The Crestone Energy Fair has changed my life and is giving me some of my biggest life lessons on dedication, perseverance and forgiveness. Our crew is growing and I am humbled to be a part of a team of such extraordinary people. This project represents the basics of permaculture to me…earth care, people care and resource share, so I absolutely love devoting my time and energy to this cause. Living off-grid in the tiny house I built since 2012, aligns with our path of supporting non-traditional, homeowner built and affordable housing for our community as well as utilizing our resources in a more responsible and equitable way. My passion lies in community organizing and networking and more recently I’m integrating restorative practices and social permaculture into our nonprofit. I strive to be a bridge between our youth, my peers and the elders so that we can all live an abundant and healthy life together in Crestone.

The Fair’s Producer, Nick Nevares, has been a Crestone Resident since 2018, and become ingrained in the community through various non-profit groups, including the Crestone Energy Fair, Crestone Energy Exchange, and involvement in feeding the community through monthly meals and the community annual Thanksgiving feast. Prior to living in Crestone, Nick had a prolific 12 year career producing corporate events and music festivals in New Orleans, which he left to find a more rewarding life in the Colorado mountains. Sustainability and regenerative practices are the driving forces behind why he serves the community through the Fair and other events, and as a Realtor he helps guide buyers through the complicated process of navigating off grid living. In his off time he spends time on home improvements, Gardening, rockhounding and hiking the bountiful trails throughout Colorado.

Anya Kaats is a writer, dancer, archetypal astrologer, and former podcast host. In 2017, she had a vision of communal, avant-garde world-building during the total solar eclipse. In 2018, she visited the San Luis Valley and knew this was the place. In her previous life, Anya spent over a decade working in creative marketing and branding for natural products brands including Suja Juice, CORE Hydration, Mamma Chia, Paleonola, and Brad s Raw Foods. Anya is thrilled to be able to use these skills to benefit her community, helping local organizations with branding and website design. Anya is also the Director of The Crestone Eagle, and spends her summers volunteering in some of Crestone’s most beautiful gardens. In 2020, Anya and her partner Chris founded “The Crestone Conglomerate” with the goal of re-creating reciprocal and egalitarian ways of living on the land and with community. Anya writes on Substack under Dirt Road Dispatch.

The Energy Fair was my first exposure to the wonderful community of Crestone in 2017 and since then I have had the opportunity to become more involved. I have been a part of the Home tours for the past 4 years and now I am the lead organizer of the tours. I am passionate about local building policy and also earth friendly building methods, especially Earthships. I love sharing the home tours and being able to offer the physical experience standing in a home that is built with recycled materials or uses passive solar or other earth friendly practices. Crestone is home to some of the most amazing houses on the planet and I believe that the more people that see them, the more inspired building everywhere will be.

Justin ended up in Crestone in late-2023, and is a newcomer to the Crestone Energy Fair. He has over ten years of experience in E-Commerce Marketing + Strategy, Web Design, Video Production, Branding, and Education. Since 2019, Justin has hosted the notorious ICE CHURCH event, the first weekly ice bath + breathwork event in Colorado. No stranger to community engagement, Justin is supporting the Crestone Energy Fair with garnering sponsorships and spearheading the Fair's new YouTube strategy, in an attempt to share the CEF's wisdom further than just the SLV.

2022 was my first year delving into the Energy Fair and learning to play a key role in a variety of fashions besides being Lisa’s right hand man (actually left hand). By trade I am a home builder and my company Crescent Moon Construction is based in Crestone & the SLV where I focus on custom homes ranging from Netzero designs to traditional rough sawn framed homes. I have been exposed to plenty of construction methods but the mountains are where I wanted to reside as well as being closer to the natural world. I am an owner builder with my partner Lisa Bodey and we’re striving to build using natural methods and using local resources and natural building techniques are being incorporated into our tiny house. Our county is unique as there are no building codes and therefore building with creativity is endless and many opportunities are at our hands grasp. I enjoy working with my hands and am constantly looking for challenges as well as a new way to build using local resources and long forgotten techniques. I am inspired by the local artisans and craftsmen from earth ships, passive solar design, cob techniques, earthen floors, straw bales, emf solutions, solar, in floor heating systems and other techniques that align ourselves with our planet, embracing our outdoor conditions and the energy that is all around us. I have been in the construction industry for over 20 years and am constantly looking for ways to give back to our community through volunteerism and am thrilled to be apart of the energy fair team. When I’m not working, I’m working. There is never a dull moment and there’s plenty to work on, additions, securing materials, firewood, honey do lists, furniture, rebuilding, gardening, and of course creek dips, soaking in hot springs and fishing.

After graduating with my BFA from SFAI in 2018 I worked for the International Center of Photography until 2019. I completed my MFA in Studio Art from San Francisco Art Institute in 2021, where I was nominated as SFAI’s 150th anniversary graduate commencement speaker, outstanding MFA student, MFA exhibition best in show, and recipient of the John Collier grant and awards. Besides continuing to engage my community through the arts and education, I’m an environmental activist and a father. The Art and Education communities have inspired and shaped me as an artist. Consequently, they’ve shaped the way I see the world and without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today. As an artist and educator, my work and research is committed to the study of anthropological discourse, in relationship to environmental sustainability and institutional reformation. To me, learning is a collaborative effort and the beauty in our desire to connect with the world and each other is realized when we begin to reflect upon and respond to a range of complex human conditions by sharing our personal experiences to inspire one another. The purpose of making art, after all, is to remind ourselves that life is more important than art!

Allison Wonderland engages in the curious blessings and burdens of being human and being an intrinsic part of Nature. Tending soulfulness through death midwifery, immersive installations, collaborative movement, ritual theatre and poetic saturations. She is committed to dismantling systems of oppression, co-cultivating systems of mutual empowerment, and exchanging nourishment with Creative Mysteries.

Suzanne Rouge has been an advocate educator of hemp since 1976. She participated in Colorado Capital committee meetings, knocked on doors for 64, attended the Denver launch meetings for hemp and participated in the first five years of Hemp Expos and Hemp History Week. She has been a presenter for the Crestone Energy fair and hempcrete demonstration site. She was certified as a hempcrete builder by Ireland’s Steve Allin, helped build the first permitted owner occupied hempcrete home in 2016, a tiny house, geodesic hemp dome, garage and insulation on the roof of the Crestone Hobbitat. Her next project is a hempcrete Earthship. She is passionate about educating and creating a hempcrete economy in the San Luis Valley. Closing the permaculture loop, workshop students become the paid teachers for the next project. She is honored to take on a leadership role for the Energy Fair Building Demonstration and Ongoing Education series.

Nadia immigrated to the US in 2011 and worked in accounting for corporations. Eventually, she became disappointed with the American Dream and left the comforts of her life to go travel, live in communities on permaculture farms and re-learn the ways we are meant to be with each other, with the land, and with life itself. After years abroad she was looking for a place to return to, and Crestone presented itself as a unique pocket of the US, where people choose to live by communal values, to build with soul and soil, and to care for the land and each other. Nadia is excited to contribute the skills from her previous life to the event that roots us forward, into a life of interdependence, sustainability and regeneration. Nadia also studies, practices, and teaches Contact Improvisation and somatic psychology, and follows her curiosity for the intersections of movement and psyche. It is an honor for her to be a part of the organization that pulls together the variety of themes necessary to build and sustain a healthy community.

When I’m not wrangling volunteers or trying to (finally) finish my house, passion projects include foraging, herbal medicine, midwifery, small scale gardening, sustainability, small group dynamics, tiny houses, living more lightly on the earth, vanlife, kayaking, magic, and mountains. I think Energy Fair is the heart and soul of Crestone. Come and be a part of it!