There are many artists, performers, healers, consultants, and innovative business owners within our cohousing community…

ARTISTS and PERFORMERS

John Porcino: Storyteller, Musician, Educator
Celebrating 37 wonderful full-time years of weaving stories, songs and music that tickle life’s funny bone and touch the heart.

Henry the Juggler
Henry the Juggler combines silent comedy and juggling with loads of audience interaction for ALL ages.

Jay Mankita: Playful Engineers
Jay is a teaching artist who works with people of all ages. He has a passion for learning about and building Rube Goldberg machines, automata, and other mechanical marvels. He’s also a songwriter and performing artist.

Fine Art by Mona Shiber
Fine Art influenced by yoga, many faith traditions, and my New Orleans roots. Ceramic wall reliefs, sculpture, drawings, and others created from mixed media. (monashiber.com offers “print on demand,” where you can purchase cards, prints, wearables, etc., while clearvisionstudio.com is an older site with images of projects and installations.)

Shingle Designs by Lou Conover
Art work on structures. Cedar shingles are an attractive and long lasting siding material. Lou Conover creates beautiful artistic designs in cedar shingles.

Kit Johnson: Music Instruction (website under construction)
Kit teaches piano and voice, as well as improvisation (all instruments), music theory, composition, and arranging.

Ben Brock Audio
Personal website for a radio, audio, and podcast expert living in the community.

Jochen Rau Photography
Photos of people, landscapes, nature, architecture, and urban scenes.

ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN, and ENGINEERING

Mary Kraus Architect
Cohousing, Sustainable Communities, and Participatory Design. Mary is one of the original and most experienced cohousing architects in North America, and an architect and resident of the first East Coast cohousing community. My participatory design methodology helps you build strong social bonds in the process of designing your community.

Lyons Witten: OHI Engineering, Inc.
Comprehensive environmental and engineering services to industrial/commercial, public and private sector clients. Lyons Witten, PG, LSP leads the Western Massachusetts OHI branch from an office here at Pioneer Valley Cohousing.

HEALERS

Jana Lussier Chinese Medicine
Welcome to where East meets West, where innate healing is facilitated by Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine, and Integrated Awareness.

TRAINERS and CONSULTANTS

Sociocracy For All
Sociocracy For All is a nonprofit organization seeking to bring effective egalitarian governance to organizations of every kind. Many cohousing communities and ecovillages are self-governed through sociocracy, including our own community, Pioneer Valley Cohousing.

Nonviolent Communication
Bringing compassionate communication to communities and organizations. New England NVC maintains this website primarily as a place to post Nonviolent Communication workshop offerings in the region. For more information about NVC, contact jerry@sociocracyforall.org

ZESTWORKS Speaking and Training
Rob Peck is a former professional juggler and an award-winning motivational speaker and stress management trainer who defies convention and gravity! ZESTWORKS interactive programs will help leaders and their teams reduce burnout and regain a better life balance.

Teaching From Your Heart
Gina Simm works with parents and teachers in the realm of social-emotional learning. Check out her book, Heart to Heart -Three Systems for Staying Connected- A Manual for Parents and Teachers on her website.

Mary Ellen Shea: Arbitrator, Mediator, Trainer
Mary Ellen Shea has provided labor, employment, and workplace dispute resolution and training since 1988 as an impartial arbitrator, mediator, fact-finder, facilitator, and trainer.

INNOVATIVE BUSINESSES

Barb April: Creative Alchemy
Paperless Towels: A reusable alternative to paper towels. Each roll is made of individual towels made from up-cycled flannel that have a variety of uses in the household.

Stephan Rogers: New Energy Blue
New Energy Blue is a clean energy producer who created a green carbon cure to replace petroleum-based products while earning a profit. Rogers is a founding partner.

Stephan Rogers: NextChar
NextChar created a high-performance Biochar that repairs poor and overworked soil and reduces water needs for farms and gardens. Rogers is CEO.

John Fabel: Sylvan Cycles
Sylvan Cycles makes innovative, beautiful, high-performance bicycles from sustainable wood composite materials. Our proprietary wood composite technology enables us to create bicycles that offer a rare combination of performance, comfort and sustainability. The result is exceptional ride quality, high-performance, and great look.

Maple Mob
The Maple Mob comes to life early each spring to tap trees and make maple syrup.