Chicago, Illinois · Urbs in Horto
Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael
"Wander where the wonderings grow."
Film · Retail · Creative Placemaking · Chicago
A lush forest exists in the middle of a city. I am the city girl going within.
Everything I make begins there, in the answered prayer. I am a Chicago girl, born and living in a city built on a motto most people never hear: Urbs in Horto. City in a Garden. I have always loved that. The tension between the brick and the bark, the amber streetlight and the filtered green. That tension is mine. It is the foundation of everything you will find here.
The Forest of God's Answers is my parent brand, the ecosystem where all my creative work lives under one canopy. Film. Retail. Community. Everything I build grows from the same root. I named it for the meaning of my first name, Eliyannah, because I wanted a place where the answered prayers could grow into something larger than any single project or product.
I am a city girl sitting and wandering in the forest of my creativity. That is the truest thing I can tell you about who I am and how I work. I stay close to the ground. I pay attention. I make things slowly, with my hands and with people I trust. And I build from Chicago, always.
This is the reading room. Everything written from the forest lives here: the taproot newsletter, cultural essays, spotlights on the work. The archive grows slowly and deliberately. Nothing is rushed into print.
A Foremother's Brand is the retail copse of the forest, a family of brands, each named after one of my foremothers. Vintage, luxury, and legacy-forward: handbags, accessories, stationery, event goods, and more. The commerce comes later. The names come first.
Commerce follows culture. The brands are building, slowly and deliberately, with craft at the center. When they are ready to receive you, you will know.
The Forest of God's Answers holds three divisions, each one a different expression of the same creative root. They are not separate companies. They are the same forest breathing through different openings.
Original Film · Theater · Television · YouTube
The first business, and the one that started everything. Named for two words in a single text message: the sunshine you bring into every room, and the moxie that makes people stop and pay attention. Original film and motion picture production rooted in Chicago. High art Black cinema, live theater, and television. Currently in development: The Caterpillar and the Butterfly, my debut feature film. Spring 2027 shoot.
Legacy Goods · Luxury · Heritage Retail
A family of retail brands, each named after one of my foremothers. Vintage, luxury, and legacy-forward: handbags, accessories, stationery, and event goods. Every product carries a name that was carried before me. The lineage is the design principle.
Community · Cultural Festivals · Education · Creative Infrastructure
The fire circle. The gathering. Community organizations, cultural festivals, maker guilds, and creative education. The work of building thriving creative communities, in Chicago first and in every city that needs a clearing in the forest. Something institutional is taking root here: a long-term creative infrastructure project, owned by its makers and rooted in community. It will announce itself when it's ready. 2028.
The Bower is a cultural reading room deep in the forest, a place to hold the books, films, and ideas that are alive in this work right now. What I am taking in, what is shaping the films and the writing, what deserves to be named. It fills as the forest grows.
This room fills as the forest grows. Check back as seasons change and the work accumulates.
The reading that is shaping the essays, the films, and the decisions being made right now.
What the forest sounds like right now. Updated with each letter.
The full Bower opens with the archive at theforestofgodsanswers.com
"Wander where the wonderings grow."
Once a month, I write a letter about the work, the city, the things I'm building and the things I'm learning. It comes from the forest, and it finds you wherever you are. If you want to stay close to this work, this is the way.
Join the ForestersA letter. Monthly. Unsubscribe whenever you need to.