2025 Swift Campout: Meet the Artist!
Each year, Swift Campout enlists an artist to interpret and express the spirit of the weekend.
2025’s artwork was crafted by Christine Tyler Hill, an artist and illustrator based in Burlington, Vermont. Her business, Tender Warrior Co., is a vessel for her creative work. Christine is a crossing guard, naturalist, and cyclist. When she’s not working, she’s just trying to stay in awe.
We had the great pleasure of getting to know Christine while chatting about art, civic engagement, hope, and Swift Campout!
Swift: Give us 3 words your friends use to describe you
CTH: Creative. Authentic. Curious.
Swift: What are 3 words you use to describe yourself?
CTH: A ding dong.
Swift: We're at a cocktail party, what are three topics you're dying to tell me about?
CTH: The live cam of the Big Bear eagles nest, the importance of narrative and radical imagination in social change work, skunk cabbage.
Swift: A song comes on at the same party and there's nothing that can hold you back from moving to it, what song is that?
CTH: Canned Heat by Jamiroquai.
Swift: Tell us about your relationship to bicycles
CTH: Before riding bikes, I was shy and insecure, kinda floating along, not very adventurous, unsure of what I wanted to do with my life, thinking pretty narrowly about the world and what was possible.
Getting on a bike in my early 20s and working in a nonproft shop thrust me into a community and career, made me fall in love with people and the world, taught me about social inequity, introduced me to the everyday magic of the natural world, exposed me to the history and forces that determine how communities and social systems [mal]function, gave me a sense of agency over my own life, and led to life-defining relationships and memories.
Not too shabby for some metal and rubber.
Swift: Is there a ride or a route that has stood out for you? Why
CTH: There’s a spot I like to camp near my favorite swimming hole. I ride there solo when I need to unplug myself and then plug myself back in. It’s my favorite because it’s so beautiful and so close to home that I can’t help but finish the s24o feeling like I live in Shangri-La, like I’m living my dream life… which is the goddman truth! An overnight to that spot is a hard reset on my spirit.
Swift: What brings you joy these days, how do you cultivate it?
CTH: Being around people I love. Being in the woods and observing subtle shifts as the seasons change. Sharing meals with friends. Being at my intersection—I don’t wanna go out there at 7:30am when it’s 5 degrees, but I ALWAYS find joy there, even if it’s just a funny piece of litter.
Swift: What's weighing you down, and how do you navigate that?
CTH: Everything is heavy and insane right now. I’m navigating it by grounding down in my real-ass community here in Burlington. Seeing kiddos every day at my crossing guard intersection helps. Getting into rooms with people and talking IRL about what’s happening and what we can do helps. Being on my phone less helps. I write this in early April, and it’s *just* starting to warm up enough in Vermont for me to get on my bike again. BOY do bikes help.
Swift: Describe your artwork and aesthetic
CTH: I’m a full-time freelancer and I’m lucky enough to get hired by nonprofits, organizers, and small businesses to help explain complex issues and inspire engagement and support for things that matter. I make a lot of narrative work about farming, conservation, civic engagement and transportation.
My personal work often touches on the same themes. I like making zines and I’m starting to dabble in woodcuts and painting. My style pulls from comics and printmaking and a million other places.
Swift: Who are the three biggest influences on your artwork, and why?
CTH: I’ll give you three areas of influence and nest the people under them:
I love printmaking, performance, and the ethos around participatory and accessible art from Bread and Puppet Theatre and Corita Kent.
I love the unpolished aesthetic and emotional vulnerability of auto-bio comics from Lynda Barry, Lisa Hanawalt, Eleanor Davis, Sophie Yanow.
The writings of adrienne marre brown, Robin Wall Kimerer, and Jenny Odell have been massively influential in how I think about attention, nature, and social change and the art I make about these things.
Swift: As an artist / creative, what are you most excited about right now?
CTH: Given the current hellscape and the tendency to feel frozen and overwhelmed, I’m excited about the power of art to illustrate social change frameworks and histories so that people can locate themselves in history and the long arc toward justice. Visual storytelling is memorable, builds empathy and understanding, and helps people unfreeze and do what they can, where they are.
Swift: What does Swift Campout mean to you?
CTH: There is nothing better than riding bikes to beautiful places with your friends. It’s my religion. A global event that encourages this and brings new people into the magic? Big fan. I lucked into a group of friends who bike-toured and taught me how to do it, but events like Swift Campout are critical entry points for people who don’t have adventure cyclists in their circles already.
Swift: Walk us through your creative process with this year's Swift Campout art.
CTH: When I talked to Martina she invited me to play with scale, and that got my gears turning. I love exaggerating different parts of figures and playing with their proportions. I’ve started bringing my binoculars everywhere, even on short rides to run errands. You never know when you’ll spot something worth stopping and looking at for a while! So I immediately thought of drawing a giant pair of binoculars.
One of the first things I ever animated was someone looking up at the sun and blooming into a flower. It’s a rough animation, but I was trying to capture the relief and splendor of that first day when you can sit on the grass and let the sun touch you all over your body. Group bike rides with buds give me a similar ecstatic feeling, and always makes me feel sort of wild and feral and part of nature, so I guess that’s where the flower people came from.
And the rest of the elements are favorite camping ephemera and vignettes: my Opinel knife, moments with bugs, good views… the best!
Swift: Anything to add?
CTH: Happy Swift Campout y’all! Thanks for having me!
