What's outside of your picture window today?

@loribmt, @joyces, @ess77 . Sorry. I'm not able to attach the image. I'll never learn. 😔

I did it. What a great way to waste a boring day! Lol.

"Clearcut/ The Rape of a Mountain", 4' x 4', Acrylic on Canvas.

I did it. What a great way to waste a boring day! Lol.

"Clearcut/ The Rape of a Mountain", 4' x 4', Acrylic on Canvas.

I'll try a different painting that was also in the exhibition. This one is 27" x 63", Acrylic on canvas. Can't recall the title, but it's an actual site I visited, pristine and breathtakingly beautiful, that was scheduled for clearcutting.

@artist01 Our little town needs money to fill some financial needs [loan payments due]. We own 200 acres of non-buildable land, that is timber. They recently did a "timber cruise" with the experts, and are considering clear cutting a section of it to sell off the wood to bring in enough for the payment.
Ginger

I did it. What a great way to waste a boring day! Lol.

"Clearcut/ The Rape of a Mountain", 4' x 4', Acrylic on Canvas.

I'll try a different painting that was also in the exhibition. This one is 27" x 63", Acrylic on canvas. Can't recall the title, but it's an actual site I visited, pristine and breathtakingly beautiful, that was scheduled for clearcutting.

What a terrific idea: an art show about the destruction of clear cutting!!! The west side of the Coast Range along the WA and OR coasts is one of the best carbon sinks anywhere, but the Doug Fir forest is being sliced down everywhere, leaving ugly bald patches and resulting in winter floods and lack of water every summer: every little coastal town suffers from insufficient water every summer now. The water that is left is too warm to be comfortable for salmon and steelhead. Oregon's Water Resources Dept. (OWRD) set up a huge pilot program about the future ways water should be used, and Lincoln County is the one example of, get this, "urban" water usage. That's pretty laughable in a county where the largest town has a little over 10,000 people! Because this pilot project had attention from the legislature, all state resource agencies, and the Governor's office, I thought it was an opportunity for great change. Hah! OWRD soon declared that industrial forestry, where the land is clear cut every 35 or 40 years while the trees are still very small was off the table for discussion, due to JOBS. Of course, this totally ignores all of us who rely on healthy fisheries for our jobs in the sport fishing industry, and tourism in general. Still, there is a groundswell of objection to having our forests mismanaged this way, with aerial spraying of the chemicals in Agent Orange following clear cutting. That means that the water coming off the clear cut area is full of contaminants and silt, so that it can't be used for domestic water without expensive treatment plants. I've monitored wild winter steelhead in a wild little stream on the north coast for 29 years, and we have the data to prove how bad the lethal combination of industrial timber management and climate change can be. When we started our data collection project, we couldn't conceive of the wild fish being threatened since the run was so strong and there was little human influence in the extremely rough country surrounding the Salmonberry River--but we're now seeing temperatures too high for steelhead for miles up the river, for long periods every summer.

Laurie, wow!
This is a very visceral piece. Raw, powerful. I found myself putting my hand to my heart with emotion! Thank you so much for sharing with us!

What a terrific idea: an art show about the destruction of clear cutting!!! The west side of the Coast Range along the WA and OR coasts is one of the best carbon sinks anywhere, but the Doug Fir forest is being sliced down everywhere, leaving ugly bald patches and resulting in winter floods and lack of water every summer: every little coastal town suffers from insufficient water every summer now. The water that is left is too warm to be comfortable for salmon and steelhead. Oregon's Water Resources Dept. (OWRD) set up a huge pilot program about the future ways water should be used, and Lincoln County is the one example of, get this, "urban" water usage. That's pretty laughable in a county where the largest town has a little over 10,000 people! Because this pilot project had attention from the legislature, all state resource agencies, and the Governor's office, I thought it was an opportunity for great change. Hah! OWRD soon declared that industrial forestry, where the land is clear cut every 35 or 40 years while the trees are still very small was off the table for discussion, due to JOBS. Of course, this totally ignores all of us who rely on healthy fisheries for our jobs in the sport fishing industry, and tourism in general. Still, there is a groundswell of objection to having our forests mismanaged this way, with aerial spraying of the chemicals in Agent Orange following clear cutting. That means that the water coming off the clear cut area is full of contaminants and silt, so that it can't be used for domestic water without expensive treatment plants. I've monitored wild winter steelhead in a wild little stream on the north coast for 29 years, and we have the data to prove how bad the lethal combination of industrial timber management and climate change can be. When we started our data collection project, we couldn't conceive of the wild fish being threatened since the run was so strong and there was little human influence in the extremely rough country surrounding the Salmonberry River--but we're now seeing temperatures too high for steelhead for miles up the river, for long periods every summer.