A Blossoming Concern
As we close out what we are learning in our class on rhetoric we took more time to appreciate the aspects of rhetorical art. Art that's making a statement and difference within its community. As a field experience, we as a grade got to visit the Dr. Martin Luther King living memorial. A structure made out of tile and brick creates a beautiful piece that encourages community. While looking back and learning about the time of the Chicago Freedom Movement the class started to elude to a project that would include our own art. Our assignment was to create an art piece of any medium of our choice based off of our fascination or strong feeling about an important problem or subject.
With this piece I wanted to make it seem as though our Earth was speaking back. Give personification to what I'd think the world would say if it saw what we had done to it over the last couple hundred years. Specifically addressing the destruction of forests to make room for city development plans. As someone who has always loved the natural world and wants to study it as a profession in the future, I felt this was one of the most pressing matters I could touch on. I remember being a kid and how I was always amazed at what I could find in the backyard of our home in Michigan, trees are one of our most treasured resources and providers of Oxygen and without them, carbon dioxide levels rise but cutting down those trees lowers the number of trees that can absorb that same carbon dioxide. It is said that in the next one hundred years rainforests if we carry on as we are right now, our rainforests could be completely gone.
When listening to the introduction and explanation of what this project was going to be in class the idea struck me suddenly to use floriography(or the language of flowers) to portray a message. I wanted the message to be darker than the exterior art piece, a symbol of how our Earth provides what we need in such beautiful ways. A kind of meiosis, having a very important and striking topic packaged as a blooming bouquet. So I found a hub online of flowers and their meanings and started skipping through the alphabet. The four I landed on were orange Oleander, Yellow Carnations, Galax, and White Magnolia. The centerpiece and biggest flower in the painting are the Magnolia. All the other flowers almost support it and push it forward. This flower means love of nature and is what the Earth is encouraging us to be open to. Encouragement actually being the second flower leaning on either side of the Magnolia, this flower is Galax. The two flowers at the bottom are supposed to be symbolic of what the Earth feels about what we've done to it first are the yellow flowers which are Yellow Carnations. These flowers mean grave disappointment giving the bouquet a more emotional aspect and across from them are the Orange Oleanders which mean caution or danger. I thought they would be an accurate depiction of the Earth's message because I think it would be understandable to be concerned or scared in a situation like our planet is in.
The watercolor painting medium I thought would best suit what I was trying to send as a message to the audience. The soft blended colors make for a very visually appealing piece. It's only when you actually look at what each part means and why it was made do you begin to understand why it was painted. I love when a piece of art looks like something you'd expect from a usual artist but they add something more to it and thas what I believe I've done with this bouquet. I see this bouquet being sold as a series of posters. If more time was given I can certainly see myself turning this into a series of paintings each tackling a different specific issue our climate is facing. Some show the forest fires in California, maybe one showing a polluted Earth from space's view or factory smog. Of course, this is a rather small painting but I imagine these big 20'' by 30''posters being sold at a local art fair. Renegade art fair is an event I go to with my family every year. To be represented at that fair would be a dream.
This is one of the world's most urgent problems and we should be taking note of how we treat our forests. This planet was given to us and to see it treated like this is kind of repugnant. If we plan to actually have a planet to live on in the future we better start taking note of what wood we're using and whether it's approved by the FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) because if not we could be buying from some pretty sinister people selling the wood they got from cutting down forests that did not deserve it.
This project was a really interesting experience. I liked that it was so interpretive. The prompts given were slightly vague so it gave us space to think and come up with something completely our own. I knew from the start that I'd do watercolor but it turned out to blend so much better with the message I was trying to give than I had hoped. There were no real concerns for me during this process except for maybe finding a solid topic and after I had thought about the painting more and more it kind of just came to me. I hope to have many Action Projects like this in the future.
Sources:
Managers, Internet. “The Meaning of Flowers, Floriography, Language of Flowers, Advice Hints and Tips from All Florists.co.uk.” Allflorists.co.uk | Making It Easier to Find the Best Florist, http://www.allflorists.co.uk/advice_flowerMeanings.asp.
Annika Dean / 21 August 2019. “Deforestation and Climate Change.” Climate Council, 9 Feb. 2021, https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/deforestation/.
“Home Page: Forest Stewardship Council.” Home Page | Forest Stewardship Council, https://fsc.org/en.
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