Make Natural Spaces Clean and Your Art Class Green

To view the photo-rich magazine version, click here.

Originally appears in the Spring 2019 issue.

“If you wear your knowledge ‘round your neck like pearls instead of chains, you are a lucky man.”
lyrics from the song O Lucky Man by British musician Alan Price

THE PEARLS OF THE natural world have gracefully fallen into my life since my happy childhood with the woods, fields, and streams along the edge of Bowmanville, Ontario (now part of the wider community of Clarington). As a teen-aged art student, I drew inspiration of the Canadian wilderness painters, and then the wider fame of the Post Impressionists, particularly Paul Cezanne. Their work nudged me into seeing the “ordinary magic” of the natural world in a fresher way. All told, then, I am a lucky man — a Baby Boomer who loves the realm of visual art, along with the kingdom of trees and forests, and working with wood… and one who despises the ignorant destruction and willful waste so pervasive in modern society. This is the question that has continually arisen throughout my teaching and my present-day volunteer work: What should I do about these concerns as a teacher and visual artist? I suppose the answers are somewhat obvious. Regardless, they have become guiding principles for me: