Jihad of Reason
I have just finished reading the Sept 1 edition of The New Yorker, which has several remarkable articles of Islamism. That followed on the heels of reading in Maine Biz, about how Maine is becoming a beehive of activity for alternative energy solutions because we have no oil reserves.
The New Yorker presents two alternate stark visions. In one, fundamentalist Sharia overcomes the world. In the other, after bloody and miserable failure, a secular compromise is reached based on reinventing the Koran, as proposed by Mahmoud Muhammed Taha. In either case, Israel may be the incidental sacrificial lamb and the environment is not even on the radar. Take your bets on other winners & losers.
What is relevant to a discussion of ecological art, is the premise that clear analytic thinking prevails in the end. But in the short term, much may be lost.
It then comes to those of us who have a Vision for Ecological Art and it's relationship to sustainable resources, whether in Maine or anyplace else, to carefully focus on articulating and communicating that Vision, without any expectation of success, perhaps, in our lifetimes.
My own Vision for that is grounded in the examples of Leonardo Da Vinci, Indigenous Peoples world wide and a sprinkling of Western thinkers, as, Paul Hawken on economics. Those examples, in the face of despair, unite disciplines to observe with care what the true options might be.
Today's observation came to me as I was completing my painting of the map of the Gulf of Maine. In that map, water merges with land as ice melts, cities become inchoate swirls of gold and the seas are dizzying. In that, the land ultimately finds its own stable state, with or without us.
As I walked back up the hill from my studio, considering what the map told me, my elderly dog happily hobbling along behind me, I stopped to cut back the spent raspberry branches and pick a few of the last blueberries. There will still be plenty for the birds this Fall. The garden is flush with fruit.
The New Yorker presents two alternate stark visions. In one, fundamentalist Sharia overcomes the world. In the other, after bloody and miserable failure, a secular compromise is reached based on reinventing the Koran, as proposed by Mahmoud Muhammed Taha. In either case, Israel may be the incidental sacrificial lamb and the environment is not even on the radar. Take your bets on other winners & losers.
What is relevant to a discussion of ecological art, is the premise that clear analytic thinking prevails in the end. But in the short term, much may be lost.
It then comes to those of us who have a Vision for Ecological Art and it's relationship to sustainable resources, whether in Maine or anyplace else, to carefully focus on articulating and communicating that Vision, without any expectation of success, perhaps, in our lifetimes.
My own Vision for that is grounded in the examples of Leonardo Da Vinci, Indigenous Peoples world wide and a sprinkling of Western thinkers, as, Paul Hawken on economics. Those examples, in the face of despair, unite disciplines to observe with care what the true options might be.
Today's observation came to me as I was completing my painting of the map of the Gulf of Maine. In that map, water merges with land as ice melts, cities become inchoate swirls of gold and the seas are dizzying. In that, the land ultimately finds its own stable state, with or without us.
As I walked back up the hill from my studio, considering what the map told me, my elderly dog happily hobbling along behind me, I stopped to cut back the spent raspberry branches and pick a few of the last blueberries. There will still be plenty for the birds this Fall. The garden is flush with fruit.
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