Environmental Hazards

"Redline", 12" x 12" acrylic on canvas

Although we don’t have children, it sometimes feels like we’re living with them- based on the state of our lawn, that is. We live across from an elementary school, and are smack in the prime parking zone, which means all assortment of sundries make it on to our struggling grass. From candy wrappers to book reports and diapers to empty cigarette packs, it’s obvious that both parents and munchkins find our home to be an irresistible trash lot. So I’ll admit that I snickered gleefully from my studio today when these minions of mess were trapped in torrential downpours- which mother nature perfectly timed just for my viewing enjoyment at both drop-off and pick-up slots.

Detail shot; texture achieved by pressing yarn into thick wet gesso, which I later sanded and applied watercolor and paint to.

At the same time, with the wacky weather pummeling the entire country, I can’t help but be concerned about the unseen environmental hazards mixed in with the tornado warnings. Who knows how much radiation is present in our rainwater or is making its way over in the Pacific Ocean, thanks to the convenient shutdown of EPA testing. Of course, actual testing of the rainwater, soil or our own blood would reveal unnaturally high levels of heavy metals like aluminum, strontium and barium thanks to chemtrail spraying.

"Roil", 12" x 12" acrylic on canvas

Meanwhile, the oil companies are broadcasting touchy-feely commercials about how great they are making our lives by harvesting natural gas (of course, little emphasis is put on the pollution of groundwater and soil from the fracking process). Monsanto continues to hide GMO failures and contaminate organic farming plots while pushing their aluminum-resistant seeds (see a trend here?), and it makes me imagine our lands as future barren dust fields. It was these apocalyptic contemplations that inspired these landscapes.

Detail shot; hard to see, but there's a glowy green yellow color on the horizon

The good news is that more and more people are informing themselves, and you can too. If you think these risks are worth doing something about, take action! There are oodles of terrific documentaries available through Netflix and the internet on all of these issues. Want to get started? Check out this documentary on fracking (Gasland by Josh Fox), these websites about Chemtrails (this one focuses on how to take action in Northern California), sign this petition to reinstate EPA testing of Fukushima radiation or add The World According to Monsanto to your Netflix queue.

Please note that I don’t aim to push an agenda on to anyone, and respect everyone’s right to their own opinion about the state of things. From time to time, I do like to share how I feel and what I’m researching as both context for my artmaking at that time and for the sake of communicating things I think are important. Thank you for reading!

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