Sepia
The little series of Magic Creatures will certainly not save the world nor initiate any change but nonetheless I am not going to stop talking about the crimes mankind is doing to its environment and ALL living beings in it. And when I find another email from Greenpeace or any other environmental organisation in my mailbox and I will not stop to distribute the messages accordingly.
People need to be made aware what’s going to happen if we continue like that - even if I risk that people do not read my posts any more because what I am saying is already oozing out of your ears but it is necessary to repeat it. Too easily things are forgotten but decisions for your own peace of mind can be made everyday. Even small ones such as to refrain from eating meat or fish. While I decided many years ago not to eat any meat ever again after I had seen those terrible and nightmares causing images from live animal transports and other abominations I was still eating fish, for health reasons - so I believed the media and so-called experts. I also believed those fairy tales that fish would not feel any pain. How ignorant I was. I feel ashamed. But my eyes were opened by scientific reports on the nervesystem of various marine animals including fish and crustacea as lobsters, crawfish etc. Here you can find a very informative read on this subject and here a very interesting report on invertebrae.
So my decision was not to feast on ANY animal any more and I feel much better with this decision. I only wished more and more people would feel the same. What difference would this make. Not only that the cruelties towards animals which go together with the industrial processing of meat would be banished but also the destruction of millions of acres of rainforests and natural habitats for the growing of animal food, not to talk about the pollution of air and groundwater through the waste of cattle f.e.
Imagine a world without living beings, without birds, without the pets we love, without all those fascinating and beautiful creatures we may never see in reality but in documentations and pictures. Do we really want them to become just that? Documentations? Memories? What a sad world that would be!
Many wonderful adventures have become retrospections for me and are an inexhaustable well of inspiration. So are the creatures of the sea. Most people will not be able to see what I have seen – therefore I think it is the most important to show what might escape our conscience. Underwater sealife centers could be built using the natural environment instead of keeping captivated creatures in tanks which could be used to educate the older populace and the young in hope for changes before they are brainwashed to become part of a senseless society.
Therefore I am painting momentos from memory and imagination. These images are close enough to reality and thus hopefully leading to further interest and observation of the “real” living being and finally to an increased awareness towards the environment.
"Sepia"
40" x 13"
silk
To the fascinating sea creatures belongs the family of the cephalopods which are octopus, squid, cuttlefish (sepia) and nautili. Here are some astonishing facts about cephalopods (from Wikipedia):
“Cephalopods are widely regarded as the most intelligent of the invertebrates and have well developed senses and large brains.
Cephalopods are social creatures; when isolated from their own kind, they will take to shoaling with fish.
Some cephalopods are able to fly distances up to 50 m. While the organisms are not particularly aerodynamic, they achieve these rather impressive ranges by use of jet-propulsion; water continues to be expelled from the funnel while the organism is in flight.”
Their camouflage abilities are breathtaking. Not only can they change the colours of their body within less than a second but also the outline of their bodies, creating warts and excrescences which let them merge completely with their environment. Especially their colour changes fascinated me most about them – so this silk painting came into existence.
Cuttlefish specifically are reminiscent of dancers of a ballet in their tutus for me but also their breathtaking colour patterns remind me of the costumes of an opera. In the following detail photos you can see what I tried to achieve. But as many colours you have on your palette it is nonetheless impossible to copy nature…
But for how long will these beauties still exist when the oceans are polluted, the surface of the water covered with spilled oil and plastic islands floating around and finally covering the ocean bed like a shroud? Is this really the future of this planet? We probably won’t know in our lifetime. But what about the following generations? What do you want for your children?
There is also a tiny spark of hope. Not all people are senseless - instead there are a lot of innovations on the way such as the SeaVax project where a solar-powered vacuum could suck up 24,000 tons of ocean plastic every year. More to read here and here. Anyone could help that this project will succeed before more damage is done to our Mother Earth. Think NOW!!! before you buy the next take-away coffee...
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