Letters to the Earth: Between Despair and Hope Project Journal/Portfolio

Carmel Brennan

ISBN 978-0-9865184-3-0

Copyright ©2022 Carmel Brennan

Publisher: Carmel Brennan

Copy Editor: Lillian Michiko Blakey

Graphic Design: Carmel Brennan

No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. Permission for the use of photographs, poetry or essays was given by the artists for use in this publication; each artist owns copyright to the photographs of his or her own art.

To contact the Publisher, email: carmel@letterstoearth.ca Website: https://letterstoearth.ca

Cover background image: Enlargement of handwritten letter from Sharron Corrigan Forrest

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

INTRODUCTION

My journal began as a record of daily activity, thoughts and emotions that I experienced with this Masters program. I chose to establish a focus for my final project for this course. I knew I could not continue The McGuffin Project at this time, because I was distracted by the attention being brought to environmental issues and the climate crisis..

I was really disturbed by the whole concept of the warming planet. I was thinking about doing time lapse photography of ice melting, using my macro lens. Imagine a dark background with a block of ice melting slowly until all that is black.

Describing the emotion I experienced with extremes of the environment, from the desertlike conditions I had experienced to flooded washouts across Arizona, I created a photograph called, Something Insubstantial. I used a section of a poem by Lao Tzu to describe the sinister reality I sensed: The softest stuff in the world penetrates quickly the hardest. Insubstantial, it enters where no room is.

Melting ice, flooding, disasters that are happening around the world - they haunt me. And then in October we heard the news about the floods and mudslides on the east and west coasts of Canada. On the west coast, flooding disasters came only months after so much had been destroyed by wildfires. One disaster after another haunted me!

Gradually, with the sudden immediacy of the first assignment deadline for the Art and Environment module, I began to narrow my

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

focus to a theme in which I could be passionately attached. The project, Letters to the Earth began to invade my thoughts.

At times, I am overwhelmed by the realization that this is a major venture, and that the occasional insecurity is more than I can handle. And I look at the responses and the conversations and the desires of so many to participate.

The notes are a record of changes that are made by artists in their process. For example: samples of Lillian Michiko Blakey’s process in developing her first artwork for the project demonstrates her change from the use of plastic s to using non-biodegradable materials.

I am fully aware that this is a large submission for evaluation. And I realize it is not a “pretty” journal. But it is important. The conversations tracked are part of the thought process and practical development of the project. This journal is my documentation.

Carmel Brennan: Photograph of finds in The McGuffin Dig.

In The Beginning...I acted on impulse

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan- Pandemic Ending at Dusk - Photography

My wake-up call

How about this conversation?

Let’s talk about Orange Slice and Runt who taught me a little bit about climate change and what happens to them when the seas get too warm.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan - Orange Slice and Runt - Photography 2021

PROLOGUE:

It was summer of 2021. I walked out to my deck on a hot muggy morning. Two of my six koi fish were gasping for air, heads out of the water. The power had surged in the night and the pump motor seized. I was helpless to save them. I restarted the pump, a futile effort because within minutes, three, of my two-pound koi, were dead. I was shocked. This is a large suburban five-foot deep, pond! I had never had an issue like this before. With research, I discovered that a rise in temperature reduces the dissolved oxygen in water. Six large koi would be considered overcrowding in the space of my pond. My safe world no longer seemed secure.

There are almost 8 billion people in the world today. My question is, how can this planet sustain itself?

My goal when initiating this project, Letters to the Earth: Between Despair and Hope, was to learn as much as I could about ecology and issues regarding the environment and the politics and policies around that subject. Like the project itself, this is an overwhelming task. I am not a scientist, nor am I a politician, and do not intend to move in those directions. My passion is the creative arts. As an artist, I asked myself the question, “What can I do about the future of the environment?” Being inexperienced, I searched for answers in literature, journals, videos and presentations. I read through literature, articles and documentaries produced over the last 20 years to examine the findings and hopefully gain some of the solutions for delivering my final environmental project. Initially my environmentalal focus was water. Water has been an ongoing theme in much of my artwork. I love to take photographs after a rainfall on the surface of my pond or, capture an image of rain droplets on an old tarp. Water is crucial to human existence. Gradually, my environmental focus broadened and I looked at everything I do, we do, and see that the society I live in is the cause of climate change. We want so much and we want it now. If we are to survive we must change the way we live.

CarmEl BrENNaN

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

THE PROJECT:

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

We individuals have to do something now. The time for action is now. Recognition of the current crisis in the environment is needed for all of us to act. Together, we creative artists can make a mark.

THE PROCESS:

• A letter of invitation to artists and writers was sent. More than 60 participants are now committed.

• Indigenous community leaders around Newmarket, Aurora and Sutton, Ontario have expressed support. Their leadership is important in order to help us direct the focus.

• An extremely positive response was received from the directors of several galleries, province wide.

• More invitations have sent, as one artist or writer would suggest another. The number of participants is increasing weekly.

• We have six Exhibitions confirmed for 2023 and two confirmed for 2024.

• Sponsorship from corporations who are exploring renewable energy resources is welcomed.

• A catalogue of letters and images and essays and poetry is in the works

• A Canadian website: letterstoearth.ca, is now constructed and will soon be linked to international movements.

THE COMMITTEE:

Project Director:Carmel Brennan, (Canada) Artist/Educator/Curator/Coordinator

• Jan Beaver, (Canada) Anishinaabe -Alderville First Nation, Environmental Biologist/Educator/ Writer/Performer/ StoryTeller

• Diana Bennett (Canada) Artist/Educator

• Lillian Michiko Blakey, (Canada) Artist/Educator/Writer/ Environmental/Anti-Racism Activist

• Aileen Ogilvie (Scotland) Artist/Singer/Songwriter Grazyna Tonkiel (Canada) Artist/Curator/Opera singer/Conservationist

• Susan Torrance (United Kingdom) Order of the British Empire, Social Justice Activist, Artist, Highland Cattle Breeder

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

EXHIBITION SPACES:

2023

1. RogArt Campus, Rogart St, Bridgeton, Glasgow G40 2QF, United Kingdom-(May 1 to May 29,2023)

2.The Rogart Mart, East Sutherland, The Highlands, UK

3. Aurora Public Library 15145 Yonge Street Aurora, ON L4G 1M1

4. Georgina Arts Centre & Gallery,149 High St, Sutton, ON (May/ June 2023)

5. Aurora Cultural Centre ,100 John West Way, Aurora, ON L4G 6J1 (June 3- August 26th,2023)

6. Old Town Hall Gallery, 460 Botsford St, Newmarket, ON L3Y 1T1 main level galleries – August & September & upstairs auditorium for Presentations

7. The Station Gallery 1450 Henry Street, Whitby, Ontario, Canada L1N 0A8 (October & November)

2024

8. You Me Gallery, 330 James St N, Hamilton, ON (2024)

9.105 Gibson Centre, 105 Gibson Drive, Markham, ON L3R 3K7

10. Orillia Museum of Art and History, 30 Peter Street South, Orillia, ON Requested

COLLABORATIONS:

Phil Fung, Professional Engineer and Designated Consulting Engineer (Energy and Sustainability)

• Nature Harmony a non-profit organization run by Phil Fung

• HiGarden Phil Fung’s Business Culture Declares Emergency (Letter to the Earth, UK)

105 Gibson Centre : mission to be good neighbours who provide hope in God, transforming people

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

by building an inclusive, caring and engaged community together with local partners.

Bee City Canada : mission is to inspire cities, towns, First Nations, schools, businesses and other organizations to take action to protect pollinators.

Your Leaf : mission is to grow and sustain the urban forest by providing quality services and programs that engage communities.

Aurora Cultural Centre : mission is as a cultural leader we bring vitality to the heart of Aurora through: excellent and innovative professional visual and performing arts programs and educational opportunities; opportunities for meaningful social interactions and artistic community arts programs in our welcoming and inspiring venue and beyond, and inclusivity by reaching out into our diverse community, recognizing that the arts are both universal and unifying.

Old Town Hall, Newmarket: offering Canadian exhibition

The Station Gallery, Whitby: offering Canadian exhibition

RogArt Street Campus, Glasgow Scottish exhibition

The University of the Highlands and Islands Supporting Scottish exhibitions

LEGACY OF THIS PROJECT:

There is much diversity among the individual participants, in language, identity, disciplines, media and output: artists, writers, poets, Order of Canada recipients, Governor General’s Award winners in Visual Arts, Queen’s Jubilee Award recipients, environmental scientists, university professors, artists in education, performers and Indigenous communities across the province. Most participants reside in Canada but there are several from the UK and the USA. There is so much potential to share experiences and learn from each other. I am working on a catalogue. We will be connecting with educational institutions and our connections to these institutions is extremely important for the future.

The arts are the major highway needed to address this climate crisis. Attached is an important piece written by one of our participants, Bryce Kanbara, winner of the Winner of 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts, reminding us about what the arts bring to our daily lives.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

What Will the Arts Bring?

“What will the arts bring to economic development?”

(“What will the arts bring to the table?”)

(“What will the arts bring to the equation?”)

(“What will the arts bring to the party?”)

The arts always bring.

The arts bring humanity to an inhumane world.

The arts bring a mirror to our triumphs and our failures, the best in us and the worst.

The arts bring a good hard look. The arts bring solace.

The arts bring a call for action.

The arts bring delight.

The arts bring condolence to unbearable grief.

The arts bring us face to face with the profoundest feelings we know.

The arts bring us a slice of life.

The arts bring hope for better.

The arts bring beauty.

The arts bring a yearning for more than the daily grind.

The arts bring glimpses of the divine.

The arts bring a forgiveness of sins.

The arts bring joy.

The arts bring the discovery of a world sprung fresh from the Word.

The arts bring to light the mystery of being here all together and alone.

The arts bring an all-of-a-sudden fast avenue to the dreams of our ancestors.

The arts bring illumination

What will everything else bring to the arts?

If you love the arts, nurture them.

*Reproduced with the permission of Bryce Kanbara

COLLABORATIONS:

Dear Reader;

My inspiration in the direction of Letters to the Earth: Between Despair and Hope.

October 19th, 2022

Helen &Newton Harrison (https://theharrisonstudio.net) were an amazing couple. They were pioneers of the

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

eco-art movement, and worked for almost forty years with biologists, ecologists, architects, urban planners and other artists to initiate collaborative dialogues to uncover ideas and solutions which support biodiversity and community development.

The Harrisons have been addressing ecology worldwide for over 40 years collaborating with a wide variety of specialists in various disciplines. Unfortunately, Helen died in 2018 and Newton just last month, however, the potential of their legacy is something for us to explore.

As a group we are almost 70 creative participants in this project, from all walks of life. We have potential as a community to work together in the coming years. How can we explore creative projects that will, as the Harrisons did “challenge the short-term, profit driven response with what they call the other answer: that in the long term it’s far more costly to destroy your total ecology.” Grant Kester in Conversation Pieces says that collaborations heighten “the capacity to create forms images and metaphors that can transmit the implications to viewers in a compelling or persuasive manner so that literally they (viewers) see the problem differently” (2004:66)

How can we make our activities and our creative work really have an impact today? I need your feedback.

November 1,2022

Dear friends of the earth, Janet Laurence is one of my favourite inspirational artists. Last year she inspired me to insert the subtitle into our Letters to The Earth project: Between Despair and Hope. She has been addressing the climate crisis and had nature on life support for over 30 years. In an interview she was asked how she felt about the future. She said she was caught between despair and hope! Check out her website and look at her installations around the world.

Janet Laurence is a leading Sydney-based artist who exhibits nationally and internationally. Her practice examines our physical, cultural and conflicting relationship to the natural world. She creates immersive environments that navigate the interconnections between organic elements and systems of nature. Within the recognized threat of climate change she explores what it might mean to heal, the natural environment, fusing this with a sense of communal loss and search for connection with powerful life-forces. Her work is included in museum, university, corporate and private collections as well as within architectural and landscaped public places. (from her website)

Please comment and tell me how you are addressing climate crisis in your work.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Our website needs your input. Just send your submissions to carmel@letterstoearth.ca Do please keep sending me your handwritten letters in the mail.

Carmel

SAMPLE PROPOSAL FOR COLLABORATION: CLEARWATER FARMS (GEORGIANA)

The following is my proposal, focussing on Clearwater’s interest in food production and saving our Lake Simcoe waters:

My name is Carmel Brennan; I am the organizer of the LETTERS TO THE EARTH:

DESPAIR project.

BETWEEN HOPE AND

I know that you support raising awareness about environmental issues which are threatening our lives globally. The LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE initiative, is scheduled to be launched in several Ontario art galleries and community centres, as well as in galleries in the United Kingdom,in 2023/2024. I thought that Clearwater Farms might be interested in collaborating with us. The solution to self-sustained food production outlined below will be featured in the many exhibitions.

Due to the alarming rate of climate destruction worldwide which is making food production very unstable and unpredictable, as well as the huge rising cost and environmental damage caused by transporting food long distances through the use of fossil fuels, I feel that we must find pro-active solutions to food production that do not rely on enormous tracts of land. As food prices escalate, we must find ways of producing good quality food locally all year round. This is especially crucial for marginalized communities living in low-rental housing.

Developers must be held accountable for providing minimal indoor space for this particular indoor vertical garden helps people with healthy, natural food alternatives in their own buildings. The green space would also provide an eco-system which would also benefit mental and physical health in general.

I met Phil Fung, a brilliant Professional Engineer and Designated Consulting Engineer (Energy and Sustainability) in Ontario, Canada. The vertical garden is available for viewing at 105 Gibson Centre, one of the locations where our art exhibition on the Environmental crisis will take place.

Phil holds several professional designations including LEED Accredited Professional, Certified Sustainable Building Advisor, Certified Energy Manager, and Certified Building Commissioning Professional. His areas of expertise are energy efficient and sustainable buildings design, biomimetic and biophilic buildings design, energy modelling, and LEED certification management.

In 2012, Phil accepted the part-time professorship at Humber College teaching Sustainable Buildings Design, Bio-Inspired Buildings design, and Energy Modelling.

Phil developed a vision in design and develop an affordable, self-sustaining, and regenerative Multi-Unit Residential building. He designed and applied for patent of his Vertical Indoor Aquatic Ecosystem – Vertical Indoor Garden (VIGA™)

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

– in early 2014 which was based on biomimetic, biophilic, and bio-synergistic design principles. In 2019, Phil established BioRegenerative Design Research Center to provide nature-inspired regenerative design research and development for buildings. His overarching design principle is “Buildings like the forest ecosystems.”

He has two initiatives, Nature Harmony, a non-profit organization, and his business/company, HiGarden, both in Markham, Ontario.

Nature Harmony is more focused on Education/nature-based learning. Higarden provides an innovative model for year-round food production which mirrors the natural environment. Safe food production could create self-sustainable communities.

Here are some of the reasons for creating sustainable food production using Phil’s model of vertical gardening featuring a combination aquaponics, hydroponics and natural soil production, which makes this vertical garden very different from all other vertical gardens:

• Focus away from imports which must be shipped and pollute the environment through fossil fuel use and preservatives, to local self-sustainable food production

• Focus away from destructive farming systems that endanger people and species every day.

• No use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides which kill millions of animals and insects which are necessary for biodiversity

• With climate crisis, farming on large tracts of land is becoming unpredictable. This system operates indoors and provided fresh vegetables year-round.

• Employs natural solutions to turn waste into useful outputs

Brampton is conducting a pilot program and the town of Milton is creating a full-scale operation which will be completed soon.

I do think that we must look to the future before the rising cost of food becomes astronomical for most of the people in the world. Even here, in Canada. In the long run, Phil Fung is developing a way to allow us to sustain ourselves in our own backyard through the replication of natural processes, rather than dependence of chemicals to grow food which will definitely promote health and well-being.

Yours Sincerely,

Carmel Brennan

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

THE WRITING ROOM

Writing is an important aspect of this project and especially cursive writing. It slows us down. At each event we will have a space allotted as a writing room, much like Michal McGuffin’s writing room on his ocean voyage. We will ask viewers to write their own letter to the earth. We are also asking children in schools to write letters and create artwork.

ENGAGING YOUTH AND THE COMMUNITY IN THE LETTERS TO EARTH PROJECT

1. Youth Engagement: Outreach to the 6 First Nation communities in the Ogemawahj Tribal Council (OTC) territory in spring of 2022; Georgina Island, Scugog, Mnjikaning (Rama), Alderville, Beausoleil and Moose Deer Point to engage students (elementary and secondary) from the OTC communities to contribute artwork and/or letters as part of Letters to Earth Project. This could be done through the Education Advisor, Marsha Shilling at OTC in the spring of 2022. It could tie in nicely around Earth Day, April, 2023 or National Indigenous Peoples Day on June, 23.

2. Community Involvement: During the actual exhibitions at each gallery site (on different dates so that Jan Beaver could be present to help facilitate), she could lead an interactive activity to engage all people attending the exhibition in each location by presenting a brief talk about the circle or medicine wheel and the relationship between Earth and the human family. The medicine wheel is part of many different Indigenous nations’ teachings here on Turtle Island (North America). The medicine wheel is a very inclusive teaching that encompasses all of the human family. Once this talk is complete, participants will be asked to do a painting on a small river stone. This could be an image or words that reflect each person’s love and thoughts to Mother Earth. These could be culturally based images or words in English or in the language from each person’s unique cultural background or

country of origin if they were born somewhere other than Canada. This would provide a springboard to bring communities from various countries of origin, including Canada, together in unity. This is in keeping with the overall objectives of the Letters to Mother Earth Project.

3. Circle of Life Interactive Reflection Garden: Lillian Blakey had some excellent ideas around the possibility of creating a community garden, in the area.There has been groundwork already done with Logan Bales, former Curator of the Old Town Hall Gallery, the Town of Newmarket as well as staff in the York Region District School Board. The Town was supportive of the project until Covid changed the situation. The installation will be reactivated and pursued after the completion of the Letters to Earth project, with the idea of planting a central tree, representing the Tree of Life in this garden. Around that tree could be placed a large circle of all of the stones painted as part of the Letter to Earth project. Many other things could be done in the community garden as well after seeking input from the communities within York region and First Nation people living in the area as well as Georgina Island First Nation community.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

THE GALLERY:

The following works represent my own reflections in response to my thoughts about the environment.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan A Clear Cut Photography 12 x 16 inches

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan The Dissolving Northland Oil & Cold Wax on Canvas 24 x 24 inches 2021

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan The Uninhabitable Earth Encaustic on Wooden cradle with Inks 24 x 24 inches each panel 2022

I did these two paintings in the spring of 2022 were inspired by the book, The Unhabitable Earth by David WallaceWells. I was experimenting with alcohol inks on various surfaces and quite liked the results.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan Oil and Cold Wax/Collage/Alcohol Inks on Canvas 24 x 30 inches 2022 Unfinished!!!!

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Carmel Brennan Before The Storm Oil and Cold Wax on Canvas 24 x 30 inches 2022

GORDANA OLUJIC DOSIC (Canada)

“The Archive” series uses collections of letters, photographs, negatives, slides...representing moments long gone, the passage of time and lives intersecting. This precious material with sentimental value undergoes transformation, being simultaneously destroyed and preserved and thereby getting a new lease on life.This series also calls for continuing a popular topic of the impact of technology, how it shapes our minds and the ways we relate to each other. In a world dominated by the Internet some forms of communication are already extinct, while some others play an increasingly important role, their impact felt on a global scale and accepted as a norm worldwide. And just to think, so much communication remaining in cyberspace forever, re-defining the concept of immortality...

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

The following artwork are samples shared by artists participating in the project in order to gauge a visual appearance for future exhibitions.

From The Archive series, based on the artist’s collection of personal correspondance

JOANNA SWANN (United Kingdom)

Joanna Swann, Untitled (28 November 2022), 2022. Raw linen threads hand-stitched onto Chinese handmade mulberry paper and (unseen) Thai handmade mulberry paper, attached using Jin Shofu wheatstarch paste to Bhutanese handmade denak paper (folded to make a greeting card). Artwork: 5cm H x 5cm W. Card (when folded): 9.3cm H x 8.5cm W.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

“I am afraid that the human species is too focused on our own greedy desires to ever support you in the way you deserve. After 4.5 billion years of your existence a relative newcomer, the human species, have poisoned you and we are destroying almost all the other flora and fauna on your surface that doesn’t meet our immediate needs in the blink of your eye. If we do not destroy ourselves the universe may need to intervene to save you.”

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Greed 2022 Acrylic on Canavas

BERT LIVERANCE (Canada)

JANET READ (Canada)

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

High Arctic, Ice Melt, 60x48, oil on linen 2021

My first realization of global warming on a large scale was evident before my eyes…

Do not give up on us, dear earth. There are enough of us who love you and care for you. Our indigenous populations world-wide have tried so hard to show us the right way to live but we’ve treated them so badly over long colonizing years. I’m grateful we are finally realizing what great earth stewards they have been and that we need to follow their path of wisdom.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Orange Alert Sphere2 2019 Digital print 32x32 in

JOSEPH MUSCAT (Canada)

JEAN ENG

(Canada)

Tenants

Generous light, generous bloom. All these years in service to a careful beauty; evictions of weed and wildflower: seed nebulae, volunteers, swarming among bulb and perennial.

Back to the Garden

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

CONVERSATIONS and PRESENTATIONS:

Since this Letters project is environmentally founded. We want conversations to be about areas under the climate crisis umbrella: physical events, social dilemmas, loss of culture, language, artifacts and personal property, economic uncertainties. And food production will be an important aspect of each exhibition. That is where Phil Fung and his organization comes in. Phil developed a vision in design and develop an affordable, self-sustaining, and regenerative MultiUnit Residential building. He designed and applied for patent of his Vertical Indoor Aquatic Ecosystem – Vertical Indoor Garden (VIGA™) – in early 2014 which was based on biomimetic, biophilic, and bio-synergistic design principles. In 2019, Phil established Bio-Regenerative Design Research Center to provide nature-inspired regenerative design research and development for buildings. His overarching design principle is “Buildings like the forest ecosystems.”

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Photographs by Carmel Brennan of Experimental Indoor Vertical Garden- 105 Gibson Centre

These are my own photos of Phil Fung’s classroom set up at 105 Gibson Centre so that people can learn how to do indoor gardening for food production. A mini- setup will happen at each event in the Letters project.

CONVERSATIONS about the USE OF MATERIAL and THE PRODUCTION OF ARTWORK:

MARY MORRIS (Canada)

Whether a piece of plastic found in a river or discarded cardboard, I use these pieces to bring an awareness to the waste we create.

Water, Water Every Where?

Found plastic 24 x 24 inches 2021

VALERIE ASHTON (Canada)

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Mary Morris (Canada) Galapagos Painting

The following is a very significant article by artist, Dr. Joanna Swann, a retired professor, who lives in Brighton, UK. She is one of the project participants and instead of writing a letter to the earth, she wanted to contribute this paper she wrote to be a basis for Conversations about artist materials. This will be used for a future presentation/workshop.

WHAT I AM DOING AS AN ARTIST AND WHY Dr. Joanna Swann

The process of learning, of the growth of subjective knowledge, is always fundamentally the same. It is imaginative criticism. This is how we transcend our local and temporal environment by trying to think of circumstances beyond our experience: by criticizing the universality, or the structural necessity, of what may, to us, appear (or what philosophers may describe) as the ‘given’ or as ‘habit’; by trying to find, construct, invent, new situations – that is, test situations, critical situations; and by trying to locate, detect, and challenge our prejudices and habitual assumptions.

—Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, 1979(1972), Chapter 3, §9

In 2018 I adopted the view that art is never so important that we should disregard any of its consequences in respect of pollution (plastic and non-plastic), animal (including human) welfare, and, as the outcome of our collective carbon emissions, global heating. I subsequently realised that, to my mind at least, nothing a human can make is as beautiful as, for example, the endangered peach blossom jellyfish or kakapo ground-dwelling parrot. These ideas haven’t stopped me from being an artist, though at times it seemed they would, but they have made a huge difference to what I do and how I perceive beauty in the human-made world.

As a visual artist I now see my primary task as that of trying to create human-made beauty out of non-human or natural beauty. ‘Trying’ is an important word here – I’m not claiming that I often, or indeed ever, achieve what I set out to do.

The world is full of naturally beautiful things, and we can make beautiful new things out of some of them. But we can only truly do this when we respect naturally beautiful things for what they are, which means taking care not to interfere with them excessively or needlessly. For me, this has meant developing – and, I hope, promoting – a natural-colour aesthetic. Since September 2018, I have worked only with commercially processed unbleached and undyed natural fibres and occasionally, until January 2022, commercially produced watercolours made from natural earth pigments.

Photo 1 - Joanna Swann, Folded (22 February 2020)

One of my ‘late middle period’ unbleached and undyed artworks: Joanna Swann, Folded (22 February 2020), 2020. Unbleached and undyed linen and organic cotton threads hand-stitched onto unbleached and undyed Khadi cotton fabric. 8cm H x 8cm W.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Since October 2019 my artwork has been vegan-compatible. I am not, however, a vegan and I do not object to the use of ethically sourced combed and clipped pelage in the making of clothing. But it doesn’t seem necessary to use it to make art and I think it preferable not to do so.

In January 2022, I decided to stop using natural earth watercolours. I had at last come to terms with the fact that natural earth pigments are not renewable resources and their extraction from the earth is usually environmentally problematic. Also, I want my artwork to be entirely biodegradable. I now realise that when I have used natural earth pigments, the works are not fully biodegradable.

Photo 2 – My final use of natural earth watercolours: Joanna Swann, Untitled (23 January 2022), 2022. Hand-stitching and painting. Unbleached and undyed linen threads and Khadi cotton fabric, watercolour paints (natural earth pigments, gum arabic and sugar syrup). 5.6cm H x 8.7cm W.

When I first committed to using unbleached and undyed plant fibre it was my intention never to use additional colouring of any kind, not even in the form of natural dyes. But although I have mostly been happy working with shades of ecru and off- white, I have sometimes found myself craving to use a greater range of colour. Botanical dyes now seem the best way of meeting what is perhaps a natural human need while remaining true to a natural-colour aesthetic. I anticipate that my next pieces of work will be made by hand-stitching unbleached and undyed linen threads onto hand-dyed unbleached cotton fabric.

Photo 3 – One of the last works I made using only unbleached and undyed plant fibre: Joanna Swann, Untitled (12 September 2021), 2021. Unbleached and undyed linen and organic cotton threads hand-stitched onto unbleached and undyed Khadi cotton fabric. 6.4cm H x 6.4cm W.

Alongside the early decisions I made about the material substance of my artworks, I also made a series of decisions with the intention of reducing the overall negative impact of my art activities on the environment. For example, I committed to using as few (manufactured) tools as possible and to minimising my use of tools made either in whole or part from non-biodegradable plastics. I stopped using tools made from substances derived from animals. The process I used (and continue to use) that led to these decisions is set out in ‘Extinction-Crisis Art’, an unpublished article I wrote in April 2019 (see Appendix A). Among other things, the article poses a set of seventeen questions for evaluating recent and proposed artworks in the context of humanity’s role in the Earth’s sixth mass extinction. The

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

purpose of the questions is to stimulate thought and to ease art practice towards being less environmentally harmful.

I haven’t used the set of questions to ‘beat myself up’, though I realise that what I am currently doing in respect of the environment is still far from ideal. Were I younger, fitter and richer. I would grow and process my own plant fibre. By doing so, I would reduce my carbon footprint, and, among other environmental benefits, my activities would generate less non-biodegradable waste in the form of plastic packaging that still, more often than not, comes with commercially prepared materials.

Although the artworks I have made since September 2018 embody a ‘message’ in my choice of materials, this is not the only message I am trying to convey. My work is not merely an attempt to create beauty out of certain types of material. I am trying to do other things as well, things that are far less clear-cut.1

In the somewhat distant past I flirted at times with the idea of art as self-expression. The process of such self-expression can feel satisfying, and the results can be striking and even thought-provoking, but ultimately, I found it unsatisfactory. Instead, I worked for some years with the widely voiced idea that art is about creating order out of chaos. Then, on 22 March 2017, I had an epiphany whereby I abandoned this idea and replaced it with that of striving to create harmonic complexity out of simplicity. I talked then about distancing myself from the chaos of existence and thereby freeing myself to create something new. I internalised those new-to-me sentiments fully in my practice, though today I think in slightly different terms.

I still no longer work with the idea of creating order out of chaos. For me, making visual art is about stepping aside from the chaos. I’m always trying to create something new, something not born of chaos but despite it, something that comes almost from nothing. I want my artwork to evoke a sense of harmony, a feeling of serenity. I want it to embody the idea that the most extreme creativity is not about bringing order to what already exists but about producing something completely new. I am, I stress, talking about intention here rather than actual achievement.

The aspirations I describe in the preceding paragraph are not unrelated to the environmental crisis.

I am mindful of the extent to which humans treat each other badly. No wonder there is a shortage of respect for other creatures and the natural world in general. But we are not inevitably careless or cruel, so there is cause for hope, not least because we can be altruistic, resourceful and clever – I remember, for example, the Thai cave rescue (Tham Luang Nang Non cave) in June and July 2018. But, in general, our collective altruistic tendencies are being swamped by antithetical values, and our resourcefulness and cleverness are being deflected away from what we really need to do. Surely it is the case that if we want to stop trashing the environment, collectively we have to transform ourselves. It follows that art that is about us, and how we interact with each other and with wider aspects of the world, is potentially no less environmentally relevant than art that is more obviously about the natural environment.

Ideally, I would like to create visual artworks that evoke in the viewer not only a feeling of serenity but also empathy, understanding, and compassion. These are four of the qualities that we need in abundance in order to become able to

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

live more compatibly with each other and with other forms of life on Earth. Visual art is, by various means, capable of promoting these qualities, and some individual works can be used effectively to promote all four.2 I accept, however, that my work is too abstract to have a hope of promoting more than the first quality. Perhaps highly abstract visual art is particularly suited to the possibility of evoking serenity.

Photo 4 – The first of my works ‘depicting’ the essence of existence (in the centre) and four threats to existence (in the corners) – human nature as it is now, global heating, plastic and non-plastic pollution and, following from the first three, the sixth mass extinction: Joanna Swann, Untitled (2 April 2021), 2021. Unbleached and undyed linen and organic cotton threads hand-stitched onto unbleached and undyed Khadi cotton fabric. 5.2cm H x 5.3cm W.

In her ‘Address at the World Economic Forum: Our House is on Fire’, given at Davos, Switzerland, on 25 January 2019, Greta Thunberg argued that “We can create transformational action that will safeguard the future living conditions for humankind. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.” My personal concern is with the sixth mass extinction, so being mindful that the Earth currently provides living conditions not only for ourselves, but also for millions of other species, I have transformed my art practice. I recognise that what I have done is not, in the wider sense, transformational. Rather, with my art I am striving to contribute, albeit in a very small way, to whatever collective impetus there is to transform humankind and thereby transform our relationship with the Earth.

With regard to the task of transforming human nature as it is now, the important thing is to try to do so. I sit at my desk thinking about the relationship between humanity and the essence of existence. Working with minimal tools and with materials derived from plants, I lay down lines and abstract shapes with the intention of creating beautiful, small, meditative art objects to which I anticipate others will eventually have access. There is no point in me fretting about the extent to which I fail to achieve what I want to achieve. My limitations don’t really matter. What does matter is that I minimise my negative impact on the Earth while doing what I do.

2 February 2022

1 I am very grateful to Lillian Michiko Blakey for encouraging me to put what I regard as my less clear-cut thoughts into the public domain.

2 See, for example, Lillian Michiko Blakey, Reiko, Alberta, 1945, 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 30” H x 40” W. This painting is in the permanent collection of the Nikkei National Museum, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. For the context of the work, see ‘Expulsion 1942-1951’ on the artist’s website (http://www.blakeyart.ca/expulsion-1942-1951.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

php) [accessed 31 January 2022].

APPENDIX A

EXTINCTION-CRISIS ART

With knowledge comes responsibility. Given what we now know about the potentially catastrophic impact of human activity on our planet, it is incumbent on us to change the way we do things. If we don’t alter our behaviour, if we continue to do what we have become used to doing, this will imply that we are not prepared to engage fully with the consequences of global warming and plastic pollution or, more generally, with our role in the Earth’s sixth mass extinction. It will be evidence that we do not care.

I do not deny that action needs to be taken collectively as well as individually, and that the ways through which human societies are currently organised and controlled are major obstacles to improvement. However, in this article I am concerned with just one field of human endeavour, the visual arts, and, in particular, with what the individual artist can do.

Visual artists have traditionally used stuff to make new stuff. We have drawn on the Earth’s resources and have increasingly used a multiplicity of manufactured synthetic materials. At best, we have manipulated these natural and human-made resources to create beautiful and/or thought-provoking works of visual art. But given what we now know about the impact of our behaviour on the environment, can we continue to use the resources and methods that have become traditional in the modern world? I think not.

During the past 16 months I have, as a visual artist, repeatedly asked myself the following question: ‘How can I make art that is respectful of animals and does not contribute to environmental damage?’ After each round of questioning and reflection I changed my practice – I stopped using a material, tool or process I had previously used. The outcome of these iterations is particular to me and I am not going to describe what I am now doing or suggest that every visual artist should reach the same endpoint. But I would like other visual artists to consider the kind of questions I now ask myself about my own new work and that I bear in mind when I view recent work by other artists. The questions are most pertinent to artwork produced since we developed a clear knowledge of the impact of human behaviour on the environment. Also, they can be adapted to reflect critically on artwork that has merely been planned or proposed and not yet executed.

The questions, of which there are 17, are set out below. Some may appear very similar but there are differences between them that draw attention to various aspects of the process of producing visual art. These aspects are indicated by headings.

ARTWORK AS MATTER

1. Is the artwork made in whole or in part from non-biodegradable synthetic materials?

2. Is the artwork made from any substance derived from animals?

3. If the artwork has been made from one or more substances derived from animals, were the animals treated without cruelty and with respect?

4. Is the artwork made in whole or in part from a material from a natural source?

5. If the artwork has been made from a material from a natural source, is that source renewable?

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

6. Is the artwork made from any substance that is known to be hazardous to animal and plant life?

7. With regard to the materials of which the artwork is comprised, to what extent, if at all, has the original preparation of those materials contributed to global warming, plastic pollution and the loss of animal and plant habitats?

THE ARTIST’S TOOLS, EQUIPMENT AND OTHER FACILITATING RESOURCES

8. With regard to the tools and equipment used by the artist to make the artwork, were any of them made from non-biodegradable synthetic materials?

9. With regard to the tools and equipment used by the artist to make the artwork, were any of them derived from animals?

10. If any of the tools and equipment used by the artist to make the artwork were derived from animals, were the animals treated without cruelty and with respect?

11. With regard to the tools, equipment and other facilitating resources used by the artist to create the artwork, to what extent has their production contributed to global warming, increased plastic pollution and the loss of animal and plant habitats?

THE ARTIST’S PROCESS

12. To what extent, if at all, did the artist’s process when making the artwork contribute to global warming, plastic pollution and the loss of animal and plant habitats?

13. With regard to the process of making the artwork, were any animals knowingly harmed?

14. Did the artist’s process when making the artwork involve the use of substances that are hazardous to animals and the environment?

TRANSPORTATION AND PACKAGING

15. With regard to the transportation of materials from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the retailer and the retailer to the artist, and the transportation of the artwork from the artist to its present location, to what extent has this process contributed to global warming, plastic pollution and the loss of animal and plant habitats?

16. With regard to the packaging used in the transportation of materials from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the retailer and the retailer to the artist, and the packaging in the transportation of the artwork from the artist to its present location, to what extent has the packaging contributed to plastic pollution, the loss of animal and plant habitats, and involved processes that have contributed to global warming?

EVALUATION

17. Given the answers to the previous questions, do you think the production of the artwork is defensible in light of its environmental impact?

Joanna Swann

23-25 April 2019

ADDENDUM

18. To what extent, if at all, were people negatively exploited in the production of the artist’s materials and tools, and in their transportation?

17 July 2019

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Joanna Swann (United Kingdom)

LILLIAN MICHIKO BLAKEY (Canada)

HOPE ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR OF THE OCEAN…Forever

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Lillian Michiko Blakey The Last Drop

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT EXTINCTION AND LOSS:

DIANA BENNETT (Canada) GRAZYNA TONKIEL (Canada)

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Mandela

Grazyna Tonkiel- Section of her Letter to Earth

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT the FASHION INDUSTRY, CLIMATE EMERGENCY and HABITAT LOSS:

Linen embroidered using thread made from plants with facts and figures about climate emergency, habitat loss

CAROLINE DEAR (Scotland)

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

CONVERSATIONS WITH YOUNG PEOPLE:

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Karissa Hanna (Canada) WE ARE ALL RELATED Tempera on paper- 8.5x11-2015

NEVAEH HANNA (Canada)

lonely man sits fading in the distant past cold steel bench remains

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Photo by Nevaeh Hanna age 14

Haiku by Lillian Michiko Blakey

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WAR AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL AFTER EFFECTS:

LILLIAN MICHIKO BLAKEY (Canada)

NUCLEAR ANTHROPOCENE ink on shoji paper 39” x 84”

Excerpt of letter by Hiroshima Atomic Bomb survivor, Toshiko Yoshikawa, pencil on shoji paper

BRYCE KANBARA The Shadow Project (Canada)

Included in the letters collection was one letter, written by the mother of participating artist, Akira Yoshikawa. She lived through the horrific event of the nuclear holocaust and wrote to Canadian children in 1973. That letter is included in our project since war and the effects are an extremely important conversation with reference to the climate crisis. Decades of nuclear testing have contaminated the entire globe. In terms of human exposure, the increase in cancer incidences in many areas of the planet is one among the worst consequences of nuclear testing. (Prăvălie R. (2014) Considering the Russian threat of nuclear obliteration of the Ukraine, the topic is timely.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

LETTER FROM TOSHIKO YOSHIKAWA: HIROSHIMA SURVIVOR:

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS:

• Set up an area for writing letters and provide each viewer with writing materials

• Inspire/Initiate/Prompt Conversations

• Conversations about Food Production and Distribution and alternate processes.

• Conversations about Reconciliation, Losses of Culture and History

• Conversations about communication, community and writing, by hand in the digital age

• Conversations about Extinction and Loss

• Conversations about War and the environmental after effects

Carmel Brennan The Writing Room, Encaustic collage on board, 24 x 24 inches

This painting was one of 12 works done, inspired by the McGuffin Dig, an exploration into three century old handwritten letters, from an Irish immigrant, to his family while he was away onboard two ships travelling to and from his home in Minnesota, America.

• Conversations about the Fashion Industry, climate emergency, habitat loss

• Conversations about the use of material and the production of artwork

• Conversations with young people about their future

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

This literature review was submitted in a former module in this CAA program; however the review covers the six most significant books for me, on understanding the issues of global warming and how to deal with the crisis. Throughout the setup of my project, I have referred to these authors and their work repeatedly.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

the fights over water in the 1995 post-apocalyptic action film, Waterworld, starring Kevin Costner?

Barlow explained that we actually have not twenty percent but, under seven percent of the world’s fresh water and are already selling it off to multi-national corporations. As Barlow claims “exports of water from the US are a major factor in the drying of the American Midwest and Southwest.” (ibid:18) These exports may not be what we think of as water, but they are in products that require great amounts of water to produce and therefore the result is less water for human consumption. “If a country exports a water-intensive product to another country, it amounts to exporting water in a virtual form even though no water is technically being traded or sold” (ibid:16)

Even in countries like Canada, clean water is not always a reality. In May of 2000, in the town of Walkerton, Ontario, Escherichia coli (E. coli) contaminated the drinking water supply. Seven people died and more than 2,000 became ill as a result and many people are still suffering the side effects even today in 2022. This was not an isolated incident.

Over 20 years later, in the fall of 2021, Iqaluit residents were bothered by the smell of gasoline fumes in their water. They had been bathing their children in this water for weeks and cooking and drinking with it. Over 30 communities have suffered with boil water advisories for the last 20 years. And this is Canada, not a third world country.

Here are my thoughts about some of the literature I have been reading.

BLUE COVENANT by Maude Barlow

Maude Barlow states in 2007, that the world believed, as did I, that Canada had twenty percent of the world’s freshwater. (Barlow, 2007:177) A national magazine urged federal and provincial governments to sell water before the U.S. took it! Do you remember

Maude Barlow’s writing is compelling; she raised alarms in 2007 to take action against selling off water. She points the finger at corporations who get government support for their profitable private ventures. Blue Covenant is a horror story, an apocalyptic nightmare come to fruition. Because it deals with the world at large, and global perspective was not manageable for me at this particular time, I had to look elsewhere for information. I needed to narrow my focus.

In a Ted Talk in 2017, Norwegian politician, Per Espen Stoknes, suggested that when the general public hear about climate change, we feel helpless and distanced. Many of us

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

have become more comfortable using social media for distraction. When one thinks about the conditions of the last two years under the pandemic, we do tire of the fear needed to be aware.

A GOOD WAR by Seth Klein

Seth Klein proposes some very practical solutions for dealing with the climate crisis. With all the disasters, major wildfires in Australia in South America, and in California and Colorado, we know that something serious is happening around the world. Disastrous hurricanes, increasingly rapid melting ice, flooding and extinctions, all happening, it appears at once and yet, there is no constant push to challenge these events. It is as if the general public lives in a bubble and politicians cannot work together to deal with this looming crisis.

The younger generation has realized that we have to do something in order to make changes. We have to learn to work by the principle of collaboration rather than competition. In free democratic countries, we have been taught to be individuals, to strive for our own success. We need to change. Reflecting on the Jan. 6th, 2021, demonstrations in Washington D.C. and the 2022 Ottawa blockades by truckers, the focus is on freedom of choice, personal rights, not about the collective good. If only that energy could be harnessed to mobilize against the looming crisis of the environment.

Seth Klein is quite specific in his approach – he compares the action necessary to slow climate change to the way Canada mobilized towards emergencies in the past. Klein describes ways Canada can organize in a way similar to the country’s response in the Second World War. In Klein ‘s interpretation, war is understood as an actual threat. As opposed to this, climate change is an abstract idea unless you are directly affected by disaster, as those who experience fires every year in British Columbia or floods and fires as in Merritt, B.C. Klein urges us to treat the situation as an emergency: a war, a disaster, a catastrophe, and take action as a whole country. It is a non-partisan call to action. His

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

approach is practical especially keeping in mind the way we had mobilize in the last two years to deal with a global pandemic. Coincidentally, Klein’s book was published in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic and Canada did an excellent job mobilizing against this viral threat. If the population would accept the reality of the emergency situation of this climate crisis, Klein’s approach could work. The problem I see is, that politicians make lots of promises before they are elected and once established in their elected positions, they vote with their parties.

At this point, I do not feel positive about the future. The deniers are still there even among elected officials and they do have a very loud voice.

In 2018, Canada ranked as the tenth Greenhouse Gas emitting country in the world, and it is not yet on a path to change.

ON FIRE by Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein, Seth Klein’s sister, attacks the issues from a different point of view in her collection of essays in, On Fire. Does this sound familiar to you? “One minute we’re sharing articles about the insect apocalypse and viral videos of walruses falling off cliffs because of sea ice loss has destroyed their habitat, and the next we’re online shopping and willfully turning our minds into Swiss cheese by scrolling through Twitter or Instagram.”(Klein 2020: 15) This statement visualizes our current society vacillating between real issues such as the war in Ukraine, the disasters all around the world, the now famous, Will Smith slap at the Oscars and the other incidences happening with stars in Hollywood.

Klein proposes a Green New Deal, one that not only tackles the climate crisis but also works to re-balance the inequality that happens with populations who are marginalized, certain racial groups, immigrants, the disabled, the unemployed. Furthermore, she adds,

“In disasters, people do not come together as “one fuzzy family”; the prior divides widen and deepen further so that the poor and disadvantaged are more affected. (ibid:215)

Canada is failing in its plans to fight climate change. Klein claims, that Prime Minister Trudeau while praising the beauty of British Columbia forests, makes plans to build another pipeline to push oil across the country and thus gain the votes of the Western provinces where he is unpopular. A politician’s goal is to be re-elected.

Donald Trump in the USA chose a summer of floods and fires to disband the Federal Advisory panel assessing the impacts of climate change on the US. (ibid: 227)

“The drive for endless growth and profits stands squarely opposed to the imperative for a rapid transition off fossil fuels.” (ibid: 251) As Naomi Klein puts together her publication of essays, she thinks about the 2020 US political election. If Trump is re-elected, the Green New Deal will be thrown out the window. She hopes for a Sanders or Warren win to keep the promised Deal alive. With the Biden win and the emergency of the high infection numbers in the Pandemic all deals are shelved. Moreover, now, it is the Russian aggression against Ukraine that is taking the focus.

What is appealing is, that the contemporary works of literature are more approachable for the non-scientific audience, filling in the gaps need to approach the conversations about the environmental crisis. I wonder about those marginalized populations. How do they reach an understanding and an ability to challenge the future, when their basic needs are so precarious?

THE UNHABITABLE EARTH by David Wallace-Wells

Author David Wallace-Wells, paints an apocalyptic future in bleak proportions. His book is a terrifying image projected within a single human lifetime and that single lifetime is exactly how long we have to do something about stalling the progress of climate change. Page after page of facts that form a stark reality that would easily make a reader turn away and distract oneself with social media platforms. That is exactly what I wanted to do!

What we think we know about the progress of climate change, this book outlines how much worse it actually is.

“Half of the Great Barrier Reef has already died, methane is leaking from Arctic permafrost that may never freeze again, and what the high-end estimates will mean for cereal crops suggest that just four degrees of warming could reduce yields by 50 per cent. If this strikes you as tragic…consider that we have all the tools…to stop it all: a carbon tax and the political apparatus to aggressively phase out dirty energy.” (Wallace-Wells 2020:252)

Wallace Wells is not a scientist however, this book arose from his need to learn more about climate change. He is a columnist and a deputy editor at New York magazine. His research is well founded with a broad list of current references. As the author says we have the tools to fight the rapid progression, but will we act on them? There is no time to waste.

IN SAVING US: A CLIMATE SCIENTIST’S CASE FOR HOPE AND HEALING IN A DIVIDED WORLD by

Katharine Hayhoe

Canadian climate scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, has the most practical approach for people to tackle climate change. She sums up her tactics in three simple words: “Talk about it.” Her writing filled the gaps for me, in all the areas missing in literature and programs focussing on the environment in the last thirty years. This is what I needed to work. Hayhoe focusses on things that people share in common rather than delivering proof and facts as a scientist would. She focusses on conversation and demonstrates the ability for the average citizen to make an impact. The areas people can have in common are where we live, what we love doing, where we’re from, those we love, and she urges us to be who we are. Most of us don’t really care about an increase in temperature of two or three or even four degrees. What we care about is the fact that if it causes a “cascade of events triggered by that warming affects everything we already care about.” That is an issue to which we can relate. Does dirty air bother

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

us, is there enough food, hunger, disease, no more skiing or fishing-those are the things we care about. (Hayhoe 2021:32) Her work doesn’t create fear, cause denial, or create distance with the listener or reader. She doesn’t overload her readers with data. Hayhoe teaches at Texas Tech University, and lectures at several sites around the country. An important skill she cautions, is to be aware of is to know your audience. “Climate change public engagement efforts must start with the fundamental recognition that people are different and have different psychological, cultural, and political reasons for acting – or not acting – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our research has identified “Global Warming’s Six Americas”: six unique audiences within the American public that each responds to the issue in their own distinct way.”

1. The Alarmed – OMG!!! What can I do?

2. The Concerned – Maybe…we have time. What’s the rush?

3. The Cautious – Is it serious?

4. The Disengaged -I haven’t heard about global warming.

5. The Doubtful-It’s all natural. Relax.

6. The Dismissive. It’s a hoax!

Personally, I can approach Hayhoe’s method of talking without any accreditation. In conversations with people from all walks of life and all political stripes, I automatically zero in on common elements: gardening, birds, beer, wine, coffee, beaches, chocolate – all affected by climate change. As Hayhoe says: “Bring your heart to the table not just our heads.” This approach would have worked well in avoiding some of my awkward conversations during the pandemic when tempers were high over the to vaccinate or not to vaccinate debate.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH by Al Gore

Al Gore’s, 2006, book and documentary film, were well known in the first decade of the new millennium. As a former US Vice President, and a once Presidential candidate, he was celebrated for his intense concern for the environment. When Gore lost the election to George Bush Jr. in an extremely tight race, he switched careers away from politics to being an environmental activist. His book became part of the coffee table collection of many middleclass N. American families. The 2006, DVD

documentary, covered Gore’s worldwide talks with audiences in the following years. Gore repeatedly urges his audiences to pay attention to the higher temperatures being experienced all around the globe. Higher temperatures mean the oceans get warmer and that surge means greater, more intense tornadoes, hurricanes and storms. Gore in his presentation, appropriately quotes from a November,1936 speech by Winston Churchill: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” This particular speech was considered alarmist by British Conservatives in Churchill’s day but the years after the release of Gore’s book and the documentary, Gore was also being challenged over and over by deniers of the climate crisis.

Gore divides his most convincing arguments between “two canaries in the coal mine”. The first canary is in the Arctic. Over a thirty-year span Gore demonstrates with graphs and graphic photographs, how the permafrost is thawing. In 1970, trucks could travel for over 200 days across the frozen highways of Alaska. By 2005 the number of days had dropped to 80. “The nation’s pipeline is in trouble due to melting permafrost.” (Gore 2006:138)

The other canary is in Antarctica, where the ice shelves are melting. Sea levels worldwide could rise by about 20 feet if these shelves melt. (ibid:190)

Both the book, Inconvenient Truth, and the film are convincing, compelling testaments to the proven facts that the environmental crisis is real. One would wonder why people are still not convinced.

The 2016 documentary sequel to An Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore, Truth to Power, was released just about the same time that Donald Trump was taking his oath of office as President of the United States. Trump was a new style of leader to be elected to office, a populist. Immediately on inauguration, Trump cancelled the limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the US by signing an executive order. Most of his cabinet were made up of friends, representatives of companies who produce fossil fuels. Additionally, Trump promptly removed the US from the Paris climate agreement, calling climate change a Chinese hoax.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

As many of us were well aware during the first year of the pandemic, Trump blamed China for the Corona virus and was totally ineffectual in his country’s response to dealing with this disaster.

At this point in my research, I was spiralling downward deliberating what the point was of worrying about climate change.

Al Gore deserves great respect for his continued effort despite the resistance, to talk about what we can still do to stall the disasters. In the ten years from Gore’s first film to the second documentary, disasters have multiplied. Gore’s prediction of flooding in Manhattan, near the former site of the World Trade Centre, happened last September,2021. Gore knows he’s not a scientist and he is careful to be absolutely specific about the events that he has seen around the world, careful not to label them as human caused events because of global warming. His suggestions and illustrations, however, put his ideas across; most audiences appear convinced that his claims are legitimate. For Gore, reacting to climate change is a moral non-partisan issue and at the end of his presentation he claims that there is still time. But as he still insists, we need a political will.

Summary

I was pleased to respond to this sequel documentary to Gore’s initial project. I subtitled our project, Letters to the Earth: Between Despair and Hope and the scales were often unfortunately tipping toward the side of despair. In summarizing the literature and research I have explored, it is difficult to maintain hope for the future. And then I think of Gore’s stamina, and sense of purpose and I feel more determined.

My initial question, “What can I do about the future of the environment?” has been answered satisfactorily at this point. I will immediately take on Katharine Hayhoe’s practical method of

responding by talking about what we can do. “Bond, connect, and inspire.” (Hayhoe 2021:224) Seth Klein’s approach has definite merit for all of us. We mobilized against a dangerous virus over the last two years; we can do something about the ways we impact the environment in our daily lives. We have all the available tools.

And we all have the opportunity to vote and lobby our politicians to make better choices. As Al Gore says, political will is important.

In his introduction to Being Ecological, Timothy Morton describes his book as: Not Another Informational Dump.” (Morton 2018:3) Sorry Tim, I needed the informational dump in order to sort my way through the published material. I am happy that you advised me by the end of your work, to pause and think, and listen to the birds and realize that I can just keep going because I am ecological! (ibid:215)

Carmel Brennan

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

EMAILS AND COMMUNICATION:

Notes copied and emails have poured in daily for the last 15 months...

Royal Ontario Museum Talk/November 2021

Climate scientist Hayhoe (political science, Texas Tech Univ.; chief scientist of the Nature Conservancy) offers a highly readable, well-orga nized study of polarizing issues surrounding climate change; it’s also memoiristic. The book loudly announces its intentions in the first pages, where Hayhoe articulates the intersection of her scientific research and her situated knowledge (the idea that knowledge reflects the context in which it is produced and the identity of its producer). Too often, realism and hope exist in opposition, which is deflating (and, as Hayhoe brilliantly argues, defeatist) during a time of cataclysmic unrest in social, environmental, medical, and political spaces. Hayhoe’s book contains careful arguments, scientific data, and personal stories about climate change, but its most significant contributions are, first, showing readers that conversations with others have an impact, and second, explaining how to have dialogues in open, loving ways to move toward change. Hayhoe is open about the deleterious effects of partisan politics on the ability to talk about environmental issues. The strategies she leaves her readers with are therefore as much about having difficult conversations across party lines as they are about science.

VERDICT Spanning the intersection of science, politics, and memoir, Hayhoe’s debut offers guidance on what readers can do to effect change.

Publisher’s Weekly Review

Canadian antiglobalization activist B arlow (Blue Gold) calls for a “blue covenant” among nations to define the world’s fresh water as “a human right and a public trust” rather than a commercial product. Barlow marshals facts and figures with admirable (if often dry) comprehensiveness, noting that as many as 36 U.S. states could reach a water crisis in five years; that once vast freshwater resources like Lake Chad and the Aral Sea are becoming briny puddles; and a handful of multinational water companies, abetted by World Bank monetary policies and United Nations political timidity, are bidding for the “complete commodification” of formerly public water resources. Her passionate plea for access-to-water activism is buttressed with some breakthroughs; Uruguay has enshrined public water rights in its constitution (the only nation to do so), and “water warriors” are fighting back in Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, where activists have forced private water companies to cede control of municipal water systems. There’s a noble tilting-at-windmills quality to the author’s call for private citizens and nongovernmental organizations to challenge corporate control of water delivery, agitate for equitable access to clean water and confront the reality that freshwater supplies are dwindling. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

Water, water not everywhere, and often too expensive to drink. That’s the message activist Barlow sounds loud and clear in outrage at the powers that be. Head of the Council of Canadians, a public advocacy group, and author of Too Close For Comfort: Canada’s Future Within Fortress North America (2005), she decries the global commodification of water. She points the finger at individuals and groups--transnational corporations, lobbyists, committees, government donor agencies and international organizations--that have cajoled, corrupted or colluded with governments into turning water resources and distribution services into profitable private enterprises. Not surprisingly, it is the poor who suffer, unable to afford the cost of water even when companies have bothered to install pipes and meters in their homes. In the developing world, women walk miles to fetch water from unclean sources. Barlow goes on to lament the shrinking of water supplies, the siphoning of rivers to irrigate desert areas or create garden spots, the high energy costs of desalination and the increased pollution from water-cleaning and recycling technologies and, in particular, from the bottled water industry. She argues for global water justice, a new “blue covenant” in which water is not only a human right but a public trust. This has become the rallying cry of a growing movement of activists who demand government oversight, with regulation and enforced conservation. All quite right, but Barlow makes her case with encyclopedic lists of names, dates, meetings and places; overwhelmed readers will wish she had summarized her voluminous data. For all the wasteful absurdity of buying bottled water where

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

the tap runs clean, it’s important to remember there are places in the world where bottled water is one of the most valuable public-health mea sures available. The author could have been more succinct, but she sounds the water alarm with conviction and authority. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Activist Barlow has written a follow-up to Blue Gold (2002) that addresses the state of the global water crisis in stark and nearly devastating prose. Her grip on the subject is astonishing and equaled only by an ability to efficiently and effectively pass enormous amounts of information to readers in the most accessible manner. The major focus here is on water privatization and how it has affected countries in Asia, Africa, and beyond. Barlow discusses water forums, community resistance, and deals between governments and corporations, explaining that much of the world is without water or facing extravagant water taxes. Barlow holds the reader’s attention by citing such startling facts as 12 million people in Mexico have no potable water and 25 million more have workable taps for only a few hours weekly. The ongoing drought crisis in the southeastern U.S. makes her arguments that much more prescient and broadens the book’s appeal. Blue Covenant is an intelligent resource for anyone interested in environmental concerns.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2008 Booklist https://youtu.be/XPckyFubAms

Actions taken

• WEBSITE Constructed

• MAIL CHIMP ACCOUNT set up

• ENDORSEMENTS from BEE CITY CANADA AND YOUR LEAF

• CULTURE DECLARES EMERGENCY (UK) arranges meeting with us via Zoom

I posted this on our new website ... Read this article and let’s get working on those leaders of companies we deal with and politicians we vote for. We need to have an impact! This is serious and we cannot hide anymore.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-green washed-out-of-our-senses

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

PARTICIPANTS:

1. Dara Aram (Canada) Artist 2. Valerie Ashton (Canada) Environmental Artist 3. Lara Band (United Kingdom) Artist 4. Ron Baird (Canada) Artist 5. Jan Beaver (Anishinaabe -Alderville First Nation) Environmental Biologist/Educator/Writer/ Performer/ StoryTeller 6. Diana Bennett (Canada) Artist/Educator 7. Anne Bevan (Scotland) Artist/Educator 8. Lynn Bishop (Canada) Artist/Entrepreneur 9. Lillian Michiko Blakey (Canada) Artist/Educator/Writer/ Environmental/Anti-Racism Activist 10. Pollyanna Blanco (Canada) Educator/Writer/Performer 11. Carmel Brennan (Canada) Artist/Educator/Curator 12. Dr. Soren Brothers (Canada) Educator, Curator of Climate Change - ROM 13. Shelly Burke (Canada) Artist 14. Sarah Cowley (Canada) Artist 15. Jaya Datta (Canada) Artist 16. Iain Davidson (United Kingdom) Artist 17. Sheila Davis (Canada) Artist 18. Caroline Dear (United Kingdom) Artist 19. Dr.Debbie Donsky (Canada) Educator 20. Gordana Olujic Dosic (Canada) Artist 21. D. Ahsén:nase Douglas (Mohawk-First Nation) Artist/Educator/Writer

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

22. Jean Eng (Canada) Artist/Writer/Poet 23. Cesar Forero (Canada) Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Public Performance. 24. Phil Fung (Canada)Engineer/Biodiversity 25. Sharron Corrigan Forrest (Canada) Artist/Educator 26. Neal Greig (Ireland)Artist 27. Janet Hendershot (Canada) Artist/Educator 28. Lauri Hoeg (Chippewa First Nation) Artist/Educator 29. Susan Ioannou (Canada) Poet 30. Deborah Ishii (Canada) Artist 31. Ellen S. Jaffe, M.A. (Canada), Writer, psychotherapist, student of Shamanic healing 32. Bryce Kanbara(Canada) Artist/Gallery Owner/Curator- 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts 33. Dr. Robin Kingsburgh (Canada) Artist/ Educator 34. Joy Kogawa (Canada) Writer/Acivist 35. Dr. Michelle Letarte (Canada) Artist/Senior Scientist / Professor of Immunology 36. Bert Liverance (Canada) Artist 37. Eoghann MacColl (Scotland) Artist/Educator 38. Ian Mackenzie (Canada) Artist 39. Suzie MacKenzie (Scotland) Artist 40. Mary Morris (Canada) Artist 41. Francis Muscat (Canada) Artist

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

42. Joseph Muscat (Canada) Artist/Educator 43. Mary Ng (Canada) Artist/Educator 44. Shelley Niro (Mohawk, First Nation) Artist/Filmmaker/Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts 45. Maxine Noel (Santee Sioux Nation) Artist, Order of Canada 46. Aileen Ogilvie (Scotland) Artist/Singer/Songwriter 47. Frances Patella (Canada) Photo-based mixed media artist 48. Blair Paul (Canada) Artist/Educator 49. Dominique Prevost (Canada) Artist 50. Mark Puigmarti (Canada) Artist, Blacksmith 51. Doris Purchase (Canada) Artist 52. Janet Read (Canada) Artist/Poet/Educator 53. Susan Ruptash (Canada) Architect/Visual Artist 54. Janice Mason Steeves (Canada) Artist/Educator/Writer/Environmental Activist 55. Carol Stevens (United States) Artist/ Educator 56. Charlie Stevens (United States) Sculptor/Graphic Designer 57. Dr. Joanna Swann (United Kingdom) Artist/Writer/Educator 58. Ernestine Tahedl (Canada) Artist, Queens Golden & Diamond Jubilee Award Winner 59. Mayor John Taylor (Canada) Politician/Educator 60. Gayle Temple (Canada) Artist 61. Judith Tinkl (Canada)Fibre Artist/Educator

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR

AND HOPE

62. Dr. Antonia Thomas (United Kingdom) Archaeologist/Educator/Artist

63. Grazyna Tonkiel (Canada) Artist/Curator/Opera singer/Conservationist 64. Susan Torrance (United Kingdom) Order of the British Empire, Social Justice Activist, Artist, Highland Cattle Breeder

65. Kate Watkins (United Kingdom) Artist/ Educator

66. Colin Whitebread (Canada) Artist/Educator

67. Noriko Yamamoto (Canada) Mime, Dancer, Choreographer, Storyteller, Visual Artist 68. Akira Yoshikawa (Canada) Artist

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

THE COMMITTEE:

Jan Beaver (Canada)

Jan is Anishinaabe, a member of Alderville First Nation, a traditional dancer, storyteller, author and educational consultant. She was trained as an Environmental Biologist. For many years, Jan was a classroom teacher and outdoor education teacher with the Toronto District School Board. She also served as the Senior Education Advisor for Ogemawahj Tribal Council in Rama. Jan is the author of six fiction and non—fiction books for elementary and secondary students. In recognition for her work in education, Jan was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.

Diana Bennett (Canada)

My passion for our earth and its creatures began when I was a little girl, cottaging on Georgian Bay. I wove placemats out of beach grasses. I gathered seagull feathers and fish bones for my sand dune museums. I watched tadpoles grow little legs as they turned themselves into frogs. I marvelled as Daddy Longlegs crawled up windowsills. My knowledge of the wilderness grew though my many years of camping, nationally and internationally. I studied the sky from a sleeping bag after a tough day of canoeing. When I served as Executive Director of the Zoological Society during my four years at the Toronto Zoo, my appreciation for the fragility of life on the planet grew by leaps and bounds. My work life has involved heading art departments, serving as the first principal of Summer Studio in North York, becoming a senior executive at TVOntario, and numerous volunteer board undertakings including the Ontario Society of Artists 150th Anniversary Year. So now, with this important project I can combine my love of working with people I admire and channel my image making into messages which breathe with concern but sparkle with hope.

Lillian Michiko Blakey (Canada) Who Is Responsible?

We all point fingers at others for climate crisis… governments, world leaders, multinational corporations, oil and gas companies. We all expect someone else to slow the imminent destruction of the planet. But none of us is willing to give up “a better life” and return to a simpler life without the ongoing glut of new inventions offered to us. So, who is ultimately responsible for the environmental crisis? Take, for examples, clearcutting of trees. When we are aghast at the clearcutting of old-growth forests, we have huge outcry against logging companies and the governments that are silent. If we look at the thousands of companies who give us products made from wood, are we willing to stop using paper towels and clean messes by returning to cleaning cloths? Are we willing to go back to using handkerchiefs instead of disposable tissues? Are we willing to stop using paper for everything from printing computer messages and articles, to producing a plethora of advertising? The list goes on and on – carboard containers, wrapping paper, memo pads, paper decorations, etc.etc.

Are we willing to go back to horse and buggies instead of providing a car for every member of the family? Are we willing to stop nuclear testing? Are we willing to stop wars which pollute the global air with bomb after bomb? Are we willing to rape the earth for lithium to fuel cars when oil runs out by 2050? So, what will we use to warm our homes in the winter and cool them in the summer? Are we willing to give up plastic containers and bring our own containers for fast food? Are we willing to clean up our garbage in faraway oceans, not in my backyard, which are killing people as well as millions of marine life?

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

Take a good hard look in the mirror. We are all consumers which drive the companies and government to produce more and more, rather than less and less, because we demand more and more. So, what are we really willing to give up to protect the earth? Nothing.

Aileen Ogilvie (UK)

The climate crisis causes much anxiety among everyone, especially young people. Back in 2019 I was leading a song workshop in the local authority headquarters I worked in at the time, we were interrupted by the sounds of children protesting outside as part of the schools strike for climate. They chalked messages all over the outside of the building, their voices were loud and clear over the Gaelic songs I was trying to teach. These songs that have survived long after the people who made them disappeared, suddenly drowned out by the voices of a younger generation calling for action. This moment stuck with me but so do the songs and stories of the past, these are present in the landscape as placenames many people don’t understand and demonstrate the much closer relationship people had with the land. When we lose a language, we lose a culture and an understanding of both place and a way of life. I believe if people knew more about the land, they would have a greater appreciation of it and take better care of it. I try to share these place names, songs and stories that show our connection with the environment in my creative work in the hope it makes people think deeper. When I heard about this project, I wanted to get involved to understand how powerful art could be in generating conversation and encouraging action.

Grazyna Tonkiel (Canada)

Music and visual arts have shaped and dominated her life. She received her Master of Art degree in her native Poland. She was a soloist at the Polish National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Warsaw. Shortly after arriving in Canada, she won competition to join the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. After moving to King City, she began drawing butterflies, and has continued drawing them. Her studies are in private collections in Australia, British Virgin Islands, Canada, England, Holland, Poland, Sweden and the U.S. In 2021, she represented Canada at the XIII International Art and Design Florence Biennale. She is dedicated to the butterfly conservation efforts, frequently writes articles about butterflies for the King Weekly Sentinel and is a sought-after lecturer and speaker about butterflies. She is a member of Toronto Entomologists Association. Since 2017, her home garden has been certified as the Wildlife and Butterfly Habitat.

Susan Torrance (UK)

She is a painter and printmaker who creates work which is never far from her origins in the Highlands and her passion for history. She brings her lifetime’s experiences as a social housing builder, cattle breeder, lawyer and artist to mediate stories and tales which may have roots in the past but shed a perspective on issues relevant to society today.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

October 19th, 2022

Dear friends of the earth.

Thank you for each and every letter you have sent to the earth. Each one is a treasure to read. Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to hand write your words. I am scanning them all and including them in our catalogue. I will send you a rough draft of that catalogue in December. About the creative pieces for the events and exhibitions: Having curated several art exhibitions over the last few years I understand how viewers look at the work on walls and in presentations. I want to take this movement, Letters to the Earth in a different direction than the usual exhibition. I don’t want viewers to see our exhibitions and come away with states” Oh isn’t that interesting. What a well done exhibit, how thoughtful that was.” I want viewer engagement. For example, you all wrote letters to the earth. Those of you who handwrote your letters to the earth we’re actually fully engaged not only in the thoughts of the letters but in the action of your hand movement as part of your body, fully engaged physically emotionally. Am I right?

As Grant Kester suggest in His book Conversation Pieces, “the Harrisons challenge the short-term, profit driven response with what they call the other answer: that in the long term it’s far more costly to destroy your total ecology... the capacity to create forms images and metaphors that can transmit the implications to viewers in a compelling or persuasive manner so that literally they (viewers) see the problem differently “ We want to make an impact.

I know for many visual artists this may be a different approach. Many of you are used to working on your artwork submitting it for an exhibition sing it hung on the wall or on a pedestal and accepting the accolades for the work.

Sincerely, Carmel I want to acknowledge the daily help given to me by my friend, fellow artist, Lillian Michiko Blakey, who has listened to me go on and on about this project, and has supported me tirelessly along the way. Not only is she a prolific artist, she is an excellent writer and editor. Thank you Lillian! I couldn’t do this without you.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH: BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

THIS JOURNAL IS A WORK IN PROGRESS.