They All Looked At The Rain

This series is a conversation with the element of water. Water as feeling, feminine, birth. Water as life, flow, the Tao.

To shape this project I began collecting children’s books from the 1940‘s-1950‘s while simultaneously clipping newspaper photographs of climate crises. I chose a process that served a more primal entryway into memory, making hand-cut collages. “Then and now” became a major theme, comparing the shifts in awareness and actuality from mid-century to our present global challenge.

“Then” reflects a more direct experience of the natural world, life “in the body” before technology transformed our lives. This includes the experience of spaciousness, interconnectedness and wonder. A 1955 children’s book states with Zen-like simplicity, “They all looked at the rain.”

My focus on the element of water meant diving into emotion; this series became a personal expression of grief. Born at the end of WWll, I am witnessing our planet hurled to the brink of climate catastrophe within the lifetime of a single generation – my own.  We are in a rush to save the Tree of Life.

Just as the collage process draws on fragments to make a whole, this series became my “water prayers” for making our planet whole through gratitude and action.