Illustrating the Beauty of a Disappearing World | Short Film Showcase
The big thing that I'm trying to do with my work is give a chance for people to connect with that landscape, to cultivate a deeper understanding, and hopefully inspire them to make a difference. I am—I just kind of disappeared into the color and the form and the shape and tone. It's not even an iceberg or a wave that I'm drawing at that point because I'm up so close. It's just these colors, and I'm so focused on the work that somehow everything else dissolves into the background.
Being out in nature is certainly what gives me perspective—to be reminded of how small we are in the grand scheme of the universe. It means the whole world to just see the ocean and look at its vastness and like, "Right, this is what life's about." I find it important with my art to represent the beauty in the landscape because I think that helps people fall in love with it more easily. But my challenge is to try to find that balance between the beauty of the landscape but also representing the negative aspects of what's happening.
By my mom, around as a child all over the world was something that inspired me to be an artist. We would spend about a month every summer traveling around while she photographed, and my sister and I would, you know, bring sketchbooks along in our own little cameras and help her with her work—carrying her equipment and helping her compositionally, at least that was something I did. She certainly left me with this huge gift. One of those was to take the trip to Greenland in honor of her. I never would have done something like that on my own.
I was scattering her ashes just amidst the ice in Greenland. She asked to be there, and it just made perfect sense, especially when I was there putting her ashes amidst these little, like, crackling melting pieces of ice. And then thinking about how do you say goodbye, but it just put things in perspective for me and helped me move through that process.
Yeah, I'm really grateful for those times when I just have to check out. It just allows you to really focus on nature, take a deep breath of this like delicious clean air, and look at the iceberg floating by. And it just lets everything settle and slow down and reminds me what do I want to spend my time doing, and that's important to me.
It is important to believe that our little actions make a difference and that they count. The work that I'm doing is not gonna solve the climate crisis, but hopefully it will help, you know? Hopefully, it'll play a part, no matter how small that is. We're all here on this planet together, and it's important to do what we can in this lifetime. It's short and sweet, and we'd better make the most of it.