Common Nighthawk Migration
I have always loved the common nighthawk. A sleek bird of variegated browns, silvers and golds, with a smallish body and a forked, longish tail. With a tiny bill, wide mouth, short neck and big eyes, the nighthawk appears big-headed as it sits at rest. White blazes on long, sharp, angular, narrow wings seem to glow in the dark as the bird swirls and bops like a bat through the sky.
I love this TED Talk by Johan Rockstrom: Let the Environment Guide our Development. He speaks of the “quadruple squeeze” on the Earth and the precarious position we have put ourselves in. He talks about a shift in mindset, turning crisis into opportunity, the need for redefining sustainable development, and allowing the nine “planetary boundaries” to be our guide in protecting the planet. After watching this talk, I focused my thoughts and created a wall hanging called Beyond Planetary Boundaries.
Adam and Eve have drastically changed their Garden of Eden. Global warming, polluted air and water, and degraded forests are a few of the perils caused by their sins. The warnings from autopsied symbols of health and spirit are ignored.
It makes me happy to see the ghost tree resembling the real trees of Ruffner Mountain.
Made of remnants of canvas from the curtains I made for Ruffner Mountain’s Nature Center, the ghost tree stands in the big room of the Nature Center. I originally made the tree as part of an installation for Naked Art Gallery. Stitched and sutured, pieced and patched, the tree symbolizes the connections between all living things. It serves as a reminder of fragmented forests and trees lost to urban sprawl and rampant development, but it is also a metaphor for hope and the power of nature to rebound if given a chance. A tree’s life is fragile. It is a building block in a forest of interconnected organisms. Tug on a string, and the entwined shifts and bends, branches break, and life unravels. Read more…