Every year – usually in the late fall – I create an angel for the coming year. See 2022, 2021, but not 2020; not sure where she went.) This year I was a little tardy and finished her up on January 1. Given everything HOLIDAY going on and the passing of another year, I’m thinking that I’ll keep this schedule from now on. It gives me a break after festivals, sales, and late fall teaching.
THE ANGEL OF 2023, SHE PRAYS FOR RAIN Hooked (various fibers) and embroidered (bamboo yarn and cotton embroidery floss) on 4×4 monk’s cloth; mounted on a black canvas.
In my fiber art practice, I focus on reuse and repurposing, especially of textiles of all kinds. Better to use something than let it fall into landfills. Sadly, this is particularly the case in this time of fast fashion and its concomitant waste. I will never run out of raw materials for my work.
At the same time, I live in the American Southwest, a land still wildly beautiful but suffering from a megadrought. You’ve all seen the pics of Lakes Mead and Powell. No need to repeat it here. Our uncompromising thirst for water and other resources has brought us here. Truthfully, I don’t think that much will change, but if it’s going to, WE better get to it right quickly to help with water and all of our other environmental crises.
At High on Hooking we try to remember the Earth every day, not just on Earth Day. It’s not difficult, really. Since we moved to New Mexico almost seven years ago (my mind is blown every time I think of that!), the summer temperatures and number of days above 100 degrees F have steadily increased. Hell, when we made our plans to relocate to the high desert from Massachusetts, average summer temperatures here were less than 95! And while we were aware of the drought, no one thought that it would go on this long. Now it’s considered a megadrought, the worst in 1200 years! On my walks in the Bosque, I’ve witnessed the Rio Grande dribble itself into a Rio “Pequeño.” If I didn’t worry about the mud and the potentially toxic crap in the mud, I might venture to walk across it.
Between smog and wild weather and drought and fires, I understand why young folks have anxiety about their future. My own kid is pretty cynical and depressed about it all. Yesterday’s headline in the Boston Globe certainly didn’t help my own mood: “As Earth’s temperature rises, Massachusetts residents’ sense of urgency on climate change declines.” We’re all tired of the doom and gloom, but I think the most terrible thing is that we seem to have lost hope. The past couple of months have demonstrated Americans’ inability to give up our gas-guzzling ways. A couple of weeks ago, city councilors in Albuquerque rolled back a single use plastic bag ban that had barely been in play since the mayor had put it on hold during much of the pandemic. They couldn’t even wait till June for the study to determine if it was effective was completed. Now, in addition to dirty, used masks, I’ve started seeing plastic bags again on roadsides and caught up in trees. Shit, if we can’t even get the mostly surface level stuff right, if we’re so short-sighted about garbage in our streets, how can we ever be serious about righting our sinking Earth, our only home?
Clearly, the adults of the world don’t care much about what we’re leaving for our kids. Just look at how so many treat Greta Thurnberg of Sweden.
Others diminish Greta Thunberg’s work because of her age. Ever since Greta first made headlines a few years ago and she delivered her now-famous “How dare you” speech, her age has been leveraged against her words. As Thunberg points out in her speech, her detractors are right in a sense. Thunberg shouldn’t have to stand before world leaders, telling them the obvious, which is that we’re being led directly into the jaws of the greatest threat to humanity we have ever known. Climate change.
It’s shameful that Thunberg has to do what she does, but the adults of the world are failing to ensure a future for the next generation. So it’s up to people like Thunberg to try to do something to save the world that the youth will inherit.
Part of the reason she inspires such rage, of course, is blindingly obvious. Climate change is terrifying. The Amazon is burning. So too is the Savannah. Parts of the Arctic are on fire. Sea levels are rising. There are more vicious storms and wildfires and droughts and floods. Denial is easier than confronting the terrifying truth.
Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host, called Ms. Thunberg’s United Nations speech “chilling” on her Monday night show, and ran a segment about how climate change “hysteria” is changing American youth.
Climate change has been caused by human activity. And no one likes being told that their actions have contributed to a freaking calamity, but at some point, we have to own up to it and make it so that human and other life can go on. So that the lives of our kids and their kids can go on. That’s what being an adult is about, isn’t it?
Thunberg has already had a demonstrated impact on how her generation views the climate crisis, with one recent survey showing that nearly 70 percent of people under the age of 18 believe that climate change is a global emergency compared with 58 percent of people over the age of 60. …Thunberg isn’t daunted by her status. The way she sees it, the demonization is a diversion from clmate science, to which skeptics have few answers.
We try to use mostly recycled or reclaimed materials in the art at High on Hooking every day, not just on Earth Day. But we can’t always resist virgin wool yarns like in that sunflower.
At High on Hooking, I know that I need to do more to care for my and our environment: take shorter showers; buy way less crap; mend more; drive my little Honda Fit rather than the CRV when I’m cruising around Albuquerque; and really be more aware of how my actions affect it all. We can’t buy our way out of this problem. We have to change. In my art, I already already work hard to hook with materials that others might just discard. But it’s not enough. If I can’t adjust what I do, how can I expect others to do anything?
Earth Day 2022 is Friday. Will you mark the day as crucial for our home?
