Make art like there's no tomorrow

Spot Fires (detail) - work in progress

We live in tumultuous times. Sometimes it feels like everywhere we look there is a disaster happening, especially with the ongoing bushfires in New South Wales and other parts of Australia. In 1974 Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin on Christmas Eve and this Christmas the fires feel like another ominous portent of calamity.

We left Victoria ten years ago because it was in drought and there was going to be a bushfire near our house anytime soon. It actually came through only a month after we had sold our house. The fire came less than 2 kilometres from the house, but I am so glad we were not in that constant state of stress watching the fire approach.

Yet here we are in New South Wales, supposedly in a high rainfall area and the same thing is happening. You can’t deny that the temperatures are rising (and fast) . This week there have been record breaking temperatures all over Australia. It’s not getting any better. Sometimes it feels like the end of the world is nigh – which is why I think people are feeling like they have to live like there is no tomorrow.

When my mother was a young mum, she watched the 1959 film adaption of Nevil Shute’s book On the Beach, about the end of the world after a complete apocalypse. At that time people were terrified of a nuclear war. Mum grew up during World War II and she knew that fear of going to school with a knapsack packed with a change of knickers (!) and an air mask for mustard gas . So at this time she thought, well if we are all going to die soon, I might as well enjoy life now, and she went out and bought a TV.

That was a huge investment in those days and we were the only family amongst our immediate neighbours who owned a TV at the time.  

J R R Tolkien started writing the second book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy during the height of the Second World War when it looked like England was hanging on by a thread. He had had already experienced life as a soldier at the Somme in World War 1 which by all accounts was horror upon horror. My grandfather was there, and at Gallipoli, but he miraculously survived. Which means, of course, that I am here now.

So are these times different? Yes and no. We are not at war, although we are at war with our planet. For me it feels like we are on an ever higher escalation of climate catastrophes. So the only way I can process this is to make art.

 It has helped me channel my emotions before and it continues to help me by giving me a focus for hope. Make art like there is no tomorrow has become my new motto.

Turning the Page (on climate change) - work in progress

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