Holly Sweet was born and raised in San Francisco, California’s East Bay communities. She now resides in the mountains of northern California where she creates whimsical paintings on silk, teaches children, and is a storyteller. She writes and illustrates children’s books. She is the owner of a women’s sewing collective and with her musician husband Michael is the owner of a video rental/ music store:
“Ever since the Vietnam War protests in the 1960’s I have protested my country’s aggressive, violent actions and manipulations of the worlds citizens and resources, nuclear arms proliferation, the devastation of our forests, rivers and oceans. Wars for control of oil and other resources always seemed so wrong and immoral. How could my fellow Americans believe in these obvious scams?
My work as a schoolteacher, storyteller, and artist has led me to find ways to protest. I am passionate in my desire to engage my fellow Americans who are not “already in the choir”.
When my kindergarten class students asked me “who would win a nuclear war?” they thought it wouldn’t work out too well if the earth were left devastated. This led me to join in protests at Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Lab, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the Naval Concord Weapons Station in the S.F. Bay area. I belly danced to blockade traffic from reaching the Lawrence Livermore Lab. I went to jail in my belly-dancing outfit and danced in jail after protests at Vandenburg and Livermore. I sat in daylong meditation protesting war with signs at the San Francisco Alameda Navel Weapons Lab.
As a member a group of belly dancers called “Dance Peace” I danced to protest the U.S. governments attempt to bring down the Nicaraguan government in the early 1990’s. We performed choreographed belly dance stories protesting the U.S. government’s oppression of the people of Nicaragua. We danced balancing globes on our heads in San Francisco’s Union Square. (See photo page for press photos)
In 1995 I dressed as a mermaid and poured oil over my wet body as I sat in a wheelchair to speak with the press committee for offshore oil drilling at California’s Humboldt State University. I have led, organized or participated in public protests of nuclear war on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day for my entire adult life.
With Mark Sommers of Arcata, California I developed a program called the listening project that allowed protesters to actually go to laboratories or military bases and engage staff in talks about their job and beliefs. This involved only listening, never interrupting. This taught me the valuable lesson that we often neglect listening as a part of activism. From 1992 through 1995 I served as president of the board of directors for the Trees Foundation, a nonprofit NGO involved in the acquisition and directing of funding for forest related projects.
Humor and theatre are great tools as we’ve seen from the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and each of us can make a difference, as demonstrated by Julia Butterfly Hill. Humor is a great communication tool. My husband writes many of the jokes amd after years of enduring many a blond joke I was excited to use my blondeness as a tool for peace.
Let’s face it, war and devastation has never been a good idea. Peace is a no brainer.
