Leading With Nature: Maggie Dimmick
Meet the midwest artist + activist rescuing textiles and finding new perspectives on the trail.
Leading With Nature is a special interview series spotlighting women leaders who are taking action for nature and turning to it for support in hopes it brings you joy and inspiration on your own path.
In this installment, I interview Maggie Dimmick, visual artist, designer, Earth-advocate, long-distance hiker, auntie, and dreamer. Originally from the East Coast, she now lives in Minneapolis, MN where she rescues textiles to create art and works as the marketing director for the backpacking gear online retailer, Garage Grown Gear. Let’s dive in!
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Can you share an experience you’ve had with the natural world that shaped who you are today?
In 2023. I spent 2 months walking through desert, grasslands, alpine climates, and everything in between from Mexico to Utah along the Arizona Trail. I came to consider the outdoors as my real home, getting to know the plants and animals as my neighbors and the wind as my constant companion.
It really tested my inner strength to get through the physical aspects. There were scenarios where I had to call on Mother Earth for support when I felt like I couldn’t get through something on my own. She helped me enter into full bravery, like when crossing super cold streams or during sleepless nights in severe wind. It forever changed my relationship with Earth and helped me become less human-centered too. There’s so much out there that’s more important than us.
Where does your love for nature come from?
It feels like an innate love, but I do have a memory from when I was 6 or 7 of hanging out in room-like spaces inside a row of pine trees complete with low branches like chairs to sit on. I’d sweep the dirt floor and place little tins on branches where I’d keep things for later. It was a cozy place to hide and imagine a beautiful tree house of my own.
How does caring for nature—humans included—show up in your life right now?
I’ve been committed to only using rescued materials in my art practice for many years now. When I worked in the fashion industry, I witnessed lots of fabric samples being thrown directly into the trash at the office and was aware of the serious amount of waste happening in clothing factories around the world. So I started rescuing sample fabrics to turn into quilts and art pieces.
Then in 2018, I started Ethel Studio, a zero-waste textile studio where I turned pre-consumer waste into meditation cushions and more. While I’ve since closed the company, I’ve continued to refrain from using new materials in my art. It just makes sense when we’ve got a planet full of perfectly good materials waiting to be utilized. My scale might be small, but I believe it’s essential to work in this way no matter the size of my impact. If I help just a few people think more about waste, then I feel like I’m doing something.
How does nature support you in your systems change efforts?
I find there’s nothing more helpful for both my health and inspiration levels than being outside. I often feel most creative when I’m a few days into a backpacking trip. My mind clears and ideas start surfacing from within.
I try to get at least a full week of backpacking in each year and a few other camping trips, even if it can be hard to carve out the time. Immersing myself in nature for several weeks really brings my mind and nervous system to another place. I love being so disconnected from town life that I forget how to string sentences together, and pure ideas and concepts take over instead of language.
What’s giving you hope these days?
Minneapolis! Despite the traumatic events the city has endured, there’s been an equal amount of hope and love to counteract it. During the recent ICE invasion, Minneapolitans showed up day after day—no matter how tired or busy they were—to offer mutual aid, collect rent money for immigrant neighbors hiding in their homes, drive people to doctor visits, track down ICE cars around town, prevent abductions with their presence in the streets… the list goes on!
I never thought I’d be learning radio language and techniques on patrolling a perimeter from an army-veteran-turned activist, but it’s been such a privilege. I learned how when even just one person in a community is taken away, it negatively impacts not just their family, but the whole community. We witnessed this firsthand again and again, and in such a brutal way too. It’s so hard to speak about it, but at the end of the day, I’m so inspired by the humanity and love present here.
What’s something you’ve learned from the natural world that influences you or your work?
While hiking once, I had a moment where I was frustrated by the (confusing) advice of books and human teachers. I wanted to throw it all away and just listen to the trees.
I wondered: What if I put the advice of trees above that of humans? What makes human opinions all that great anyways?
Trees seem to be quite confident and resilient. They bend and adapt, change direction and work with their neighbors. They aren’t trying to be anything they aren’t already. They have seasons where they pull back and let go, and seasons where they expand and express themselves. They embellish their scars and foster life after they fall. I came to see trees—and nature—as my greatest teachers.
Is there a more-than-human being you feel a special connection with?
Milton—a pitbull with a beautifully squishy face and the softest heart—came into my life in 2024, and my world has never been the same. I wake up to his kisses, come home to him running around the house with excitement to see me, and go to sleep with him aggressively snuggling (squishing) me. I’ve learned so much from him about giving and receiving love, and how to be patient and resilient. He’s a sensitive soul and the cutest pup in the world to me.
Maggie Recommends…
💡 Silvia Federici, a thought leader who critiques capitalism through the lens of gender and one of my heroes. She focuses on historical witch hunts, which coincided with the dismantling of women’s connection to nature, intuition, etc. Her most well-known book is Caliban and the Witch.
🐺 Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. I find this to be an essential text on living as a truly free woman and digging into one’s shadow self through mythological storytelling combined with psychoanalysis.
🌕 Anything about Harriet Tubman. She was the ultimate outdoors woman, walking thousands of miles at night in the winter—and hiding during the day—to transport enslaved people to freedom. It required a serious connection to (and understanding of) nature that’s unimaginable to us today!
To get to know Maggie more and explore her art, visit her website.
Photo Rights: Maggie Dimmick
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