Forestville artist hub The Nest a dream come true for its Indigenous creator

Ras K’Dee remembers the feeling of electricity he experienced when he stood in the Ya-Ka-Ama Indian Education Center in Forestville 31 years ago.

His eyes widened as the rattle of clapper sticks and chanting filled the room. It was the first time K’Dee felt the spirit of his culture’s music.

“I started feeling the spirit of the songs,” said K’Dee, 44 and a member of the Dry Creek Band of Pomo. “It was a powerful moment. Right then, I decided I wanted to be a singer. I was like, ‘This is who I am.’’

Now K’Dee, a youth worker and founder of SNAG Magazine — an Indigenous arts and culture magazine — has created the two-story Nest, a modest building and artistic hub for retreats and residencies for artists of color.

The Nest, which sits among lush trees on a quarter acre in Forestville, opened in 2019.

“Art has been a constant theme in my life, whether I was traveling, creating music or the magazine,” K’Dee said. “That’s why we’ve created this space — it’s for all artists. I hope the community can incubate new work here that’s going to change the world.”

In 2017, K’Dee left his bustling life in San Francisco and moved to Forestville for a fresh start. From there, he continued to steward the plot of land which he bought in 2012.

For years, he and his community spent days carrying buckets of cobb and gathering building stones and sand from the land to create the space he once envisioned as a kid.

“I have always dreamt of having a tree house in the woods,” K’Dee said.

In the future, the sustainable art hub — powered by solar panels — will hold up to 15 artists practicing dance, holistic and visual arts, music and more, he said.

As he began caring for the land, he realized one thing: No matter matter where he was, he could run to the land whenever he felt lost or alone. The land took care of him, too.

“Any place is a good place. I’ll always have the land, river and ocean to take care of me,” he said.

A handful of cultural exchange events already have taken place on the property. Two months ago, a group of Alaskans arrived to the Nest to share their stories and songs.

“Cultural exchanges take place here, which feels as if we’re living how we did (in) pre-colonial times, where people came together and shared stories,” said Hadassah GreenSky, 28, a multidisciplinary artist living at the Nest.

GreenSky, who’s of the Anishinaabe tribe of the Great Lakes, grew up in Detroit. She’s lived at the artist hub since October 2022.

“It’s hard creating while living in the city,” GreenSky said. “Creating here has given me the mental space to paint. You can’t hear yourself when you’re in survival mode.”

Hip-hop cassettes and a vibraphone

K’Dee’s first love was the record player.

Music was always playing in the Santa Rosa home where he grew up, he remembered. He spent hours dissecting each song’s instrumentation and picking up drum and horn solos he heard on records his dad played.

When K’Dee played hip-hop songs he enjoyed, his dad, a jazz musician, responded by pulling out records that included the sample he heard in those hip-hop songs. One time, it was “The Ghetto” by Donny Hathaway.

“I thought, ‘I can do that,’” K’Dee said with a laugh.

He eventually learned how to play the vibraphone and the piano. When he was 9, he started writing his own melodies for R&B love songs.

When K’Dee was 12, his dad bought him a microphone. He began creating hip-hop music by using samples from old records and recording songs with cassette tapes.

In high school, he and his cousin picked up recording equipment and built a studio in Santa Rosa. By the time he graduated from Piner High School, they had recorded eight albums, he said.

Since then, he has toured around the globe as part of Audiopharmacy, a multicultural band formed in 2003 that creates an eclectic blend of live world instrumentation, turntable scratches and poetic lyrics.

Roots

When he was 21, K’Dee decided to become sober, which opened his eyes to the beauty of his culture.

“I opened myself up and started accepting parts of my culture and identity,” K’Dee said. “Learning my traditions helped me become a better musician.”

K’Dee started SNAG 20 years ago. Since then, the magazine has published work by more than 450 Native American artists. In honor of the magazine’s anniversary, K’Dee and the organization’s team is putting on an Indigenous art festival in Forestville in 2024.

SNAG works to develop and implement gatherings, workshops and cultural events uniting tribes, community leaders, artists, youth and allies, K’Dee said. The organization focuses on providing Native American youth with opportunities to achieve balance and harmony, address historical and modern grievances and develop leadership and community skills through arts and cultural expression, according to K’Dee.

You can reach Staff Writer Mya Constantino at mya.constantino@pressdemocrat.com. @searchingformya on Twitter.