Vail Art Co.

05/12/2026

I have the complete and total gift of running a forest school out of my backyard in St Paul. Every week, for the past four years, a gaggle of 40 children and their mothers come walking down my driveway and we spend the day together, singing songs, making art, telling stories, and finding belonging within the woods. It's become a sacred community of mothers, a village in the truest and rarest sense. I couldn't imagine moving through the tremendous work of parenting without this collective of children and carers.

And now, we’re trying to raise money to build a yurt. Our trusty old canvas tent that’s held us for so many tender moments is on its last legs. Past its last legs if we’re being really honest. Having a yurt would allow us to expand the way we care for ourselves, for our kids, and for our greater community too. We’re asking for help bringing this vision to life.

For every donation made, you'll be entered into a raffle for a free family session. I'll break out my film camera & we'll make some art together!

Raffle ends on May 27th!

One donation = 2 entries
One share - 1 entry

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/help-milkweed-forest-school-build-a-yurt

03/03/2024

Senior films but we call them video portraits or visual poems. 2024-2025 seniors, let's create something together.

This is "Rachel's Senior Video" by Laure Vail on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

02/28/2024

Motherhood as a song

02/26/2024

We do senior sessions! They last all evening long and our goal is that your senior walks away from the shoot feeling seen, feeling beautiful. It's some of our most important work.

https://vailart.co/seniors

02/23/2024

If mother is a noun, it is a seed.
If mother is a noun, it is a garden.
If mother is a noun, it is a story.

02/20/2024

I asked my three year old to write me a poem today and this is what she said.

"This is true.
I love you.
Can we be together?"

02/18/2024

This is a female text, composed while folding someone else’s clothes. My mind holds it close, and it grows, tender and slow, while my hands perform innumerable chores.

This is a female text borne of guilt and desire, stitched to a soundtrack of cartoon nursery rhymes.

This is a female text and it is a tiny miracle that it even exists, as it does in this moment, lifted to another consciousness by the ordinary wonder of type. Ordinary, too, the ricochet of thought that swoops, now, from my body to yours.

This is a female text, written in the twenty-first century. How late it is. How much has changed. How little.

This is a female text, which is also a caoineadh: a dirge and a drudge-song, an anthem of praise, a chant and a keen, a lament and an echo, a chorus and a hymn. Join in.

DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA

02/14/2024

Today is the last day to book a session and receive $200 off for shoots in 2024! Would love to see your name pop up in my inbox!

[email protected] for more info on scheduling your session.

02/12/2024

First Fall

BY MAGGIE SMITH

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another
season to offer you: frost soft
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.

02/11/2024

Photographing births is so near and dear to my heart. I've been in the birth world making these types of images for 14 years now and moments like these give me chills every time.