So... What's Annie Sprinkle Up To These Days?

Though some might not have noticed, it's Earth Day once again, and retired adult star Annie Sprinkle and partner Beth Stephens have sent an email to their friends and supporters celebrating the "holiday" and announcing some of their latest projects. "Dear Friends and Lovers of the Earth," the email began. "Firstly we, Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle, send big love to all who are suffering and to anyone who has lost a loved one during this time of pandemic. Secondly, our huge gratitude to the heroic essential workers taking personal risks and making sacrifices. We applaud you not only every night at 8 p.m. but all day long.  "Fifty years ago, environmentalists designated April 22nd as Earth Day to honor our beautiful, magical planet, and to garner support for protecting our environments. At the E.A.R.T.H. Lab, every day is Earth Day. However, as we join in this annual tradition, we want to share some news, give you a few updates and offer you some resources for the coming year. "Our mission has been and will continue to be, to support art projects that celebrate the Earth and call attention to environmental issues, especially projects that are loving, sexy, fun, and diverse. Of course, when COVID19 hit, we closed the E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center on the UCSC campus. All the projects we had lined up from March to October (the Saitama Triennial in Japan, the Reno Museum in NV, the S.F. Public Library, and C.I.I.S. + others) were canceled. All of our artist friends had the same kinds of cancellations. For now, we are working online from our home in San Francisco, and we realize how lucky and privileged we are to be able to do so. We’re happy to take requests for visiting artist lectures, online performances and Zoom Earth Weddings!" The pair went on to describe some of their current and upcoming projects, including the production of a new experimental video mini-series, Earthly Delights, which will consist of ten episodes, each a three to five-minute "imagining of the things the Earth wants to tell us," co-created with producer, cinematographer, artist and friend Keith Wilson. Also, the pair's friend and neighbor, artist Katie Bush, has created a new website, QueerPowers.com, whose mission is, "Survival and inspiration for GLBTQ+ in quarantine" and it offers a daily selection of curated videos, live streaming D.J.s, and talented drag performers. Sprinkle and Stephens have long been into officiating at eco-friendly weddings, and they announced that on Tuesday, April 21, they officiated their first ever "Wedding to the Earth" on ZOOM, for 20 art students in an environmental art studio class at UCSC, while back on February 28, the E.A.R.T.H. Lab collaborated with the world-class artist Amy Franceschini and the artist collective Future Farmers to produce a "Wedding to Fog" in the meadows of the UCSC campus, where artists Guillermo Galindo acted as a marriage counselor; Uni Sea sang a love song in Chinese; and Launa Light performed with a flock of human woodpeckers in a performance that was "sexy, touching, and hilarious." The pair also noted that artists are creating all kinds of personal protective masks, most notably the sprouted masks made by the artist team Pony Express from Australia, plus they gave a shout out to artist Sarah Stolar for sewing hundreds of colorful cotton face masks for medical professionals in California. Followers of the pair are aware that last summer, Sprinkle and Stephens traveled back and forth across the U.S.A. to interview sixty diverse environmental artists, and that has formed the basis of an online course that Stephens will be teaching, "Environmental Art In the Expanded Field," whose aim is to redefine what environmental art is all about. Finally, the pair's film Water Makes Us Wet—An Ecosexual Adventure was one of a list of eight films recommended for Earth Day watching by New York's Museum of Modern Art. It can be viewed on Amazon Prime or on Juno Now. "If you’re finding that you’re incredibly pessimistic, sad, angry, and in deep grief during these tough times, it’s completely understandable," the pair's email concluded. "We try to balance our thoughts and feelings with being at least 50% optimistic. We do believe that good things are coming and have hope that most of us will come out of this stronger, wiser, less consumerist, with our priorities more ordered. The Earth is already happier. The two of us try to practice the 50/50 rule. Even as we know that we have the privilege to do so, we believe that both positive and negative thoughts and feelings can coexist at the same time. We wish you good luck in all your endeavors!" Talk about not letting the grass grow under your feet!