CLOSE AND FAR DISTANCE

                                                              Oil on linen 80 x 150 cm

I am in a quandary. I have painted this new work above with general ideas of an 'everything landscape' in mind. Yet, I don't know what to call it. Maybe, by the end of writing this post a title will have come to me.

I was wanting to visually capture a sense of vastness at the same time as revealing the minutiae that etches character, nuance and intimacy into the landscape. I wanted the landscape to be ambiguous with regards to exact place and space, yet recognisable as landscape, yes an Australian one, but also a universal one. I hoped that viewers would 'read' the painting in a variety of ways, at one instance seeing for example, land and sea, at another instance land and sky, or maybe fire and water, or perhaps at a micro level seeing a cross section of a drop of water and a grain of sand. Maybe seeing 'everything' and every perspective at once...

This landscape took me back to my childhood growing up on the treeless Pirriunuan Plain, just outside Dalby on the Darling Downs, Queensland. Looking eastwards, the majestic Bunya Moutains cut a startling silhouette against endless skies. Looking westwards the flat horizon shimmered with watery mirages in summer, and in winter the crisp coldness evaporated mirages to almost reveal the curvature of the Earth. Within this vast expanse I could be propelled from a wonder of endless space to a curiosity of micro intimacies. This experience of close and far distance has inspired me over many years. These are the 'landscape' elements I try to visually describe.

Regular readers will know of my interest in perspective, literal and metaphoric. I have written about it numerous times. In an increasingly globalised world in which we live locally, it is imperative that we develop skills in seeing multiple perspectives...even simultaneously. The dance between the macro and micro involves a myriad of, what could be called, perspectival steps... like a tango where there are flamboyantly expressed moves and tantalisingly intimate gestures, or like a symphony where music's fulsome largess can seem beyond distance and individual notes can catapult the listener to places where seductive secrets stir.

So back to the painting above. Two of my much loved transcultural-religious trees-of-life create the landscape elements, both broadly speaking as well as in detail. The Australian landscape, particularly where I grew up, constantly changes. As seasons pass, sorghum crops swathe the landscape in rusty red, wheat fields wash it with naples yellow, sunflowers make it sing with a sunshine yellow, new seedlings whisper a soft green hue. When the soil is fallow it reveals a rich and fertile blackness. The sky can be crystal blue, sometimes greeted by fluffy white clouds, and at other times dense grey ones. At night the darkness is still, only interrupted by the sparkle of the Milky Way and the moon in its various phases. I remember when my Father, like most farmers at the time, used to burn the stubble after harvesting was completed. This was done under controlled conditions and prior to research showing that ploughing the stubble back into the soil was a better method.  The fires were outstanding, furious and shortlived. The colours were rich and thick. In drought the land is bare and naked, after rain it sings with new colours.

Intimate details such as cracked dry soil, scattered seeds, abundant mushrooms after rain, animal droppings, snake trails, discovering chook eggs in the bamboo, dropped feathers, rain drops on leaves, puddles, small insects [sometimes in plague proportions!], wildflowers and so on, are the warp and weft creating the tapestry of vastness. They are all there in the landscape above...trust me!

Regular readers might ask about my concerns for the land, and the landscape, with regards to the burgeoning Coal Seam Gas industry and the growth in open cut mining. Indeed, these activities disrupt the landscape externally and internally, visually and vibrationally. The quiet stillness of the black of night, in parts of Australia, is now silenced with the constant and persistent noise of gas wells. The landscape is visually punctuated with these same wells and underground they bore into depths where gas extraction potentially can change aquifer dynamics and soil profiles. As regular readers know, my concerns have been expressed many time before on this BLOG.

Most Australians know their landscape is affected by the volatility inherent in nature's extremes....bush fires, floods, droughts, cyclones ravage the land. Indeed, in Western Queensland and Northern New South Wales, floods are currently wrecking homes, businesses, crops and infrastructure. The town of St. George is having its third flood within two years and the town has been evacuated. Whilst the water is currently destructive, the long term benefits are enormous. The soil's profile is now replete with moisture, dams and rivers are full. Three to four years ago the soil was starved of moisture, dams were low, rivers in danger.

I think I will call this painting 'Close and Far Distance'

SELECTED PERSPECTIVE AND DISTANCE POSTS

CLOSE DISTANCE
PERSPECTIVE-Distance
INTO THE SYMPHONY
HOPE IN THE DISTANCE
NOTIONS OF PERSPECTIVE
THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING
UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE


 *****************************************************************************

FOR EVERYONE: WORDS AND PAINTINGS UPDATE
Two weeks today until my BOOK LAUNCH!

Just a reminder that my book launch for 'For Everyone: Words and Paintings' is Thursday 23 February! Click HERE for more details.

TESTIMONIALS

Not only is Kathryn a deeply talented, original and inspiring artist, she has a gift for wordsmithing as well! Utilizing the raw power of her art, ‘For Everyone’ is a masterful insight into the very essence of who we truly are, our complexities, our simplicities and who we are meant to be. Dr George Blair-West, Author of The Way of the Quest

In Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox’s book, 'For Everyone: Words and Paintings', the combination of words and images is a gift to the senses. I highly recommend it. Felix Calvino, Author of A Hatful of Cherries

For Everyone is absolutely beautiful and as I read the prose, and looked at the paintings, it was like going on a personal journey of my life. It touched on fond memories of my childhood and reinforced my beliefs in being an individual. As a teacher I know this book could be used in so many ways. In 2011 I organised and ran the Gifted and Talented Program in Writing at my school. Many students in my class published their poetry and stories in an Australian wide writing competition. I am continuing in this position in 2012 and will incorporate this unique book to help my students develop their ideas and be more expressive. The paintings and phrases in For Everyone are great conversation starters. They will also inspire and encourage students to be brave enough to share and express their thoughts and individuality. This book is a fabulous resource for educating and inspiring young people to share the beauty from within! Lou Walsh: Primary School Teacher

So, until next time,
Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

TRUTH, TREES

Seeing The Truth Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

On Thursday I had a really wonderful day. I met up with a friend who I have known since the early 1980s, but whilst we now both live in Brisbane, we very rarely see each other. My friend's name is Heather Price. We first met each other in Goondiwindi when Heather and her then-husband, and I and my then-husband, learnt to play Bridge! Heather and I were both involved in many of the art activities Goondiwindi offered.

On Thursday Heather and I went for a very special walk in the bush at the foothills of Mt. Cootha, just here in Brisbane...yes, we have the bush in ready access to the metropolis! We connected with the natural environment around us and at one point had a discussion about something we each identified in the other...and that is... an ability to see the vast and the intimate, simultaneously. We discussed that perhaps we had developed this ability to 'see' this way, and to also conceptualise it, because our childhoods, and much of adult lives, had been spent in the vast expanse of the Australian rural landscape. I grew up on the flat treeless plain of Pirrunuan, just outside Dalby, on the Darling Downs, in Queensland. Heather grew up in the flat expanses of the land around Moree, in north western New South Wales.

Regular readers of this BLOG will know how excited I felt when Heather and I recognised that each had this innate sense, as I have written about close and far distance, the macro and micro and multiple perspectives before. But, what is it about living in a vast landscape that entices somone to 'see' life and the world around, and within, in ways that are provoked by space and distance...and ultimately time? Both, Heather and I, have absorbed our experiences with distance, in ways which inform our personal and professional lives...me as an artist and Heather as a Creative Counsellor and Healer [and much much more!].

Heather's and my familial heritages are also similar.We both come from a long ancestry of farmers or people who worked on the land and /or sea. We wondered if our innate sense to 'see' the vast and intimate simultaneously, is not just about us, but also about those who came before us. Regular readers of this BLOG will know what I would say...yes, my ancestry will have influenced my powers of observation of and within vastness. Also, as a woman, I resonate with all the other women who lived my ancestry, who lived in remote landscapes, raised families, and tended to community and cultural development in their locales.

There is something about seemingly endless space, that compels you to notice, and take comfort in, the minutiae-the cracks in the dry earth, whispery tuffs of clouds, insects, and so on...but there is more... it's as if the vastness cannot hide its energy.

Before I go on, I know that by now you'll be intrigued by Heather's story. So, here's her website. Enjoy!

http://www.shamanicpathandpractice.com/index.html

THE PAINTINGS

To unravel some of my thoughts about multiple perspectives and distance, I will 'talk' about the three new paintings I have uploaded. At the bottom of this BLOG post I will list other posts where I also 'talk' about perspective, distance, the vast and intimate.

The painting above 'Seeing The Truth' is one of my ambiguous landscapes, created with my much loved age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life motif. For me, and I suspect also for Heather, seeing the landscape is not just about what we literally see. In this painting I have tried to reveal the energy that exists above and below the earth/land. In a way this is like a cross section of sky and land, revealing intimacies within the vastness of both. The tree pulses with a vascular like energy in the sky as well as below the earth, yet the two energies are connected, like roots are to a tree. In an age where we plunder the resources inside the earth, I think we forget that, whilst unseen, it is still an integral part of our landscape. What happens underneath affects what happens above. Just because we cannot literally see it, does not mean we can forget about it. Really 'seeing' means we need to use our imaginatons, to use our mind's eye, to 'see' those forces which propel not just our earthly existence, but also the one we share with the Universe...or Multiverse.

Cooked With Gas Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

Regular readers will recognise that this next painting 'Cooked With Gas' is one of my 'quiet activist' paintings. Yes, it is a comment on the Coal Seam Gas [CSG] industry, which potentially threatens the quality of underground and above ground water supplies, soil and air quality and rural social fabric, not only in Australia but elsewhere in the world. Yes, I have written about this before, but, today I am writing from the perspective of vastness and intimacy.

This painting was inspired by an aerial photo of  CSG activity near Chinchilla, which is a bit further west from Dalby, where I grew up. The photo showed the chaotic spider web like patterning of gas wells and access roads to each well, that criss cross the landscape.

I have painted the roads with small red $ signs and the well sites with yellow $ signs. The $ signs question how we 'value' our land and resources. The fact that the viewer cannot readily discern the $ signs until up close, 'asks' the question ,' Have you noticed?' The movement of the viewer from far-to close-to far distance is a 'dance' which I like to provoke. It replicates the same 'dance' that I enjoy as I move back and forth from a painting examining it from close and far distance, making decisions of aesthetics and meaning. As I have written before, this back and forth 'dance' may be one we all need to learn, in order to live sustainably and compassionately, in this increasingly globalised world in which we live locally.

Whilst 'Cooked With Gas' can be viewed as an expanse of vastness seen from the air, it could also be a cross section of a coal seam, revealing the fissures created by fracking ie: the blasting process used to crack the coal in the seam to release the methane gas to be collected, along with water 'byproduct'.  So, under the earth, in the quiet intimacy of  ancient depths, man induced changes will not go un-noticed! In the first painting 'Seeing The Truth' the tree-of-life which forms the earth, is painted in red to stress its vascular life nurturing nature. In 'Cooked With Gas' red $ signs reduces the 'bood' of the earth by limiting its 'value' to one dimension.

I Am A Tree Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

This next painting 'I Am A Tree' places the female figure at the centre. She is the site of all growth. She is the land, the sea, the sky. She is connected to everything, the Universe or Multiverse. She folds duality so that it is no longer recognisable as such. She embraces the vastness with intimate strokes of love and compassion. She is the horizon, as well as being that which exists beyond it...and this horizon may be within us.  She is the landscape in its universal entirity, as well as its co-existing metaphor, the landscape of soul.

She is me, she is you, she is the feminine power that exists within us all...male and female.


http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/09/cosmic-dust.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/beginning-of-everything.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/08/dance-with-distance.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/12/oils-aint-oilsany-more.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/05/notions-of-perspective.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-my-last-blog-i-wrote-about-my-guest.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/09/flying.html


Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

POLITICAL AGENCY

 

Blood Connection Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm

 

Regular readers of this BLOG will know there are a few subthemes to my work. However, hopefully you have detected that the overarching premise is to help make the world a better place for us all. I deliberately try not to be didactic, because didacticism is very rarely open ended. It attempts to give answers rather than stimulate questions which may lead to answers, and even more questions, we did not know existed.  Didacticism can also be the disguise of more insidious agendas designed to herd opinion in certain prescribed ways. Didacticism can be mistaken as political, but its lack of open-endedness renders it impotent. Its potential agency dies because it is tethered to prescription.

One of the subthemes in my work is identifiably political and hopefully potently charged ie: my paintings dealing with water, soil, mining and the coal seam gas industry. Yet, I hope viewers feel that rather than being told, I am inviting them to become more inquisitive about the various potential social, economic and environmental impacts of these issues. Once informed, by their own research, they can make up their own minds.

                                                           $oils Ain't $oils Anymore! Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm

                             http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/12/oils-aint-oilsany-more.html

My paintings do not 'scream' their political agency. They are not attention seeking, in the fashionable sense. From a distance the viewer does not see the small $ signs I use to question 'value'. From a distance the viewer cannot read the small words/quotes I use to create my images. However, when up close, the viewer discerns and sees those things he/she could not see from a distance. I have watched people's reactions when they see the $ signs and words. Many immediately get even closer to check that they are seeing properly. Many walk back to a distance again, and then up closer, and then back again...and so on. Many chuckle and most stay in front of the painting for awhile to contemplate. If I am there they will turn around and ask me questions. Often a long conversation ensues.

 
Regular readers of this BLOG will know that the movement back and forth to view my paintings delights me! Why? Because, I 'see' this movement as the metaphoric 'dance steps' we need to learn if we are to live peacefully, sustainably and productively, in this increasingly globalised world in which we live locally. Simply, the distance viewing is the 'global view'; the close up viewing is the 'local view'. In order to see multiple perspectives simultaneously we need to know the 'dance steps' that allow us to graciously and easily traverse the local/global stage.
 
The movement back and forth also replicates the kind of movement an artist makes as they create. For example, I will paint up close and then move to a distance to ascertain a number of things, from the practical, to the aesthetic, to the esoteric. As I paint I am in a constant process of moving back and forth. If we all engage in, and with, our world in a way where we metaphorically move back and forth to see, hear and feel different perspectives, then we are all potentially sharing in the act of ongoing creation.
 

Earth For Sale! Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/07/earth-for-sale-120-x-160-cm-oil-on.html

Beauty also has a powerful political agency...because it offers hope. Beauty is not superficial prettiness enslaved to the transcience of fashion. It cannot be enlisted by attention seeking sensationalism or gimmacky spectacle, also fashion's exhausting attendants. Neither are spectacular or senstational. Beauty does not deny ugliness and sadness, and this is its potent secret...its pathos.  I have written about beauty before : 

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/03/beauty.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/12/beauty-and-vortex.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2011/03/beauty-as-portal.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2011/03/beauty-gives-hope-chance.html

Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast? No! Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/food-fantasy-in-future.html

Phantom Water Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/08/airspace-and-phantoms.html

Regular readers know I am concerned about issues surrounding the coal seam gas industry, which is burgeoning in S.E and S.W Queensland, as well as other parts of Australia and the world. I am not anti mining per se, but I am anti any kind of activity which puts food producing farmlands and precious water [aquifer and above ground] at risk. From my perception there are enough worrying incidents, in Australia and overseas [particularly the US] to warrant concern. There are also concerned voices calling for caution from the scientific community. I have attended two public forums where these voices have been clearly articulated. The question marks are there and it seems unscientific to proceed, especially with haste, without further research. 

I am reading a brilliant, but scarey book called 'The Coming Famine' by Julian Cribb.  http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6447.htm This book coupled with another book I read recently 'Water: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, and Civilization' by Steven Solomon http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Water-Steven-Solomon/?isbn=9780060548308 compel me to believe the upmost caution must be taken to preserve water and food producing soils. As a farmer's daughter, and having lived most of my life in rural Australia, I have witnessed farmers embrace more environmentally sustainable practices in ways which enhance productivity. As a student of history I also know that it is both morally and politically dangerous to risk degradation of food producing farmlands. I have written about risk previously. Please see the painting below and the link to my previous post.

Risk Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

 http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/09/risk.html

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com/

THE DONKEY AND OTHER THINGS

Hello!
I am currentlyworking on an oil painting which I am going to call '$oils Ain't $oils...Anymore' [close up detail image below]. Regular readers of this BLOG will recognise that it is another painting inspired by my concern about the influx of Coal Seam Gas and open cut mining in areas of Queensland where prime agricultural land exists. When the painting is finished I will upload a photograph. Here are links to previous posts:
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/food-fantasy-in-future.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/10/water-gallery.html

                                          Detail of, as yet unfinished $oils Ain't $oils...Anymore

 PUBLIC FORUM
I attended a public forum 'Environmental Implications of Coal Seam Gas and Coal-to-Liquids Projects' at the University of Qld on Monday this week. The speakers included 2 soil scientists, a hydrologist, 2 Government reps, a mining industry rep, Greens Senator Elect Larissa Waters [also an environmental lawyer], 4 spokesmen from farmer action groups and a lawyer from Dalby.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE FORUM
The soil scientists emphasised that the types of soils, which exist in the threatened areas of the Bowen and Surat Basins, cannot be rehabilitated. Issues concerning water included, across aquifer leekages, unknown outcomes of aquifer fault disturbance, depletion of aquifers, disruped feeder water supplies, salination, silting.
Issues affecting farming practices, and thus viability and efficiency, included above ground pipes and roads to each CSG well, criss crossing farming paddocks. The CSG wells, estimated aroound 40,000, are only around 1 ha apart. Access roads to wells will disrupt farming [ploughing, harvesting etc], disprupt natural water flow across flood plains leading to pooling of water, silting and potential salination. Social, business and health issues were also discussed. One alarming outcome is that farm values will [and have] drop because people will not buy when uncertainty exists. As valuations drop, at some point, triggers for banks to start agitating will happen. The general outcome of the forum, which was expressed very clearly, was that what's happening is 'madness'.

*I am reminded of a quote I have posted before ... by Lord Martin Rees, Royal Astonomer and Professor of cosmology and astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, from his book 'Our Final Century' . I have previously written about his books' influences on my work. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/04/idea-sketches.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/beginning-of-everything.html

It may not be absurd hyperbole—indeed, it may not even be an overstatement—to assert that the most crucial location in space and time (apart from the big bang itself) could be here and now. I think the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilisation on Earth will survive to the end of the present century. Our choices and actions could ensure the perpetual future of life (not just on Earth, but perhaps far beyond it, too). Or in contrast, through malign intent, or through misadventure, twenty-first century technology could jeopardise life’s potential, foreclosing its human and posthuman future. What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.

Martin Rees, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future in This Century—On Earth and Beyond (New York: Basic Books, 2003) p.7-8

PETITION
If you'd like to sign a petition for a morotorium on CSG please visit this link:
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetition.aspx?PetNum=1592&lIndex=-1 


 NOW TO SOMETHING ELSE!  The Donkey by GK Chesterton

I painted the work on paper above when I was 16. It is an illustration for G.K Chesterton's wonderful poem 'The Donkey' [see below]. As a child, I loved this poem and I still do. It was the one I would recite when I had to recite a poem! And, my children have also recited it many times at school, eisteddfods  and so on,

THE POEM
Despite all the difficulties faced by the donkey, he/she holds a wonderful secret...he/she carried Jesus. This is a simple interpretation and other interpretations can delve further into ideas of self worth, overcoming adversity and so on. I like this poem because the 'secret' gives the donkey a sense of peace. The first 3 stanzas speak of turmoil, like the kind I imagine in the twirling, whirling of the outer vortex, aka life. Yet, the donkey's secret 'knowing' provides a sense of peace, as if re-entering the memory propels the donkey to that peaceful place at the vortex core...that place where stillness reveals those things we did not know we could see, hear, feel or touch. Indeed, the poem says, 'I keep my secret still'.

Regular readers of my BLOG will know of my interest in vortexes and that my next solo exhibition will be called 'Vortex'. Here's are 2 links to previous Vortex posts for you,
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/10/knowledge-of-stillness.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-stillness.html

THE DONKEY

G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

So, until next time!
Cheers Kathryn
http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com/

FOOD - A FANTASY IN THE FUTURE?

                                  Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast?...NO. Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

                                                                       Value Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

These two new works on paper are a continuation of my interest in water. Regular readers will know very well of this intense interest. Please have a look at this previous post, which also has links to other earlier posts http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/murray-darling-currency.html

Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast?...NO
Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast?...NO was inspired by a number of things, but two are significant. The first is that about 2-3 years ago I took my youngest child out to Dalby, where I grew up. She had never seen where I came from and I thought it would be a great mother/daughter pilgrimage. On the drive out to Dalby, and as we got closer, I could not get over the number of mounds of coal. In fact, I must have had my head buried in the sand, because up until then, I had not realised the extent and growth of the mining industry in the region. Since that trip open cut mining's  burgeoning partner ie: Coal Seam Gas is also changing the landscape, both externally and internally [underground aquifers].

In the painting Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast?...NO, the two mounds, painted with small dark $ signs, represent coal mounds. The red $ signs underground signify the potency of the soil and the environmental dilemmas confronting citizens of the planet. The white layer on top of the soil and underneath the mounds alludes to the disastrous potential of soil salinization.

The second significant influence for this painting, and its title, was hearing about a grass roots action group called Coal4Breakfast. 

Value 
Now to Value which speaks of how we value our land. Soil is not something we should compromise in any form. For me, risking soil quality, should not ever be considered...even a small risk. Soil quality underpins food production, not only now, but into the future, both foreseeable and not foreseeable. Compromising our soils diminishes the quality and amount of produce.

Food in the Future
BUT...HEY...in the future...if we don't have food we can always come up with some kind of alternative...pills, intravenous drips, nanobot internal distributors we replenish once a year! Oh what fun... replays of Masterchef will seem like fantasies as our great and great-great grandchildren ask their parents , 'What are those people doing?' ....'Cooking? What's that?'

PUBLIC FORUM
Tonight [Monday 22 Nov, 2010] there is a public forum at the University of Queensland 'Environmental Implications of Coal Seam Gas and Coal-to-Liquids Projects'
The list of speakers looks impressive.


Cheers,
Kathryn

SALT

Salination Gouache on paper 14.8 x 21 cm

Salt Eternal Gouache on paper 17.8 x 25.4 cm

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Regular readers of this BLOG will know of my interest in water. I have previously written about my thoughts on water, its literal use and its capacity to be a metaphor for life, akin to my much loved tree-of-life/knowledge motif. I grew up on my parent's grain farm just outside Dalby on the rich Darling Downs, in SE Queensland, Australia. In the last 5 years the area, once known for it farming and livestock agricultural production, is now hitting the headlines for its burgeoning mining industry with open cut coal mines and coal seam gas extraction [CSG].

This link is a previous post about water. It has other links to other posts as well. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/05/shift.html

One of the by-products of CSG is 'waste water' which is salty. During gas extraction processes this water flows from deep underground, from the aquifers that make up the Great Artesian Basin which straddles Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Here's a link to a picture of it. http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/groundwater/img/map.gif Sustaining this huge resource is of paramount importance for a number of reasons. These include maintaining reliable drinking water sources for livestock, some rural townships' needs, ensuring water tables are maintained to avoid soil salination and so on.

The CSG 'waste water' is stored in water storages ie: dams. However, there is controversy over how to deal with the high salt content, as the water cannot be used for most agricultural and domestic needs. Salt does not go away. Interestingly the symbolism of salt is twofold. It symbolises eternity, endurance. It also symbolises aridness, suffering and barrenness. Put these two together and the result is eternal barrenness. Salination of soils is an environmental disaster to be clearly avoided.

This takes me to the question of risk. What kind of risks are governments, enterprise...indeed all of us... willing to take when questions of environmental vulnerability and threats to future food production for an increasing population are asked but no-one seems to be able to answer in a way which demonstrates that risk analysis has been completely examined. It is one thing to ascertain and take risks if subsequent action only affects the person or enterprise making the decision. But, it is another thing altogether if risk or potential risk may affect not only the decider, but others not only now but into the future.  

So, to my paintings above. These two small works on paper are the results of my ponderings on the risk of salt to our environment. Obviously I am focussing on the district of my childhood, but soil salination is a global problem in terms of environmental issues and future food producing needs.

Here are some links to articles about the CSG issue.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2721216.htm

http://www.smh.com.au/business/farmers-wonder-if-lng-is-worth-its-salt-20100207-nkvr.html

http://www.dip.qld.gov.au/statewide-planning/queensland-coal-seam-gas-water-management-policy.html

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201004/s2870101.htm

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/angry-protesters-demand-independent-industry-review-into-science-behind-coal-seam-gas/story-e6freoof-1225896737166

Please have a look at this site too

http://www.coal4breakfast.com.au/page10.htm  

Until next time.

Kathryn