open studio: apocalypse of the heart /  by kelly heaton

Apocalypse of the Heart, 2016.  Digital photo collage. Kelly Heaton

In case you're wondering why the flurry of blogging, I am once again bedridden - this time, with a bad cough and malaise.  I'm sketching ideas on my computer, so it's not all bad.  In case you're wondering why the cheesy apocalyptic image: I am obsessed with human impact on the planet and it makes me awfully depressed, but I am determined to cure myself with humor and beauty.  As a child of the 70's, there's nothing dearer to my heart than a technicolor view of life, especially where love and nature are concerned.  Admittedly, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is a product of the '80s, but the shoe fits.

open studio: climate turner /  by kelly heaton

Climate Turner, 2016.  Digital photocollage (sketch) using trash, smog, wires, electronic components and the composition of J. W. Turner's painting "Peace - Burial at Sea," from 1842.

open studio: a voice crying in the wilderness /  by kelly heaton

A voice crying in the wilderness.  Digital photo collage (sketch), 2016.  Kelly Heaton

Human population is skyrocketing along with our impact on planet earth: smog, loss of natural habitat, loss of diversity, global spread of invasive pests, deforestation, exploitation of natural resources, landfills, toxic waste, garbage in the ocean, death of coral reefs, pesticides everywhere, crowded cities, escalating competition for resources, drought, soil erosion, ... the list goes on. Because our numbers are so many, even small or unintended actions add up to a big problem: eating seafood or beef, burning wood or coal, drinking bottled water, disposable packaging, pissing medication into the water supply, driving a car, and so on.  A manmade solution to population growth is not obvious, which is to say, no ethical solution has materialized.  It appears that we are on a collision-course with nature's solution to excessive population: death by bottleneck.  Surely there is an alternative.  Surely we can all agree to be a little more reasonable, if that means to save our kind?  Or are our natural instincts to reproduce, and to compete for resources, so strong that we cannot save ourselves?

open studio: harbingers /  by kelly heaton

Harbingers, 2015.  Digital photo-collage.  Kelly Heaton

Consumerism, pollution, dependence on fossil fuels, e-waste, climate change, off-shore garbage disposal, inequity of access to Earth's basic natural resources, manmade illness, children raised in ecological poverty, living conditions for future earthlings, the heaven that is natural Earth ...