who has been writing and painting since he was a child. He is a published novelist and uses a variety of media to paint portraits.
Jaime was a classroom teacher for sixteen years before moving into nonprofit work. She is a published poet and has started dabbling with writing young adult novels.
“An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are. He has to tell, because nobody else in the world can tell, what it is like to be alive.” James Baldwin, from his essay “The Creative Process”
Supervisors
Percy Bear & Rix Rocket
Rix Rocket and his little brother Percy supervise all that goes on at Branigan Farm, from watching resident wildlife to protecting their homestead from all manner of threats, real and imagined.
Rix Rocket is our tri-pawed happy dude. Adopted from China in 2016, his hind leg was injured, requiring amputation once he got to his forever home in Canada. Rix is the friendliest, most Zen dog you’ll ever meet. He greets people, dogs, bunnies, and frogs with equal portions of positivity and excitement.
Percy Bear, originally from Los Angeles, was adopted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and immediately became Rix’s BFF. We assumed he was a terrier mix, but DNA testing revealed that he is Shih Tzu, Bichon Frise, and Greyhound. What a mix! Percy wants to protect everything and everyone he loves, which sometimes makes him a bit of a handful, but we know his heart is in a good place.