Deborah Kennedy

The Green Enlightenment

A Selection of a few pages of my book

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This is my vision for a transformative cultural, social, political and environmental movement that holds the promise of renewing our world. This vision is inspired by the original Enlightenment, a philosophical movement developed in France during the late 18 th century.

Like this earlier Enlightenment, the Green Enlightenment embraces a belief in the power of using reason, knowledge, and science to guide our societal decisions and to improve our world for the benefit of all people.

Today, however, we must complement reason with emotional and spiritual intelligence if we are to heal our relationships with nature and among the peoples of the world. The Enlightenment refrain, "Dare to think," must be complemented with the call, "Dare to care."

To bring the Green Enlightenment to fruition, will take a series of practical steps and large-scale actions. These steps are reconciliation, restoration, and regeneration.
©
2024
  • Deborah Kennedy

EcoTech

Champion Light Rail Station
Valley Transportation Authority, San Jose, CA
44’ x 6’ x 5’
Materials:  metamorphosed diabase stone, stainless steel, rose quartz, bronze. 

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EcoTech is a public art commission installed in the entryway of the Champion light rail station in San Jose.  This piece consists of a six-ton boulder cut into four one-foot-thick slabs. The densely patterned slabs are positioned on either side of the entry walkways.  Text, symbolic images, and stone inlays related to sustainable technology, solar energy, and systems theory enrich the polished surfaces of the boulder sections.  A large bronze casting of the top section of one of the boulder slabs is mounted on the bottom half of the same slab.  This technically demanding melding of metallurgy and rock evokes the overall theme of the piece: creating a bio-compatible technology.

In the Think Resilience course by Post Carbon Institute, they suggest, “...in manufacturing, our goals should be to localize production, reduce the scale of production where possible, to design and build products in a way that facilitates repair and reuse, and to use recycled materials where possible.”

The design process should start with environmental concerns in mind. Thoughtful design can stop so many problems before they start.

The artwork is still at the Champion Light Rail Station in San Jose. If you live nearby, take some time to check out its intricate details.
©
2023
  • Deborah Kennedy

Last Grape

Ink on wind-powered bristol paper
8" x 10"

Recently, I ate a bowl of red grapes and marveled at the sweet bursts of juice. I hope we will begin to pay attention to the negative effects of climate change on our food supply. Otherwise, I fear food will become more and more expensive and then scarce. When will I enjoy my last bowl of red grapes?

The majority of table grapes are grown in California. Growers are threatened by escalating drought, floods, hail, fires, smoke damage, unpredictable rains, and freezes.

This year our current winter wheat crops are the worst in recent memory following a three-year drought.

However, some farmers are working to make our food systems more resilient. From the website at the danforthcenter.org here are two examples:

"California-based TerViva is commercializing a climate-resilient legume that can withstand harsh weather conditions. Its protein- and oil-rich seeds are a sustainable alternative to palm and soy."

"Missouri’s Pluton Biosciences is developing a microbial spray that can be applied at planting and harvest to scrub nearly two tons of carbon from the air per acre of farmland per year, while replenishing nutrients in the soil."

We need to focus on planning ahead for the challenges that are coming.
©
2023
  • Deborah Kennedy

The Moringa Tree

Prussian ink on eco Bristol paper.
11”x14”
2023

Here is a drawing of a flower from a Moringa tree. This remarkable tree can support communities in semi-arid areas, providing healthy greens and seed pods, as well as timber. Several development projects bring Moringa trees to communities to help promote greater food security. They help the communities learn how to plant and care for them. One such project is The Hunger Project: https://whatsnextforearth.com/thp.org/news/the-miracle-moringa-tree/

Here is a description of this remarkable plant from Mountain Rose Herbs: "Moringa is drought tolerant and thrives in semi-arid, tropical, and subtropical climates and is one of the most commonly cultivated food plants in the world. It is easy to grow and has high market potential, therefore potentially providing an alternative to deforestation. It is also cultivated extensively in African countries to feed their own malnourished populations.

It is believed that the Moringa tree originated in northern India and was used in Indian medicine around 5,000 years ago, and there are also accounts of it being utilized by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. This tree was, and still is, considered a panacea and is referred to as ‘The Wonder Tree', 'The Divine Tree', and 'The Miracle Tree’, amongst many others. Moringa was used extensively in Ayurveda, where virtually all parts were considered useful with many beneficial attributes. It was employed to support digestion, spleen, and eye health, as a cooking additive, and in many other ways. The leaf is considered energetically bitter, pungent, and heating."
©
2023
  • Deborah Kennedy

Walls With: Consuelo

Altered photo

The Enlightenment, a French 18th century philosophical and social movement, advocated using reason, knowledge and science to guide society and improve the world for the benefit of all people. They promoted tolerance and embraced open access to knowledge and education for all. This powerful movement helped triggered the American Revolution and the United States’ extraordinary leap into a unique democratic experiment. The Enlightenment fostered the embrace of equality and diversity by many new democracies. Over time people realized a diverse, socially just society was more resilient, flexible, and creative. Today, many democratic experiments around the world seem vulnerable and unstable as right wing, autocratic forces show a shocking rise in power. Sadly, these forces are not only destructive to our social fabric, they also frequently undermine the health of our natural world. When will we see the value of human diversity, and also see the extraordinary value of a natural world teeming with diversity.
©
2023
  • Deborah Kennedy
Support Your Farmer’s Market!

Support your Farmer’s Market!

ink on wind-powered bristol paper

81/2” x 11"

Here is a quotation from the Think Resilience online course: "Local economic development benefits everyone—except maybe big multinational corporations. A more local and, therefore, more resilient economy is one in which people feel they have more of a stake in production and distribution as well as consumption; one in which they have more knowledge of where their goods come from and what happens to them at the end of their lifecycle. Finally, nothing fundamentally new has to be invented for this to 5 | Page © Post Carbon Institute 2017 happen: local economies have deep and ancient roots, and there are already efforts underway in hundreds of towns and cities around the country to support local enterprise."

Where do we choose to go, where do we choose to connect to in our communities? Support your Farmer's Market!
©
2023
  • Deborah Kennedy

Project Nexus

ink drawing on eco-paper from India
22”x30”

This piece utilizes data visualization techniques. This is a way to present information and data in an image used by industry and policymakers. In this drawing, the spiky form suggests the aggressive growth of a potentially destructive technology supplanting the tenuous social connections surrounding it.
©
2023
  • Deborah Kennedy

From the Walls Within series

Photograph

This is a reworking of a series of photographs from my Walls Within series. I did this after I came back from Berlin and realized we all have walls within, barriers between the self and others. I tried to represent reaching out and being protective. I think this would help a community become much more resilient.
©
2022
  • Deborah Kennedy

Dancing Redwood Trees

Digital photograph

These dancing redwood trees were created from a photograph I took of trees that had burned one year prior in the CZU wildfire. This fire consumed 86,500 acres and 911 homes in the Santa Cruz mountains. After one year, these redwood trees had sprouted bright-green, bushy growth directly from their blackened trunks. Further up in the mountains, the hills that had been covered with pale grey ash and bristling with thin black tree trunks were now dotted with new, dark green bushes. Nature is resilent. If we give it half a chance it will come blasting back. If we don't, as they say: people are preceeded by forests and followed by deserts.
©
2022
  • Deborah Kennedy

O Geo Neo Neuro

Materials: pigment, medium, board, earth, 30” x 48” x 2”

This painting depicts an electron microscopic image of a slice of the human brain with earthen side panels. It is my meditation on what I see as the core of our environmental problems—our own minds, our own ways of thinking, and the acute challenge we face to change our mentalities. Cooperative behaviors are valued in our societies, but often only in limited ways and often focusing on a relatively small circle of people.

The actions we take in the larger world often seem primarily guided by selfishness, insatiable greed and unrelenting desire to consume. These drives are often invisible to us and every form of destruction we are carrying out, whether against the larger natural world or other humans often seems like the normal or justifiable business of the day.

The pandemic could be a valuable period to learn important ecological realities, for example, we now know every person is intimately connected to the rest of the life on the planet, and if we don’t foster a healthy world for all people and life forms we will be increasingly vulnerable on many fronts. Can we use our creativity to create new symbols and stories that help us envision the realities of our deeply connected world?
©
2022
  • Deborah Kennedy

The Cosmic Egg

Ink drawing

This detail of my ink drawing features a monarch butterfly, a white violet, and an ancient symbol--the cosmic egg. The cosmic egg contains all the characters from our alpha-numeric system and thereby, our wisdom. I want to see a day where we use our wisdom to celebrate and foster the biosphere that gives us life each day. When will give up our war against nature and learn to work with the life forces that are crucial to our own survival?
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Hurricane

Drawing

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This drawing of a hurricane and poem are from my book "Nature Speaks: Art and Poetry for the Earth".
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Web of Life: Seeing the Connections

A poem, essay, and illustration from my book Nature Speaks: Art and Poetry for the Earth.

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Dr. W. D. Billings, a life sciences professor at Duke University, authored Plants, Man, and the Ecosystem, an important book that influenced the field of botany. His text explored a new, holistic model of a functioning botanical environment. Prior to his research, botanists usually worked in a reductionist manner. The natural world is so complex, botanical researchers often altered just one element, such as water or sunlight, to understand the impact on growing plants. Dr. Billings analyzed living botanical environments using a systems theory perspective and modeled the complex, inter-dependent relationships needed to foster life. Subsequently, he created an intricate line drawing that modeled his concept. This poem is a celebration of Dr. Billings’s new, systemic understanding of living ecosystems.
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Untitled

Digital photograph

This altered photo shows part of the new “Google Village” under construction with the old WWII blimp hangar in the distance next to the bay in Sunnyvale. Only the lovely supporting structure of the hangar remains, it was stripped of outer layers of asbestos and other toxic materials at great expense. What new extreme miscalculations and systemic errors are being built into Google’s vast empire? When will we put life sciences at the forefront of our thinking and build a thriving world?
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Hard Rain: Waterspout and the Statue of Liberty (Detail)

Painting

A waterspout is a tornado that forms over water and draws water up into a cup shape at the base of this severe weather event. Climate change is predicted to increase the number and intensity of severe weather events. Our government could curtail climate change, but climate change can also affect our government and our national symbols. Hopefully, most people understand the devastating relationship between our air pollution from burning fossil fuels and other materials are creating increasingly dangerous changes in our climate.
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Changed Climate

Installation (detail)

This installation invites viewers to contemplate our current ecological crises. The books in this artwork, now rendered inaccessible, contain images of a thriving natural world now either gone or damaged and important scientific information concerning our declining environment. Ecological challenges explored in these books include rising rates of species extinction, ocean acidification, the death of coral reefs, forest mortality, pollution of our air and water, as well as an increasingly damaged climate.

Climate change, our most pressing problem, is accelerating many of these environmental challenges, and may soon threaten the stability of our societies as food and water become more expensive and scarce. To protect our planet and ensure a healthy future for ourselves, our children, and the natural world, we must be guided by good science and the life-sustaining systems of nature.

Depletion of knowledge!
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Untitled

Ink drawing

Human eggs with symbols of connectivity and compass roses. Our precious genetic material floating in a complex world. Climate change is already threatening food production. If we continue increasing our population in a world of declining food production we are on a collision course with reality.
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Homage to the Homage: A endless energy machine to heal the sky

Drawing

A reflection on Jean Tinguely’s machine performance at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960. His artwork, Homage to New York, was conceived as a “self-constructing and self-destroying work of art.” For me, this is a metaphor for our self-constructing and self-destroying civilization. My wistful drawing envisions a machine to provide endless streams of energy to a world destroying itself to consume more energy.
©
2021
  • Deborah Kennedy

Untitled

Digital manipulation of an existing photo

“A ruin is not a catastrophe. It is the moment when things can start again.”
A. Kiefer
When will we begin again?
©
2020
  • Deborah Kennedy

Untitled

Drawing

Sadly California is burning again. I have been an avid backpacker and hiker all my life. It is heartbreaking to see so many places I have loved burning so fiercely. The indigenous people who lived here did “forest gardening.” They burned out the undergrowth during the wet seasons. After decades of fire suppression, there is too much fuel in our forests, making the fires so hot and persistent. (Rakes are not going to fix this!) Also, recent research has revealed that our life-giving California fog has decreased by 33% in the last hundred years. We were told this was coming by climate scientists, when will we listen and respond?
©
2020
  • Deborah Kennedy

Articles from the MAHB

Eco-Art and the Berlin Wall

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