Frogpondsrock...

“Gobsmacked” was the word I was searching for.

Though the words stunned, amazed, horrified and saddened would have worked equally as well.

What am I babbling on about?

I was watching the telly the other night when up popped Jamie Oliver and I found myself being sucked in to the vortex that was, Jamie Oliver’s food revolution. I was totally horrified to see that a whole classroom full of six or seven year old American children couldn’t identify a potato, a tomato, a cauliflower or any other fresh vegetable you cared to mention.

I was sitting there with my mouth wide open, totally gobsmacked.

Now I knew that some children thought that eggs came from the carton and milk came from the supermarket but to be faced with this scale of food ignorance just blew my mind. It is easy as an Australian to dismiss this as just an American thing but as we all know, where America goes the rest of the world follows.

What are we doing to our children?

Blood and Ashes. Oil and Despair. A work in progress.

This photo of a dead sea bird is the inspiration for my newest work. I took the photo from this website.

There are reports that journalists are not allowed to photograph anything within 65 feet of the oil booms.

My head is a messy place at the moment, I have been researching reports of leaking methane and benzene in the Gulf of Mexico and the news isn’t good.

So today I have been listening to loud music, feeling sorry for myself and playing in the mud.

If you mouse over the photos you can read a description. I don’t have the energy to say much more. I am shattered today. I think the pot will look good when it is finished.

There is only so much room inside my head…

So naturally the overflow has to go somewhere and I either pour it into my work or dump it here.

I’m sorry or you’re welcome would seem to be equally valid responses.

At the end of that last sentence I wandered off and fed the chooks and now I have lost my train of thought.

I worry that our food is killing us and poisoning our children. I look at the number of children with life threatening allergies, with different behaviours and with birth defects. I wonder what exactly is normal behaviour? I worry that our drinking water is so contaminated with pesticides that nothing is safe to eat at all. I think about the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 and that bothers me a whole lot more than the Y2K bug ever did.

I worry about the unexplained deaths of bats, bees and frogs.

I worry that Tasmania has an incredibly high rate of death from cancer and then I wonder if that is linked to pesticides that are still in use in Australia that have been banned in the US, Europe and Great Britain?

I worry about endocrine disruptors in our food.

I see the signs of a poisoned planet in our frogs.

In our native animals.

In our children.

I worry that all the signs are there, that we as a species are hurtling towards disaster and we are too self absorbed to notice. I worry about HAARP technology, I worry about the oils spills that aren’t reported and I worry that the incredible amount of salt in chocolate will make my blood pressure go through the roof.

Luckily for me I have my blog so I can just dump all these worries here onto you as well and then I can wander off outside and look at my terribly neglected vegetable garden and think about doing some work before spring.

I am finding it too difficult to maintain the veggie garden properly in its current state so “The Spouse” cut an old water tank in half for me and I am in the process of filling it up with compost, sheep poo and mushroom compost ready for spring planting. We are going to re-design the garden so that all the beds are raised, which will make gardening a whole lot easier.

The newest chook pen is right next to the veggie garden but the chooks have abandoned it. *sigh* I kept on forgetting to lock the girls up overnight and when I had the piggies, Mother hen decided to move her brood to a native cherry tree next to the pig sty and that is where they are  roosting now.

They are also laying their eggs somewhere miles away down the bush and “The Spouse” is quite grumpy with me. He really dislikes chooks and I am eternally promising that this time, I will lock them up and that I will clean up after them and that their eggs are delicious. Except I forget to lock them up and “The Spouse” finds the chook shit on the verandah before I do and I am sure the eggs are very nice except I can’t  bloody well find them. Sneaky, secretive things chooks.

It is hard being me and “The Spouse” reckons it is even harder living with me.

Luckily I am easily distracted and even though I think deep, depressing thoughts about the environment, little things make me smile.

What do you think the fourth seagull from the right is thinking? Hmm wondering if maybe he could become an accountant?

What can we do?

I received this comment on my oil covered birds post,

Our class has been watching this video as well as the news every day.  We are sad that the birds are covered with oil and they are stuck on the beach.  What can we do to help?  PLEASE WRITE US BACK…LOVE, ROOM 110

I don’t know what you can actually physically do to help room 110, as I am Australian and thousands of miles away from this disaster. I am sure there are plenty of practical things you can do that don’t involve picking up oily and distressed sea creatures though.

You could choose a wildlife organisation and ring them up and see what they need. I do know that volunteer rescue organisations are always chronically short of money so maybe you could organise a fundraiser, a raffle, something like that and then donate the money to an organisation of your choice.

Here in Tasmania a few years ago the community got together and knitted woolly jumpers for the penguins to wear  as part of an oil spill response pack. ( a jumper is a sweater)

Here is a web page with a list of organisations you can contact

I assume that The American Red cross would know how you can help and I am sure that The ASPCA would be another good organisationto get in touch with.

Now as for what you can do in the longer term, that requires a bit of a think. Have a look around your home and really look at everything that you have. The ice cubes in your refrigerator, the throw away plastic bottle in your rubbish bin, all your gadgets, the family car and the clean clothes that you are wearing today.

Everything that enables you to have a comfortable life takes energy.

We are all responsible for this oil spill.

We all need to change our habits.

Reduce your consumption, it is as simple as that. Dry your clothes outside on the washing line rather than in a dryer. Put a sweater on when you are cold rather than turning the heater up.Turn the lights off that you aren’t using. Unplug your mobile phone charger from the wall when you aren’t using it. Dont leave the television on standby. Turn off the microwave when you aren’t using it. Think about that next trip in the car, is it necessary?

Look at how many green or red or blue little lights are on in your house while you are sleeping of a night. Do all those electrical items really need to be sitting there all night silently, sucking power just to save us a few seconds time when we want to use them.

Don’t leave the water running when you brush your teeth in the mornings. Put the plug in the sink when you peel potatoes. Choose environmentally friendly products and ask for organic produce. I am sure you can all think of a zillion more things to do to reduce your own consumption.

Saying NO to plastic is a really good thing to do.

Small things. They are all small things but from little things big things grow.

One person does have the power to change the world.

Peering into the darkness

The images of the oiled birds weigh heavily on my spirit.

The ancient trees cry out to my soul as they are cut down.

Once the ocean is dead what will become of us?

I am hurtling towards the last of my year of firsts and I miss my mother desperately.

I can feel the weight of depression heavy in my chest, a hard lump underneath my breastbone and I can taste its sour flavour at the back of my throat. I can feel it clutching at me at the edges of my mind.

As the heaviness threatens to drag me down, I could easily leap into the darkness and stay there submerged in my own sorrow but I don’t have the time to linger on self absorption, I have wasted enough time already.

A cup was stuck in the mould and I ripped it in my impatience. As I smoothed the jagged edges and altered its shape I became lost in the moment and a series has been born.

I will be exhibiting in the Tasmanian Ceramics Association’s annual exhibition in August, the theme of the exhibition is the seven deadly sins. I cant decide between greed, pride or sloth as my sin of choice, either way this cup and its resemblance to a jagged tree stump will be my interpretation of the brief.

Our sloth, our laziness, our apathy in the face of a world on the brink of catastrophe. Our pride, our vanity, our overriding arrogance that we can control nature and bend to the earth to our will is uppermost in my mind. The essence of our destuctive human natures will be represented in these forms.

They wont be blue like the picture above as I need something harsher than that to get the idea out of my head. Blood and ashes, graffiti and despair. There wont be any hope in these pieces at all, as they will contain my anger but maybe it is better to have my anger contained in these vessels. We will see.