Art Statement

In 2006 I had this “epiphany”: People needed to stop arguing about whether Climate Change was real.

Instead of arguing about “Global Warming,” we could suspend our disbelief or zealous defense of the cause and simply call these weather and climate phenomena a more descriptive and encompassing name: GLOBAL WEIRDING!

GLOBAL WEIRDING cannot be refuted! You don’t need to believe anything, just observe what is right in front of your eyes. SEEING IS BELIEVING and the acceleration of disasters is the clearest message we have that Nature is not up for business as usual. The stakes have changed and reading our new situation is imperative.

The real challenge is to move in ways that are effective in restoring balance. Granted, it is difficult to convince people to change their habits or mitigate carbon releases into the atmosphere if they see no connection and, in effect, feel no personal power to impact or control their fate. Preaching to the choir, I showed this work to the Scientific Summit on Climate Change held at Southern Oregon University in 2007.

It was interesting to attend that conference and use the artwork for a colorful conversation starter during breaks and conversations with the scientific community. A key point of the conference was what could be done about the “gag order” that had been imposed by the Bush Administration, which had threatened to pull all grant funding from scientific studies who viewed climate change as real. Another was the problem of mainstream media, where the issue was rarely mentioned.

It’s interesting to write a current statement about my artwork. What I painted in 2006 was a forward look at what was about to happen. Truth makes a believer out of everyone, given enough time, and I feel proud to have done a small service in telescoping what I saw then in order to be just a tiny drop added to a raging torrent of publicity and activity directed at solving the problems of Global Weirding.

Catie Faryl
January 2012
Note: Beneath the image gallery is a reproduction of my original comments to this exhibition.