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I had no idea what to write about and decided to just write and see what comes. I’ve been thinking of sculpture a lot of late. If there are things that I cannot look in the face and think
about anymore, then I think of those things through the use of art and poetry.
Hence I’ve decided to focus more of my free time to painting, listening to music and reading poetry.
And also to admire the oceans.
Water is eminently admirable and soothing to contemplate and listen to. We have a strong psychological link to water, given that a fair bit of it can be found under our skins.
The oceans and the life therein are somewhat imperiled, as I’m sure we all know.
So, why not look at politics through a different lens. Climate change with regards to water and the oceans is a time bomb.
The warnings regarding climate change and a warmer planet is no longer simply theoretical — in spite of all the denials from many Republicans, the PEOTUS (autoplay), corporate CEO’s who don’t give a damn, even educated authors, as well as most Americans, apparently.
And then there’s the possibility that many people don’t even believe in democracy, let alone anthropogenic climate change.
Nevertheless, there is an evolution occurring in outlook, even among conservative voters, with regard to climate change. That’s a good thing. I’m holding on to that.
The sticking point for the deniers is the notion that the change is anthropogenically caused. Regardless of the denials, the documentation is demostrating that the seas are rising. Also, initially, the west coast of the United States may not face, the kinds of coastal brimming water levels as the hurricane centered Atlantic and Gulf Coast.
Additionally, there’s that vast issue of garbage in the oceans which affects all life in it and on land. And water is life-giving also on land.
All the plastic from apparent sources to the unobvious, is having a negative affect on marine life. From large pieces to the microscopic, plastic is abundant in our oceans. And then there’s the oil which washes out into the seas from urban and rural areas. Apropos the oily washouts, its good that corporations are starting to pick up on wind power at a faster rate than solar. At least for now. And that too is a good thing in that they too are looking to make money with an alternative energy.
In the face of such a problem as oceanic pollution, there’s almost a kind of flinching from looking at the issues which are not short term as a single election, but indicate changes which are epochal.
Art enables the artists to bring up these ideas and subjects to the foreground and discuss it or even expose the urgency of the times, so that people are left in no doubt as to what can be lost or changed.
Art might be a path.
It can get facts and points across better than words can. Better than charts and graphs can. At least for some people.
Images get ideas and points across powerfully. When the oceans rise, what would the coastal homes of many people across the planet look like. I mean — come on, even Paris is expected to flood. And it’s not the only major city with such a future. In fact, there is an increased amount of tidal flooding happening on the Gulf Coast and on the Atlantic.
Art can show the urgency which is almost upon us.
I want to share some of that with you today.
Follow me below the magnificent Itzl.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in. As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK,and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power
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We have split up the publishing duties, but we welcome everyone in IAN to do daily diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news! If you would like to write a diary, let us know in a comment.
We are still looking for a few back-up writers. Please contact weck or FloridaSNMom or let us know in the comment section. We would love it if you joined our list of writers. You can sometimes alternate with someone. New voices are always good for a group.
Monday: Crimson Quillfeather alternate with ZenTrainer.
Tuesday: ejoanna. Wednesday: Pam from California.
Thursday: art ah zen. Friday: FloridaSNMOM.
Saturday: bigjacbigjacbigjac. Sunday: loggersbrat.
We have an idea, and have seen the artists rendition of what it would look like, when waters rise in well known landscapes.
Perhaps this kind of artistic rendition needs to become more prevalent, for people to begin incorporating it as part of their daily thought processes.
There have been others like Gideon Mendel's amazing photographic project.
Another art form which conveys succinctly, the problems of tidal flooding, is sculpture.
What if an artist with sculpting talent was also fascinated with the oceans and seas, because of a personal penchant for diving?
Well there is one such. He’s a qualified diver and an underwater naturalist.
He created the Rising Tide (2015) installation, which consists of four horses and the humans on their backs, sitting in the Thames River bank, London.
It’s representative of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as a permanent installation on the Thames River bank.
The artist is Jason deCaires Taylor.
The Four Horsemen are situated strategically in that they are not far from the houses of Parliament, and near Vauxhall Bridge, visible to all, as the water level changes.
At high tide, these horsemen are barely visible. However, the Thames’s water level goes and comes twice a day, and so twice a day — people see these horsemen.
The horses represent the industrial age — look at their heads. They look like oil well pumps, sucking up oil from the ground.
As the artist said:
“The suited figures are ambivalent to their situation – I wanted to create this striking image of a politician in front of the Houses of Parliament, ignoring the world as the water rises around him. And they are sitting on horses that are grazing, taking as much as they can from the ground.”
There they are, horse and human. With the humans seated on the backs of oil pump horses, as the sea rises and they sit there calmly, and drown. Yes, I know they are inanimate, but the point still stands in a larger symbolic way. Can it get any more symbolic and profound than that?
However this is not the only underwater sculpture that this artist has installed. He created the Molinere Underwater Sculptor Park, before he installed the Thames River pieces.
He’s keenly into conservation of underwater areas which are stressed by continuous high traffic by tourists:
“Working in conservation, I am very concerned with all the associated effects of climate change and the state of peril our seas are in at the moment,” said Taylor. “So here I wanted a piece that was going to be revealed with the tide and worked with the natural environment of the Thames, but also alluded to the industrial nature of the city and it’s obsessive and damaging focus just on work and construction.”
Taylor’s agenda when he created the Molinere Underwater park was to divert diving tourists away from stressed areas:
“I felt disillusioned that my works were just about creating art – I wanted to do something that maybe went beyond that and was actively beneficial,” said Taylor. “I started small, working a lot with artificial reefs, and found out about how a lot of conservation was about controlling people’s movements.
“It made me think about how art could divert people away from fragile areas, so the first underwater museum in Cancun was all about taking some of the 750,000 annual visitors away from these natural reefs and fragile environments and bringing them to an area where they minimise their impact.”
And to facilitate that he sculpted with coral propagation in mind.
Isn’t that totally cool?! Wouldn’t you like to see that in person? I would.
Of course, some of the sculptures have a darker context, referring to human apathy. Here is a great interview with him in which he states:
I began with a very optimistic message: I was building this vast community of people working with the environment. Now, I've moved to the darker side. I created a guy sitting on a sofa with a hamburger, watching television, oblivious to his surroundings. That is a futuristic outlook, where we have ignored all the warnings and are sitting underwater but still fixated on something else.
One more photo of the Rising Tide: