There doesn’t seem to be any point in painting pretty pictures anymore, when humanity is on the cusp of annihilating itself. It seems that even the covid plague did not instil enough fear into our bosom to actually change our direction in regards to Mother Nature and the devastating way we have been treating her.
Artists who persist in losing themselves in pretty pictures are really ostriches hiding their heads in the sand while their whole backside lays exposed to the elements.
There have been many plagues and wars in history, but none as devastating as what is happening now at our own intelligent hands. While demonstrating our brilliant technological prowess in making humans comfortable in their homes and workplaces, helping them to amass money and endless stuff, and travel to the ends of the world, we have in fact destroyed life on earth, the very essence of what sustains us, air, water and food. Air is permanently polluted by cars and industry, animal factories torture the poor animals we then consume and chemical pesticides are sprayed by planes to all fields. I doubt organic farming near regular farms is truly free of them. The fish in the oceans and lakes are choking from our artificially produced toxins and thousand-year-old trees are crying out when axed.
As artists we are not innocent in this complicity with the naive assumption that if we create beauty (decoratively speaking) we are enriching people’s lives. But are we really? When all around us people, animals and plants are suffering, should we just bury ourselves in our canvasses and ignore the world?
Alas we can not return to life in caves and tents, but we can return to our spiritual source to discover what path we need to travel at this precarious juncture.
As artists we have an obligation to be aware of the injustices in the world and aid people in returning to their source for answers.
We need to get our heads out of the aesthetic sand and look reality in the face and act by showing it to others on our canvasses and screens and platforms. We are nearing the eleventh Hour.
Artists who persist in losing themselves in pretty pictures are really ostriches hiding their heads in the sand while their whole backside lays exposed to the elements.
There have been many plagues and wars in history, but none as devastating as what is happening now at our own intelligent hands. While demonstrating our brilliant technological prowess in making humans comfortable in their homes and workplaces, helping them to amass money and endless stuff, and travel to the ends of the world, we have in fact destroyed life on earth, the very essence of what sustains us, air, water and food. Air is permanently polluted by cars and industry, animal factories torture the poor animals we then consume and chemical pesticides are sprayed by planes to all fields. I doubt organic farming near regular farms is truly free of them. The fish in the oceans and lakes are choking from our artificially produced toxins and thousand-year-old trees are crying out when axed.
As artists we are not innocent in this complicity with the naive assumption that if we create beauty (decoratively speaking) we are enriching people’s lives. But are we really? When all around us people, animals and plants are suffering, should we just bury ourselves in our canvasses and ignore the world?
Alas we can not return to life in caves and tents, but we can return to our spiritual source to discover what path we need to travel at this precarious juncture.
As artists we have an obligation to be aware of the injustices in the world and aid people in returning to their source for answers.
We need to get our heads out of the aesthetic sand and look reality in the face and act by showing it to others on our canvasses and screens and platforms. We are nearing the eleventh Hour.
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