A film poem directed by Jesse Rosten and Written & Read by Kallie Markle.

ARG, this piece is so problematic…
This is an example of a difficult dichotomy I have been battling for a while in my visual work my writing & in my appreciation of art and media concerning nature.

As the me who is passionately in love with nature and the environment I loved this video.

As a media artist; a fine artist, the piece was a massive failure…

As a commercial artist, this is an effective and successful project.
Its attractive, sensual, beautiful, rich, concise, clear, and to the point.
(even if it seems general the main point is that nature is beautiful, resilient, and permanent.) 

But this is where the conflict exists.

As far as art is concerned, this thing SUCKS.  
Extremely. 

Its an illustration as opposed to a piece of art.
It uses the language of advertising to pull at the heartstrings.

There are no questions posed, no questions answered, no tension, no nothing.
If you are honest with yourself you will watch this and say: “So what?”, and move on with your life.

If you are an analyzer, you will admit that:
Its a dishonest
empty
saccharine
sirupy
a frustration inducing EMS, REI, Columbia wear, Nike Outdoor lifestyle advertisement

Its main success will be to sell even more fuchsia + sea foam green colored outdoor gear, made from environmentally correct but petroleum based micro fibers, to affluent city middle managers.

Why am I so mad about this… why am I so mad… arg.

I think its because I have not found an answer that satisfies me for any of this myself. 

I perceive that most of the art that is made about nature and the environment, is either unthinking, culturally ambiguous, using the un-informed uniform of hippyism as support; or at the opposite extreme a slick illustration of the commercial world, focused on selling a vacation or more subtly as this piece does, selling a life style/ideal which will in the long run create consistent consumers of expensive goretex boots.

In the end, there are just a lot of reasons why making art about/for nature is so difficult.

One is partially because nature itself has done a good job representing its worth/qualities/challenges etc.

Another, is that even though contemporary art has had some successful environmentally minded artists, very very few contemporary artist address it directly in their work.

Its difficult to tackle, and the pitfalls are many.  
Even the most successful ones like Ansel Adams, Goldsworthy, Robert Smithson, or even Monet, are always on the verge of being just illustrative in the case of Ansel, and hippy in the case of the rest. 

Or perhaps the real issue is that so few contemporary artist are really able to sustain their careers away from a few urban centers?

That artists as social chaotic creatures who require the urban experience to affect their work? 

I don’t know. 

I have been thinking about this one for at least 18 years and I am not any closer to an answer.

I know that I photograph nature a lot; badly; usually like drunk party snapshots.  I don’t want to deceive myself into thinking that shooting nature with the most technical acuity possible will result in my “capturing” its pain, its beauty, its emotion, or the emotions it gives me.

But part of me really wants to.  Part of me, for whom nature has given so much, wants to celebrate, worship, fete, protect, question nature and its intricate relationship with humanity.

But this will just take its time… perhaps someday I will find a way. 

In the end while viewing this short, all that I kept thinking about was how I loved the animation “Princess Mononoke” and how I wished there where more pieces like it.