Going To The Well

When I am working in my garden many times I feel the vibration or hum of all the plants and animals working together, each at their tasks. It's a kind of cosmic song that always puts things in perspective for me. I like to think that it is a microcosm of the entire planet. building and destroying, mending and creating, flowing and quaking. We are part of an infinite fabric, every thread an essential part of the whole. When we expand our human footprint we must be very very careful. No one really know which species are dispensible. We know we must have the pollinators, but what about fish? Do we really need redwoods or beavers? How important are the birds? And then there are the composters and garbage technicians like ants, sowbugs and cockroaches. Do we need those? Who are we to put a value on all the unique species that share our habitat? It's never as simple as just draining a wetland to build homes or create new agricultural areas. There are long term effects to every decision we make. Migratory birds, amphibians, fish and aquatic plants and animals need ground water and open wetlands to complete their life cycles. Beavers help raise the water table and create aquatic habitat. Bats and frogs feed on the ensuing insects. It is a perfect system.

In this painting, Going To The Well, I have featured the threatened Oregon Spotted Frog. This highly aquatic frog was previously abundant in the Willamette Valley and other wetlands of western Oregon and throughout the state. Now only small isolated populations remain on Forest Service lands mostly in the eastern Cascades and some in the Klamath Basin. 78% of their former range has been lost. They are also vulnerable to non-native predators such as bullfrogs and sport fish, and non-native canary grass has affected the viability of much of their habitat.

I often wonder what the underwater world must be like. It is separated and apart from our human experience for the most part. The closest I have ever been to it was snorkeling a reef in Belize. But the cool darker waters of a rich pond or slough is another thing entirely. It is a secret world filled with moving plants and animals. As a child I took water samples from a nearby pond and I was amazed to see that even the water itself was filled with one celled organisms. No matter how biologists investigate and explore, it is still a powerful place of magic and mystery to me. I like it that way.

Paradigm Shift II: Water

The climate is changing. In fact, it has been changing for quite some time. In the slow, nearly undetectable way of a moving glacier this shift has finally become noticeable. The scope is enormous, it feels terrifying and the problem is vastly complex. We humans have been so successful that we are threatening our very own existence. Our basic needs are water, air, food, shelter, energy. All of these are under threat from climate change. We have grown beyond our resources as we know them. We are facing mass extinctions of plant and animal species and epidemics of disease and blight. But with all this before us, I think water may be the greatest challenge of all. If you think about it, everything depends on clean water. We must have water to drink or we will quickly die. Without it we don't have food and the plants cannot create adequate oxygen for the planet. The perfect ecologic system of the the plant and animal kingdom will not work because all life depends on water. Here in the west, water resources have been fought over for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Water and the lack thereof has always been an inescapable issue, but now it has become a global challenge. Climate change is forcing us into an entire new way of thinking about our resources and land use. Wetlands and rivers have been a focus in my work for quite some time, but lately I have been taking an even closer look at our relationship with our water resources. I give voice to the organisms that depend on pristine wetlands and explore the threats to these habitats.

The first painting is called Real Estate.The second painting is called Chance Encounter. Here I consider the inextricable connection we have to all life. And the final painting of this set is called Going To The Well. This piece shows the aquatic threatened Oregon spotted frog that formerly lived in most of the pacific northwest. It is now lost to California and Oregon's Willamette Valley. Small populations remain in designated critical habitat in the remote upper reaches of some mountain rivers.