studio notes # 7
I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade when I first learned that animals could go extinct. I remember it being a kind of gutting realization. I was obsessed with animals in general, but especially elephants. I remember handwriting several pages comparing and contrasting African and Asian elephants for a writing assignment. I didn't understand what poaching was and thankfully the sources I was researching were age-appropriate things like National Geographic World. But I didn't have to know the details to be heartbroken by the idea that elephants could just stop existing. Like the dinosaurs.
This realization kicked off quite a few creative projects around conservation. In 5th grade I wrote a passionate poem about manatees that I read aloud to my class over an instrumental tape my mom had.
I bring these stories up because memories from that time in my life have been surfacing more lately as I have been working on this project. It feels like another clue as I stumble around trying to figure out which direction to go in. This is starting to feel connected to something much older in me than I originally thought. It is inspiring more questions than answers but that feels good at this stage. Here are a few:
Why did I love elephants and manatees so much back then?
Was it the perspective of being a child that helped me feel more hopeful than I do today?
What would Charity as a 5th grader make if she was given the reins t to this project today?
What made the 1990s different than today in the framework of environmental protection?
It looks like I have some journaling to do!
After reading a section in American Afterlife about obituaries, where Sweeney mentions someone writing an obituary for a tree, I started thinking about what it might mean to make memorial drawings for species that have gone extinct since I was a child. I already have a goal to draw more this year, so over the weekend I got out my watercolors and made a portrait of a conus lugubrus, Diospyros angulata and brunoniella neocaledonica
It felt especially timely after reading about the recent weakening and rollback of environmental protections in the U.S. I felt like I was able to bear witness to the past while sitting with the sadness of the present day.
As I'm wrapping up the month and thinking about the one ahead, I'm excited to have less planned for August so I can spend more time on this series.
sample progress : another row of bead strands.