Sphinx Tapestry (Addendum)

 

Sphinx Tapestry (Addendum), 2021, hand-stitched cotton thread embroidery floss on linen, 25" x 16"

 "Functional mythology has been replaced by inadequate ideology." - Jordan Peterson

This is another piece that contemporizes an ancient Greek myth. The sphinx is made up of bomb shapes, and the wing is made up of thermometers. I stitched the background using water drop shapes, and it contains four symbols that surround the figure. Two of them denote a sense of urgency (the hourglass and the bell), and two of them point to our lowest and highest potential as humans (the saw and the circle). The saw refers to this quote from the Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich: "In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches." It's placed low under the Sphinx figure, in contrast to the circle at the top. The circle here is more complex and has layered meanings. On a mundane level, it represents the sun that's warming the planet. On a profound level, it symbolizes our transcendent wholeness, the one consciousness that we are all a part of. The idea of universality is embedded in this piece and is the antithesis of the current divisive mind virus that's been infecting much of Western culture. 

A story about the Sphinx by the 8th Cent B.C. writer Hesiod is told in the book Symbols And Legends In Western Art by E.S. Whittlesey: (The Sphinx) frequented a high rock near Thebes and waylaid travelers with the riddle, "What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?" The answer is "Man"-in infancy, prime of life, and old age. Those who failed to give the correct answer were hurled to their deaths from the rock. I imagine us now collectively on a precipice with a riddle in front of us. The 'Addendum' of the title points to the idea that we need new questions: what does it mean to be human, and who are we really? The Sphinx sits on a coffin decorated with stylized hemlock. A passage about Socrates is on the opposite page in the same book: (he) was allegedly condemned to death for corrupting the youth and for impiety. The latter charge was for his belief in the immortality of the soul. Although I didn't know what he was killed for when I chose hemlock as a symbol, the story connects beautifully to my addendum question. Socrates spoke 'truth in the face of danger', an idea known as 'parrhesia' in Greek. It seems like a necessary, even urgent, imperative for our times. 

Rota Fortunae: Extant/Extinction

Rota Fortunae: Extant/Extinction, 2019,  hand-stitched cotton thread on linen, 9"x6" 

This is my last finished piece of 2019. The idea for it came to me in 2018 when I was researching the tarot for my piece 'The Queen of Wands Contemplates Saturn's Return' and I discovered The Wheel of Fortune (La Rove De Fortune) card from the Tarot De Marseilles deck, circa 16th century. On it are three fantastical and intriguing creatures that can represent luck or destiny, as well as the ever changing cycles we go through in life. The card has been modeled ever since the tarot's inception in the 15th century after the medieval concept of Rota Fortunae, the wheel of the goddess Fortuna. 

The theme of my version is the sixth extinction, and I stitched three different animal species and positioned them on the wheel according to their conservation status. On top is the Golden crowned kinglet, a bird that is thriving in population and also has a 'crown', reflecting the animal on the top of the Marseilles card. Going down on the left side is a critically endangered Red wolf, which is nearly extinct with fewer than 50 living in the wild. Heading back up on the right side of the wheel is an Island night lizard, which has made a dramatic comeback from its earlier endangered status. 

I made the spokes on the wheel into thermometers that surround a central earth to indicate the warming planet. The top of the piece has the words 'extant/ extinction' and I incorporated the card's number- Roman numeral X- into the word 'extinction'. I stitched these words in a similar color to the background so that you have to look carefully to see them. Many versions of the Wheel Of Fortune have a winged figure in each corner, and I placed wing-like shapes in this piece as part of the overall background design.

Fracking Weld County part 2

Fracking Farm, hand-stitched cotton thread on linen,  4"x6",  2019

Fracking Fields, hand-stitched cotton thread on linen,  5"x5",  2019

Fracking Elementary School, hand-stitched cotton thread on linen,  4.5"x6",  2019

"If fracking treated all people equally, that is, if every person in Colorado were threatened with anywhere from 10 to 50 fracked wells in their neighborhood, the oil and gas industry would be long gone." -Philip Doe 

Here's a sampling from the compendium of scientific, medical, and media findings demonstrating risks and harms of fracking:

• Over 90 percent of all original research studies published from 2016-2018 on the health impacts of fracking found a positive association with harm or potential harm. 
• People living within setback distances are potentially vulnerable to thermal injury during a well blowout, and they are also susceptible to exposures of benzene and hydrogen sulfide at levels above those known to cause health risks.
• In 29 out of 76 samples, toxin concentrations far exceeded federal health and safety standards, sometimes by several orders of magnitude. 
• Fracking fluid was found to contain arsenic, benzene, cadmium, formaldehyde, lead, and mercury. 
• Pollution near drilling and fracking operations is high enough in some Colorado communities to raise cancer risks, according to a 2018 study. 
• Data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission showed that fracking-related chemical spills in Colorado exceed an average rate of one spill per day. Of the 495 chemical spills that occurred in that state over a one-year period of time, nearly a quarter impacted ground or surface water. 
• Water withdrawals for fracking can deplete water levels by 51% in nearby streams. Streams near drilling and fracking activity had significantly higher numbers of methane-metabolizing and methane-producing microorganisms. 
• Wastewater samples collected from 329 fracked oil wells found that virtually all—98 percent—contained benzene at levels that exceeded standards for permissible concentrations in drinking water.   

http://btc-usa.net/compendium-of-scientific-medical-and-media-findings-demonstrating-risks-and-harms-of-fracking/

Fracking Weld County part 1

Fracking Neighborhood, hand-stitched cotton thread on linen,  5"x5",  2019

Fracking Playground, hand-stitched cotton thread on linen,  5"x 7.5",  2019

Fracking Highschool, hand-stitched cotton thread on linen,  5"x 7.25",  2019

“If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money.”     – Professor Guy McPherson, School of Natural Resources, University of Arizona

These pieces are the first three in a series of six. This work is inspired by contemporary Afghan war rugs, with their vivid pictorial scenes and border decorations interspersed with images of tanks, fighter jets, Kalashnikov rifles, military helicopters, and other depictions of war. I created these small stitchwork pieces by referencing photographs of actual fracking sites in Weld County, Colorado, portraying the fracking rigs, tanks, and other drilling paraphernalia within the landscape. Utilizing similar visual motifs and styles of the war rugs, they include small repeating images- mainly around the borders- that I associate with the fracking industry: dollar signs, water drops, flames, and thermometers. I played around with different kinds of stitching, and each one has a slightly different style.

I'm calling the series Fracking Weld County, which refers to the county in Colorado where I grew up. The vast majority of fracking in the state is concentrated in this area, called the Niobrara shale formation. It currently has more than 25,000 active wells in this area alone, with many more permits pending. Many of the drilling sites are within neighborhoods and are very close to schools and playgrounds, and every time I go to my hometown of Greeley to visit my dad I'm astonished to see what the extraction industry is doing to this area and the ugliness that it brings. Using new technologies applied to horizontal fracking, the raw greed of the gas and oil industry, with the full complicity of the local government, has overlooked the health and safety of its citizens and of the earth itself in favor of profit. Fracking is extremely toxic, contaminating both the air and water. It also directly contributes to climate change by releasing methane. I think that true wealth is a healthy environment and an authentic connection to the beauty and intelligence of nature.