E. F. Schumacher
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.
E. F. Schumacher
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Ordinary Heartbreak
She climbs easily on the box That seats her above the swivel chair At adult height, crosses her legs, left ankle over right, Smoothes the plastic apron over her lap While the beautician lifts her ponytail and laughs, “This is coarse as a horse’s tail.” And then as if that’s all there is to say, The woman at once whacks off and tosses its foot and a half into the trash. And the little girl who didn’t want her hair cut, But long ago learned successfully how not to say What it is she wants, Who, even at this minute cannot quite grasp her shock and grief, Is getting her hair cut. “For convenience,” her mother put it. The long waves gone that had been evidence at night, When loosened from their clasp, She might secretly be a princess. Rather than cry out, she grips her own wrist And looks to her mother in the mirror. But her mother is too polite, or too reserved, So the girl herself takes up indifference, While pain follows a hidden channel to a deep place Almost unknown in her, Convinced as she is, that her own emotions are not the ones her life depends on, She shifts her gaze from her mother’s face Back to the haircut now, So steadily as if this short-haired child were someone else. ~ David Levine ~ "Until the late twentieth century, every generation throughout history lived with the tacit certainty that there would be generations to follow. Each assumed, without questioning, that its children and children's children would walk the same Earth, under the same sky…" Joanna Macy
… And now…? Watercolour & gouache on balsa "For three years he had been planting trees in this wilderness. He had planted one hundred thousand. Of the hundred thousand, twenty thousand had sprouted. Of the twenty thousand he sill expected to lose about half, to rodents or the unpredictable designs of Providence. There remained ten thousand oak trees to grow where nothing had grown before." The Man Who Planted Trees, Jean Giono.
"…one might pause to consider the possibility of a considerable unbalance in natural conditions should these great tropical forests be depleted…"
Colour etching, poupée printed by (the incredibly talented) Andrea Leigh.
Watercolour, gouache & pencil on balsa panel.
Arousing our connection to the *sacred in the mundane* speaks to our highest levels of responsibility. In my work, I explore my sense of wonder and awe at the natural environment. So many of the processes that are essential to life are invisible to the naked eye. I was jogging along the beach and felt a sharp pain. This baby leather jacket got stuck in my foot, & later became this mini-sculpture.
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