something to remember

public art

me and museums, well, we don't always get along.  as soon as you start mixing politics with money with bureaucracy with art, in my mind, things are bound to go astray.  so i wasn't surprised by the intense surges of anxiety i felt tonight entering the whatcom museum for the "fate of the forest" show.  the exhibit was an open call, meaning anyone who was willing to pay $30 to become a museum member and wanted to put art in the show was indeed included.  and that included me and james.  

i wasn't sure what to expect, going in there, but with a call like "fate of the forest", i was sure i would see some answers...like answers to the stomach ache i feel every time a logging truck drives by with a stack of fresh kills, several times a day sometimes, logs for 2x4's for houses for families upon families.  the tree that takes a hundred years to grow takes but a moment to cut down.  so i was hoping, yes, for a glimpse of the kind of art that answers all the questions inside, like: who what when why and how......could we have decimated the world's great forests?  instead, i saw a room full of tree paintings.  trees...in pastel, in oil, in photography....trees everywhere.  and i knew suddenly, the fate of the forest was to be captured, forever as a memory, in art...so we'd have something to remember it by.