Spontaneous Vegetation

Michelle Matthews is a BIPOC environmentalist, artist, designer, and photographer, who was born in Iran to a Chinese/Vietnamese mother and a Black/Caucasian father, and her family was among the last ones to be airlifted from Iran during the Islamic revolution in February of 1979. Traveling back and forth between her home in Hawthorne, CA and her high school in West Los Angeles, Michelle noticed how the quality of the landscape impacts the quality of life. She has spent most of her career working as a creative at nonprofits such as the ACLU, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Sundance Institute, host of the Sundance Film Festival. She is proud to bring her non-profit creative vision and landscape management experience together in her role as Executive Director of Arlington Garden, a free public garden in the heart of Pasadena, CA. http://www.arlingtongardenpasadena.org