“The go-to organization in Boston for arts and healing” – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley
“It is an honor to be associated with and to support such a spiritually uplifting and healing organization.” – Dr. Rohit Chandra, SPOKE Board Chair at Turning the Wheel 2021
“The arts are a powerful force in our society. They have a profound impact on not only how we see our world, but on how we can re-imagine it. Artists recognize how creativity can influence our collective culture and change the status quo. Artists are catalysts for social change. Through their craft, artists advance urgent conversations about our past, our present, and our future as a city.” – Kim Janey, Boston Mayor at Turning the Wheel 2021
“SPOKE is a vital organ and ever-ready battery of creative energy. … Medicine Wheel Productions gives us a way to talk about difficult conversations, a way to use imagination and creativity to its best of power. … As we look at what Medicine Wheel Productions has produced, we now know that there is a place in community to keep these conversations alive. It is through Medicine Wheel Productions and Michael Dowling who has become what we’d call in former times ‘the wheel man,’ the man who keeps turning that wheel to keep navigating those spaces.” – L’Merchie Frazier, Artist and SPOKE Awardee at Turning the Wheel 2021
“I continue to stand in solidarity with others who are demanding action and change, such as the team at SPOKE, who realize that it’s not enough to just share the dismay and terror of what’s going on around us. It’s not enough to just send more thoughts and prayers, it’s time for action.” – Gary Bailey, Simmons College, at Turning the Wheel 2021
“Arts and Cultural work can restore and nourish people’s capacities to listen, to empathize, to communicate, to receive, to hope, to imagine, to trust, and to act compassionately –the very capacities required for sustainable coexistence and reconciliation” – Creative Approaches to Coexistence, Lesley Yalen and Cynthia Cohen, Brandeis University
Other former Medicine Wheel (SPOKE) Alumni, Staff, and Participants
“My name is Jamie Onderdonk. I was a student at Brandeis and I worked with you in the spring of 2010 on the source/resource installation. I wanted to let you know how much that project moved and inspired me. It is among my most significant life experiences that moved me to apply for master’s work in Conflict Studies in the Netherlands. I want to do more work with creative and collaborate community projects. I used the experiences from that project in my letter of intent for this program. I am hoping that I might be able to add you to my reference list on my CV. If you’re willing to do that, but would feel more comfortable with additional reminders of my involvement, just let me know. I’d be more than grateful and happy to supply. Thank you very much for your time and energy. And, by the way, I do follow the projects you put together at Medicine Wheel Productions and they always look/feel amazing when I read about them.”- Jamie Onderdonk “There’s more to life than Partying and Bitches… Can’t wait for y’all to see that… Findin my own path and beginning my journey is turning me into a great man… I once was afraid of Death now I found my purpose something I’m willing to Die for… Medicine Wheel I’m doing the unfinished work of Dr. Martin Luther King!” – Shane Hampton, Daniel Morrison Fellow
“The Philosophy I learned here has never left me. Every problem I solve is because of something I learned here.” – 20-year-old young man who participated in MWP for Five Years.