PAINTING
SOLASTALGIA
Solastalgia began as a tribute to seven endangered species on seven continents, but as the series evolved, so did the breadth of this body of work, which continues today. The poem by Alice Major, and subsequent journal entry, is the point of inspiration for this series.
Now, welcome to the Anthropocene,
You battered, tilting globe. Still, you gleam,
a blue pearl on the necklace of the planets.
This home. Clouds, oceans, life forms span it
from pole to pole, within a peel of air
as thin as lace lapped round an apple. Fair
and fragile bounded sphere, yet strangely tough -
this world that life could never love enough…
- Alice Major
I wake early each morning to savor the sky as the sun rises from the cobalt darkness – it is a new day. In this sacred moment, when my heart meets the sky, I recite, “Today I am awake. Thank you for another day.” I take in the blending hues of canary-yellow and rose-madder and listen to the cacophony of birdsong coming from the Western Sycamore trees dotting the carefully manicured landscape. In the distance, fast-moving cars contact the well-worn asphalt, filling the air with a sporadic whoosh. I wonder. Did they hear the morning song or notice the winter sunrise? Was time running short? Did they miss it?
Of late, my mind is on Gaia and her righteous indignation with the globe’s destroyers, with their arrogance and cruelty, who heed warning after warning that we are ecologically adrift. Her fury speaks through the air, water, earth, and fire as she reclaims the wild things, one species at a time.
Some refer to this epoch as the Anthropocene, a period of evolution when human activity becomes the dominant influence over the natural world, when the birdsong may sing no more. Did truth elude us? Did we consume enough? Where do we go from here? Perhaps, if we return to the drawing board, we can begin again.
STICKS + STONES
In Sticks and Stones, the deconstruction of failed bonds reflecting a reckoning of broken promises and a period of personal reconstruction. It is rooted in the visual narrative, using symbols as metaphors to express the human experience of love, loss, and the pursuit of self-awareness. It is a dance with the intimate and universal themes pulling back the layers of life’s constructive and deconstructive nature. The work is linked to the tradition of Western painting and the role of the female form defined within it: Venus, the Virgin, and Mother Nature. The transitory nature of life demands that we continue to evolve, morph, release, and celebrate our gains while transforming our losses. It is through these visual puzzles that a new equilibrium is formed.
