FOUNDER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR

AJ Hawkins is a death positive artist and disabled deathworker. Her work is inspired by the relationship between ourselves, our bodies, and the natural world. Whether representing the necrobiome, illness, disability or grief, their work often centers themes of decay.

In 2019, AJ launched KALMA—a place for the death positive and darkly-inclined. AJ’s creative direction of KALMA is an exploration of we can better tend grief and create joy, both as individuals and as communities.

AJ uses their online platform for advocacy work, creating content about death positive topics like community care, green burial, death planning, and the bone trade. This work now extends more deeply into their local community through KALMA’s storefront and The Parlor.

COMMUNITY PROGRAMMING DIRECTOR

Jen is a threshold tender and mortality awareness advocate. Whether in willow patches alongside Woven Thresholds, or the wider community, jen is a weaver—creating connections and building structures that draw previously distant parts together.

They care deeply about normalizing community-centered deathcare & making it more accessible by supporting an individual’s autonomy through education as well as resource building and sharing. Jen is a volunteer with Jefferson County Hospice, and End of Life Washington, and has past experience in crisis intervention & suicide awareness advocacy.

They support others in their relationship to death through companionship + ritual, including end-of-life and funeral planning, death talks and Living Funeral Ceremonies. They intend to offer death doula and bereavement services in the future.