"The Image is not an idea. It is a radiant node or cluster; it is what I can, and must perforce, call a VORTEX, from which, and through which, and into which, ideas are constantly rushing." Ezra Pound
Prema, watercolour and pencil, 2018 "In Faraday’s day there did not yet exist the dull specialization that stares with self-conceit through horn-rimmed glasses and destroys poetry". Allbert Eistein ~ letter to Gertrude Warschaeuer Bureacrats, politicians, and academia often use the language of the machine, and not the human. Is it to obfuscate? To confuse? To refuse responsibility? To control? I understand that in law and science clarity is required, and perhaps a certain machine-like logic needs to be employed. But I wonder, can we not use emotion to gain clarity and communicate that, thus keeping a human-scaled focus in all areas of life? What is gained and what is lost by the expression and repression of emotion…follow the money…
"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right". Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ Nature
"Canada [fill in the blank], the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money". Alanis Obomsawin I am made to love the pond and the meadow, as the wind is made to ripple the water. Henry David Thoreau
Further, in our association with indigenous peoples, we began to appreciate the profound sense of realism they manifested in their ritual communion of the human soul with the deeper powers of the universe. In these earlier cultures, the universe was experienced primarily as a presence to be communed with and instructed by, not a collection of natural resources to be used for utilitarian purposes. The winds, the mountains, the soaring birds, the wildlife roaming the forests, the stars splashed across the heavens in the dark of night: these were all communicating the deepest experiences that humans would ever know. The inner life of humans, the joy and exaltation we experience in celebrating our place in the great community of existence, these depended on our experience of a universe that provides us with both our physical and our spiritual nourishment. All this was recognized as the world of soul. Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. Albert Einstein
You must have faith. Walking through the woods, you often come across owl pellets . . . When you find one of these, you know an owl is sitting on a branch over your head, looking down at you. You may be overcome by the urge to look up and see the owl for yourself. But the moment you give in and look up, the owl will fly away. I trust the owl is up there and continue on my way. This way, the forest avoids a small disturbance and maintains its peace. Trusting an animal is there by looking at its traces rather than pursuing the animal itself: this is faith in nature. The Great Soul of Siberia ∞ Sooyong Park
We talk about health as a possession, something you have and are responsible for maintaining. But I see our health as like a tripod, a dynamic thing: One leg is your relationship with all other human beings. It’s not possible for you to be healthy when there are people living under a freeway overpass in cardboard boxes. Your health is dependent on theirs. The second leg is your relationship with all in the world that’s not human. If you have only these two legs, you can try to live a good life, but it’s like walking on stilts. The third leg is what gives you a place to rest, and that leg is your relationship with the unseen world, everything not described by the other two. Having all three constitutes health. That’s where it lives. This tripod sustains you. You don’t exist as an individual without these relationships. Stephen Jenkinson
A plague has stricken the moths, the moths are dying Their bodies are flakes of bronze on the carpets lying Enemies of the delicate everywhere Have breathed a pestilent mist into the air. Emilie Conrad ∞ Life on Land
…it appears to some like a star or a cluster of gems or a cluster of pearls, to others with a rough touch like that of silk-cotton seeds or a peg made of heartwood, to others like a long braid string or a wreath of flowers or a puff of smoke, to others like a stretched-out cobweb or a film of cloud or a lotus flower or a chariot wheel or the moon's disk or the sun's disk… Visuddhimagga VIII 215
My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” ∞ Hermann Hesse ∞ Steppenwolf
I used to worry a bit that to be drawing a dragonfly, or magnified fish scale as I sat by a remote river was perhaps an irrelevant, even escapist activity. What is the significance or relevance of a gentle curiosity about creatures which live in air, mud and sand in a world of increasing famine, new wars and continuing ecological suicide? I realise more now that the apparently subtle manifestations of nature - “the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves”, or the choreography of walking birds on a estuarine mud flat are all a most significant measure of the state of the world. You could say that the stains on the trunk of the Mangrove tree, while drawn in an understated way with subtle nuances, are hinting at much larger forces. I hope that kind of understatement could be strongly effective when it is linked to the huge movements of tides - and the dramatic changes which will happen to billions of people whose land would be swamped as a result of global warming. I like to think that “my bits of paper with marks on them: - my works - are directly connected to the physical world where they were made. Just as the creatures of the natural world are “the canaries in the mine” so also I would like my bits of paper to be seen as Litmus papers. Litmus, which absorbs the nuances of air, or water, or honey, or the tracks of hermit crabs.’ John Wolselely, 1991 Watercolour, gouache, white ink, and pencil on balsa panels As earth-bound creatures we tend to be terra-centric, but our planet is almost two-thirds water; much of it marine. Marine health is crucial to the health of our whole planet, however in the process of absorbing all the carbon we produce, the oceans are becoming dangerously acidified.
Watercolour, gouache, pencil, plastic, & glass beads on balsa In thinking about our mother, Gaia, we shape what happens next, with each small decision we make now.
Watercolour, gouache, white ink, pencil on balsa Expressing my passion for, and concern about the health of our marine environment; site of unmitigated wonder…
Plant biology text-book, pencil, tea bags, gouache, watercolour, & collage
All traces disappear with time. The wind removes them, the rain washes them away, and the snow covers all. The cleaning crew of the forest takes apart the carcasses of living things, and time silently erases everything, including the traces of seasons … Traces are physical things that sometimes have spiritual properties that reverberate in our souls. And so the traces I find always remain in my heart. Sooyong Park, The Great Soul of Siberia Burnt & torn paper, collage, pencil, watercolour
"Klee's repeated insistence that the ultimate form of a work is not as important as the process leading to it … proposes that the wellspring of human and natural creation are essentially one…" Anni Albers Knitted copper wire, Bohemia glass beads, stitching, & collage on gouache-painted balsa.
The solutions to the changing climate, although in the news frequently, do not seem to be easy for most people to contemplate. Part of the problem with getting people to engage with climate change is that it exists mainly as an idea that comes to us through science, and many people hold the communications of science at a remove from their everyday lives. Climate change is not yet integrated into our society culturally, through the arts. Engaging with climate change through art gives us a chance to bring this topic into an accessible, human-scaled arena. |
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