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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a dark, stormy night in the middle of January, 2016 and I am listening to gale force winds slam on the tin roof overhead. We are in a small fishing cottage in Donegal, on one of the most remote headlands in the country. There is no electricity, the closest neighbour is a twenty minute drive away and the nearest pint a hike over the looming mountain. As harsh as this sounds, it is exactly what I need.<\/p>\n
I am suffering from \u2018burn out\u2019 you see, so these icy blasts of Atlantic air are a soothing balm to my scorched senses, the isolation a tonic. For six years I have been a freelance artist, environmental activist and educator, based in Dublin.<\/p>\n
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In that time I have scraped, salvaged and hammered large-scale art installations into being. Using reclaimed materials as my medium and naivety as my armour, I have tried to raise environmental awareness through art.<\/p>\n
These attempts have included vertical \u2018window farms\u2019 in school foyers, multi-storey cardboard dragons in Barcelona, and a shoal of two hundred tin can fish to highlight the blight of overfishing. Suffice to say, I am a bit tired.<\/p>\n
We are facing environmental collapse and I am holding a pencil<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The journey began quite some time ago. I was under ten when I staged my first \u2018protest\u2019 (solo and quite ineffective, but charming I\u2019m sure). I filled my bedroom with hand-drawn environmental posters. My heroes then were the bedraggled eco-warriors living atop trees in the Glen-of-the-Downs, who I had seen on RTE\u2019s Six One News in 1990\u2019s Ireland. I idolised them from a threadbare armchair in West Cork.<\/p>\n
If Nature was my first love and inclination, Art became my boon and in 2010 I graduated from the National College of Art and Design. Emerging from the shuttered, blue gates on Thomas Street into peak-recession Ireland, I felt distinctly confused, and became caught up for a while in the art-clique-jargon-speak of galleries, shows and funding proposals. I engaged for a while, until realising with a jolt I had lost my way.<\/p>\n
I came across a headline stating: \u2018Scientists say by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish.\u2019 I remembered my ten year old self and the joy of playing by the sea. By the time I would reach sixty-four systems such as these could be in irreversible crisis. The more I read, the starker the prognosis became: species loss; extreme climate events.\u00a0We are facing environmental collapse and I\u2019m holding a pencil.<\/i><\/p>\n
As an alternative to all out panic, there ensued six years of magical, exhausting and invigorating creative activity. \u2018In flow\u2019 I found huge resources of energy, produced installations incessantly and started my own environmental education company. I cycled, danced and skip-dived through my twenties in fabulous company, finding like-minded people and speaking plainly. I became so contented I almost forget the instincts of my ten-year-old self.<\/p>\n
That was until I began spending more time with ten-year-olds, visiting schools all over Dublin to educate them on environmental issues, and inspire creative activism.<\/p>\n I find all young people intuitively care about the natural world. This is despite many being cut off from its beauty, solace and life-giving force. I also cannot help noticing that \u2018proper\u2019 grown-ups, while claiming to care about the environment are unwilling to change what are often destructive behaviours. Over time we become disconnected from Nature, and cease to really care.<\/p>\n Oh dear, here I am again. Except now the climate science is more alarming and the political situation even more dire. What on earth can I do from this small art studio on Francis Street? I stare at the wall. I pretend to be busy. I help others with their projects, to distract from my latest creative paralysis. I am asked to speak at events as an \u2018art-activist.\u2019 I flick through slides of my work feeling like a fraud. Global Warming Anxiety and Creative Burnout, sweat prickles my brow, \u2018Can someone please open the window?!\u2019<\/p>\n Mysterious circular patterns<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n I walk from the fishing cottage down to the foamy shore. All is white in a terrific whipped cream, post-storm sea. The wind is still strong and I have to concentrate to stay upright as I watch flurries of sea birds find shelter in their cliff-face hide outs. Inky-black, an otter weaves in and out of the zinc white surf. With oil-spillery movements she is making the most of the many fish swept in by the mighty Atlantic heaves.<\/p>\n For two weeks we walk and explore, allowing our cheeks to be pelted pink by the icy winds. Venturing over the mountainside for a pint, we discover a small village with ancient standing stones scattered in unlikely positions: one is propped up by the local post office; another serves as one side of a farm gate; yet another towers conspicuously tall in a famine graveyard. All of them display mysterious circular patterns, which I trace with a gloved finger.<\/p>\n Back at the cottage, by the fire, I am reading Jung and his ideas of circle mandalas as a complete expression of self. I think about my own inner cycle, restless with creative energy before an inevitable collapse. Things come into focus, and I feel like a beach pebble finding the shape and warmth of beachcomber\u2019s palm. At the old wooden table I begin drawing circles and start filling them with what I know of Nature.<\/p>\n And so from the darkest point in winter again flowers an impulse to art and curiosity. I draw circles depicting natural cycles. The wheel of the year, the phases of the moon, a woman\u2019s energy cycle \u2013 cycles I know support whole life systems. I locate myself somewhere on this wheel, shifting through different seasons, through different levels of uncertainty.<\/p>\n Peaks and troughs<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n There are periods between budding and blossoming; times requiring rest and reflection, as in a rich compost. I am beginning to understand that I, like the plant or a tree, am a cyclical being. This is the greatest connection I have forged with the natural world, and one that I know is vital for me to share.<\/p>\n Native Circles is my latest art-offering in the ever-confusing, messy and beautiful landscape of earthly human experience: a field guide to a life more connected to the natural world.<\/p>\n www.nativecirclesart.ie<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Emily3.jpg\")