Find Yourself with Everland Art Park

The question of our purpose in life comes up again and again. Often, the answer is never there. You may answer with chasing happiness, but truly, what does that look like?

Jonny Jenkins is a man with a bucket full of different experiences in many subjects. From working in community projects to real estate, he has now found his purpose within Everland.

Everland is an immersive art park and retreat center, only an hour away from Denver. Immersive art is an art that simply immerses you, whether it is based on the size of the piece or the ability to interact with it. Immersive art allows you to become a part of it and connect with it, rather than being a being outside of the material.

Jenkins quit real estate and later moved to Africa, where he was doing aid work in Uganda. For the next eight years, he was living abroad, searching for a way he could be of service to the world. Ironically, how Jenkins found his desire to create a safe place for all as a way to get in tune with nature began with an accident.

“I had a near-death experience in a motorcycle accident. I launched myself three stories off a bridge and luckily landed in some water. I should be dead. I couldn’t walk for months. That was just the pattern of disruption, and, of course, correction. It really got me to ask myself, ‘OK, what is my highest calling be of service?’”

Before his accident, when he attended Burning Man, Jenkins witnessed first-hand the kind of excitement that immersive art can bring. While incapacitated, he decided to create a place that reflects the awe he saw at Burning Man. Once he moved back to America, Jenkins started to look for land, and over the course of four years, he placed his flag on the space Everland now is.

The way Everland is set up is very intentional. The team worked with nature-based therapists and delved into philosophy in order to plan what Everland was going to represent.

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“We want to have a theme and prompt, allow people to individually create, but to keep it cohesive and not chaotic. So, calling in something that had meaning and intention that everyone can relate to.”

Gathering inspiration for their archetypes came from the front range and local animals. The Compass Village is what the rest of Everland orbits around. Each direction represents something different:

North – Shaman’s Path – Alchemist, Divine Healer, Intention

East – Inner Child’s Path – Discovery, Trickster, ParticiPLAYtion

South – Steward’ Path – Craftsman, Maker, Positive Impact

West – Visionary’s Path – Lover’s Nook, Riding Resistance, Collective Mindset

Sky – Dreaming, Astrology, Ancient Future, Multiverse, Aliens, Legacy, Explorer

Earth – Pachamama, Indigenous practices, Collective Mindset

Inner – Inner Gifts, Innate Wisdom, Creator, Resonance, Genius Zone

The compass divides the trails of the art park. Artists can come in and create based on a certain direction.

Everland’s art park is still in the process of being built. However, the pieces are all planned out. The Earth trail will include a nature mandala, while the Inner, the area that focuses on “our inner vibration and our inner unification as we all are vibratory creatures,” will include a sound temple. This sound temple will be crafted of wind harps and deconstructed pianos, all of which will be tuned to different pitches. There are also webs used as places to rest through the entirety of the park.

For the Wisdom trail, Tigre Bailando is creating a large bear. Bailando is an artist who mainly creates sculptures and immersive art as ways to reduce one’s eco-footprint. The meshing of the two worlds moves together like honey. With the vision of Everland and Bailando’s work, the pair is copacetic.

“I fell in love with all their creations and who they are as a person in the way they show up. Tigre, from a design standpoint—they work with so many natural items and recycled things found from nature. That’s a high-value system within Everland. Anything we can do utilize organically, and [that is found] in a lot of art that Tigre creates. The spaces are meant to be healing spaces, spaces with a message, and with heart and wisdom and intention.”

In the future, the team at Everland and Tigre will be crafting a temple together, described as a space that is a “non-dogmatic, open space for anyone to come and connect and have someplace of sovereign.”

The value of treating the Earth with respect appears to be one of Everland’s greatest desires. When creating art pieces around the park, seeking out ways to craft the most sustainable way possible is a top priority. The area itself is created to work with the land rather than cutting into it and manipulating it. Including educational plaques on items such as medical plants found in the area and keeping people off certain parts of the park are more ways Everland is cohesive with Mother Earth. Using solar energy and composting toilets will be another highlight of Everland’s eco-footprint, or lack thereof.

It’s hard not to make comparisons to the Garden of Eden: lovely, created by the hands of God herself, and expensive. However, only the latter is false. Everland’s team consists of people of all different backgrounds. This didn’t come out of a desire to tokenize people, but rather happened inevitably, and they want everyone to have a seat at the table.

The motto of Everland revolves around play and safe spaces. In order to create a space welcoming for all, Everland has been working on their anti-racism strategy, educating themselves on the proper language to use, and working with Co-Op at 1st Street to learn how to create a welcoming environment. Everland is also working on a scholarship fund. People who purchase a ticket have the choice to donate a percentage of their ticket to the fund.

If money is a barrier for people, Everland will also offer the chance people to volunteer at the park and have the ability to experience the land either way.

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“You don’t have to come in with a monetary exchange, just as long as you have the heart to co-create and bring this project forward. Our heart for this is to bring about more access to some of this big, mind-transformative art that’s inaccessible to a lot of brackets of people.”

Everland currently has a Kickstarter that provides the majority of its funding to make the park possible. With the root of the park being to bring out creativity and collaboration within individuals, Everland allows for artists to send in their requests to create pieces and share ideas for the park.

“It’s such an honor to get to have these deep moments of inspiration as we plan, dream, and create. The land teaches me, and the people teach me. It’s this great lesson, as we just continue to listen to these voices from our community who are asking for different things and sharing their wisdom. And, as we leave that open space for conversation and for collaboration, we continue to have our perspective expanded and open to new possibilities of creation. It’s a constant source of inspiration for me, and nourishment.”

To answer the question of what happiness looks like, perhaps it is giving yourself to the world and creating another sliver of a safe haven for others to enjoy and inspire in, much as Jenkins did.

For more information, visit everland.co.

Photos by Jeff Jones.

Photos provided by Everland Art Park