Artist’s Statement
These small paintings all date from the midst of the recent pandemic at its worst—a time of deep imbalance everywhere. By all counts, we should be rebalancing, and hopefully, we are—though inequity, worldwide threats to democracy, diversity, climate, food, housing security, and peace are still very much on the edge, or in the midst, of disaster. Family, our primary group, seems always in the midst of re-balancing or falling over the edge as personalities appear and disappear, become entangled or distance over time. Mother Earth really has every reason to be enormously angry at us—the human population that, for no good reasons, threatens her more and more every day. As I watched a video of tornadoes tearing up the world, I thought of Mother Earth whipping us for the damage we do. She’s not just an endlessly tolerant and forgiving goddess; she feels a divine wrath. Hatred and war both seem based in fear, yet humans across the world refuse to see each other as colleagues or peers in the planetary game of mutual survival. Power over others, the have/have not game, the centuries of religious and ideological wars—all symptoms of our collective insanity rather than our common need for cooperation in an exciting creative game that would truly create an endlessly inhabitable future.