In early April I received an email with the subject heading "Quaker arts and service opportunity". It started "Dear Eugene Friends, I would like to pass along the following, about an opportunity for Quakers and others to engage in an international community craft project in response to our climate crisis, to share with those who may be interested in your meeting. Please do feel free to let me know if you have any questions. In Friendship, Matt Rosen, The Loving Earth Project, Oxford Meeting."
I dove into the attached information and the linked web page, and I was hooked! The Loving Earth Project is an international community textile project, started by a few British Quakers in 2019. They are collecting fabric art panels to use in a traveling exhibit, which will go to Glasgow for the Climate Summit this fall. But the real goal is to encourage us to each explore our connection to some place on the earth, and what action we can take to show our love for it.
You can find a short video introducing the project here.
The Loving Earth Website is here.
After looking over the website, I found a list of events and signed up for a workshop. It was a zoom meeting at 7:30 p.m. in Britain, which is 11:30 a.m. PST. The workshop helped me to hone in on my deepest response to the query "What or whom do you love that’s in danger from environmental breakdown?"
My first response was the rain! Growing up on the Oregon coast, I am 90% rainwater myself, and when I think about the decrease in rainfall we are experiencing, I get choked up. I drew this design.
One important component is the essay that accompanies each panel, and explains the imagery of the panel and actions that the artist is taking. You can read some of these on the Gallery page of the Website.
When I started to research my essay on rain I found so much conflicting information that I decided to change my topic! My new idea is "crossroads".
Comments
Post a Comment