site-based collaborations

reading and writing poems and whatever else comes through 

visitor-centered experiences in public venues 

anti-oppression initiatives

fiber arts and textiles

facilitating transdisciplinary workshops

baseball

STEAM and arts education

growing (arugula specifically)

Toni Wynn

Toni’s poetry, essays, articles, and creative nonfiction appear in Black Nature, The International Review of African American Art, and other good places.  

I’ve been an advisor to the California Arts Commission and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Academic background is in International Relations, Social Welfare, and Instructional Technology at Clark University, the University of Copenhagen, San Francisco State University, and Virginia Tech.

A selection of my limited-edition portfolio and handmade books are available here. 

Word-Burning Stove team

A small-business home for exhibition writers and editors since 2005. Our balanced team of thoughtful communicators uses words to connect visitors to public spaces. WBS jumps into the process anywhere, from content selection and organization to rewrites, edits, and proofs.

Bonnie Wallace

Bonnie has written for museums for more than twenty years. She has written with teams and solo for many clients, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Franklin Institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the California Academy of Sciences, and most recently the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial museum in in St. Louis.

Bonnie’s recent work:

  • At the Vanguard, NMAAHC, Washington, DC

  • Gateway Arch Museum, St. Louis

  • The Bias Inside Us, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES)

Lillian Cheeks

Lillian entered the world of museum writing when she joined the Word Burning Stove team in 2022. Since then, she has conducted archival research for the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, worked as a workshop designer/facilitator and script writer for the National Capital Planning Commission, and written content syntheses for Quatrefoil Associates.
Lillian is also a PhD student in the sociology department at UCLA where she studies social interaction and medical sociology.

Lillian’s recent work:

  • At the Vanguard, NMAAHC, Washington, DC

  • National Capital Planning Committee’s centennial exhibition, Washington, DC

  • The History of Lynching in Maryland, Reginald Lewis Museum, Baltimore

Our Partners

A modern consultancy that acts locally through a breadth of individualized services. As Senior Strategist, I do community engagement, facilitation, and interpretive planning with Brocade.

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Mapping Meaning brings artists, scientists, and scholars together for support as we push against disciplinary boundaries. We roam the landscape together in biennial, experimental workshops at biological field stations.

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This East-coast-based group of black women surveys contemporary gardening and agriculture and explores where the field is going. Journalism, essays, lit crit, sowing and planting, arts and nurture.

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