“It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here.“
I finished this drawing today, getting reacquainted with some of the visual language of the maps I was drawing (not interested in “accurate” maps these days – the walking/gps stuff has been pretty thoroughly co-opted by people offering quick one-liners of Darth Vader faces and NSFW things). Anyway, was inspired by a bike ride last December around Lake Washington, until I hit a stretch through Kirkland where I could not find a coherent bikeable path, rather I had to weave around windy suburban roads through the privatized waterfront (which is lame). I came out onto the 520 bridge and had a nice clear view of Mt Baker to the north. So, this drawing. Pastel offers lovely color, graphite for the mountain, conte for the linework.
How do you translate your experiences—whether from travel, movement, or daily life—into creative work? Have you ever felt inspired by a place, only to run into frustrating obstacles along the way? Can art be a vehicle for channeling our rage-love into something meaningful?
Here’s the sweet inspiration – a paragraph by Edward Abbey, patron saint of Cantankerous Wilderness Lovers and anyone burned out from the World:
“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can.
While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.
Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators.
I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”