Fundraising Campaign for the Psychedelic Snail

🌈 Campaign Overview

Step into Home Grown: a Psychedelic Snail, a 25-foot-tall, kaleidoscopic shell sanctuary born from the union of spirit, structure, and spectacle. Inspired by fractals and the beauty of snails home-growing their shells. They create an inviting place. Join us and experience the natural hermaphroditic beauty of snails. This spiraling sculpture invites people to explore the dance between masculine and feminine, stillness and motion, solitude and community. 

Home Grown is built from an intricately framed, heavy-timber, inhabitable spiral, and a contrasting latticework of ephemeral, patterned layers that culminate in an inner sanctuary of polycarbonate "stained glass.” Home Grown will shimmer and shadow-dance by day, and pulse with LED brilliance by night, its colors dancing across the playa like a living rainbow vortex.

More than just an art piece, Home Grown is a space for connection, contemplation, and celebration. It grew out of a desire to build a home together in the face of fear, answering anxieties with community and joy.  It's where stories unfold in shadow and light, and where we carry our homes not just on our backs, but in our hearts.

The concept for this sculpture came about right around the 2024 elections, a time of tremendous anxiety foreshadowing an unknown future. For me, the fear was palpable and dark. What kind of art would I like to bring into the wider world if given the opportunity?  Something that looked fear in its face and found light and strength.

$$$ talk!

*** FYI!!! We got a $25k grant from Burning Man, but we still need to raise $50k. We're building this as an antidote to fear. These are scary times, but we decided not to retreat into our snail shells, and instead to go big with our skills and hard with our heart. Are you down to support art + togetherness in defiance of fear? Then donating and getting down on the dance floor is going to feel really, really goood. 

👥 Who You’re Supporting   We are a passionate collective of artists, builders, DJs, tech wizards, and dreamers based in the Bay Area who decided to just do it anyway. Led by:

Lead artist: Raylene Gorum - A recovering architect turned public artist who combines art + architecture to make cities a little more fantastical. Her largest installation to date covers 5,500 sqf on the surface of a new pier in the Bayview area of SF. She's been voted Most Likely to Serve on the Board of a Community Non-profit with Big Dreams.  raylenegorum.com

Lead Builder: Owen Laine - Master timber framer and fine furniture maker.  Beauty, style, consistency - what is the point of custom work, if not to look exceptional? If you want something supremely crafted (big or small), Owen is your guy. woodenheart.us

Lighting Artist: Phil Spitler - Creative Technology Artist blending art, light and magic. He has a keen eye for using light and color to create immersive environments, often incorporating cutting-edge technology to create truly transformative installations.  philspitler.carbonmade.com

Brass Tax – Bay Area legends in community-building, DJing, and boundary-breaking.  Number unlisted 🙂

🌈 Art Origin Story

Our collective need for shelter has never felt more urgent. Like the humble snail, we search for ways to carry our sanctuary with us. Each of us builds our temporary homes in the dust, but within this shell, we find a deeper reflection of our shared journey. As a child, I feared snails - their vulnerability hidden beneath hard exteriors. Yet they embody our own story: carrying home on our backs, retreating when needed, yet recomposing the world as we move.

The spiraling shell, crafted from reclaimed wood and glowing panels, shows how we, too, can transform our barriers into windows of beauty - spaces where we can pause, breathe, and open ourselves to connection. As light filters through, we're reminded that even our hardest shells can become translucent, letting in others' light, while sharing our own glow.

As night falls and the structure glows from within, it becomes a beacon for others seeking refuge, reminding us that even in our darkest moments, we can light the way for each other.