"After the Elephants" serves as a reminder of how vulnerable life on earth really is. Human life as we know it, could be equivocated with a time in the future, when elephants become extinct. In this day and age, elephants are truly at the mercy of humans for their survival whether it be because of climate change leading to their loss of habitat or poachers. If we humans can't protect the elephants and provide a place for this proud, beautiful, and steadfast mammal to thrive, then human survival won't be far behind.
"South of Expectation" is a comment on desire. It is meant take the viewer on a journey of questioning. To evoke and suggest, to create a feeling of expectation only to have that expectation taken away. It is the future and the past. It is what we want to achieve measured against what we are able to achieve. It is the milk and the honey, it is conception, birth, love and hope. It is the energy of life hiding from the moment of death.
"Even the Puppy Stayed to Listen" portrays a narrative in which a river spirit rises up to the surface to warn us of how things really are deep down below the surface—things we humans can't see or don't want to believe for ourselves. When the spirit arrives and begins to tell her story, the only creature who stayed to listen was an eager puppy. The puppy representing innocence, youth and universal pleasure holds a special power to believe, even in the face of adversity.
Imagine a forest full of creatures who are trying to tell us something but we can't or won't hear them? "Soundings" represents nature in all of its forms, it is the water, the sky, the forest, the internal and the external, the just born, and the bones of the recently passed. It is the cycle of life. In this piece, I am thinking about how creatures (whether bird, fish, cow, alligator, or insect) always know when extreme weather is on the way. Perhaps, we could use the universality of nature – as a talking stick – to bridge the divide and build consensus between those who believe in climate change with those who do not.