About Andy Bramble
1992: I graduated University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a Bachelor’s Degree with an Individual Concentration in Creative Writing. BDIC is a design-your-major program that allowed me to take classes at Umass’s sister colleges Amherst and Smith, which was its own education, as the three schools have very different social/academic cultures.
1992-1996: I worked with adult schizophrenics in independent living situations, was a white water rafting guide, studied and practiced Integrative Acupressure, and worked with children in a locked psychiatric unit. The latter, especially, was deeply fulfilling and quite taxing.
1996-1998: I worked as a ski lift operator and pushed myself past what I thought my limits were rock climbing, snowboarding, and mountain biking.
1998-2002: I ran a welfare-to-work program for the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners and then became their first IT department. It was at this time that I came across Message from the Hopi Elders, which asks:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
2002-2004: I studied natural building at the Lama Foundation in Taos, cob building at the Cob Cottage Company in Oregon, and taught myself HTML and CSS. We started looking for land to purchase in Northern New Mexico.
2004-2024: I managed the Circulation department at the Santa Fe Reporter.
2004-present: I’ve co-built Ampersand, working on all of the construction and restoration projects, designing/managing the circular waste composting system, handling the digital, financial, and administrative aspects.
So what is the central thing of Ampersand, what’s the driving narrative?
For me it’s this: You are a part of the world. You. Me. Everyone. We are all simultaneously part of variously scaled, interconnected and nested systems. We are environment to various micro-organisms and bacteria (without which we could not live). We exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen with plants. We participate in local and non-local economies. We promote various species (house cats, for instance) and decimate others (wolves). We influence the world in myriad ways – damming rivers, employing various agricultural methods, importing plants (apples or potatoes) and introducing animals (horses or cane toads) – and our influence is profound. Sometimes it is destructive, sometimes not, but it is deep and widespread and it goes both ways. The world also profoundly influences us. How could it not?
The point is, we are part of a larger, complex ecology. Regardless as to our own personal religious, spiritual, or metaphysical inclinations, our entanglement and mutual participation with the world is a fact. Ampersand helps people realize this fact physically, intellectually, and emotionally. We do it by playing with systems that relate to core needs. Water, food, shelter. And meaning. Because it looks like meaning is essential for us.