Maintaining Perseverance and Rescuing Hope

by Aberjhani

Title

Maintaining Perseverance and Rescuing Hope

Artist

Aberjhani

Medium

Mixed Media - Photography And Silk-featherbrush

Description

Silk-Featherbrush Painting Number 8

California was my home for a number of, years so images of the state burning throughout 2018 in the south and in the north will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. The first art piece I created to acknowledge the impact of reports coming out of California was "Redbird Sifting Beauty out of Ashes." In that image, the doom and gloom of the inferno is represented by dark layers of smoke and ash. In "Maintaining Perseverance and Rescuing Hope," the blazing flames are represented by the areas of red. The determination to rescue hope, or keep it alive as Civil Rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson so famously put it, is depicted in a number of ways which I leave to viewers' interpretations.

I only watched the flames from a distance, but even though they have now died down and been "contained," much concern remains for the hundreds of people yet to be found either dead or alive. Those who know they lost loved ones as well as their homes in the infernos are now seeking ways to reconstruct destroyed properties and honor lost lives. No one needs to convince them of the validity of the findings published in the most recent reports on global warming/climate change. Nor does anyone have to convince them about the value of exercising empathy or maintaining hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.

Life, as painful as it sometimes is, has a way of reconstituting itself. When it comes to us ordinary humans accomplishing such a feat, maintaining perseverance and hope is as essential as the shovels, hoses, and airplane drops used to dowse wildfires. This artwork is my salute to that ongoing effort.

Aberjhani
November 2018

Uploaded

November 28th, 2018

Colors

Embed

Share

Tags