I am honored to introduce a local artist's work on climate change.  Please read Bruce Bayard's article on what inspired these amazing projects.

The Jefferson Nature Center and Madrona Arts have recently and separately chosen to engage southern Oregon and northern California artists to raise awareness of their programs. I am happy to have been a participant in both organizations' efforts in bringing to light climate change effects on the Rogue and Klamath River Basins.

The Jefferson Nature Center created a project called Shifting Patterns: Preparing for Unsettled Days in which 16 area artists read and interpreted a climate change report by National Center for Conservation Science and Policy (NCCSP) for the Rogue River Basin. Each artist read the report and responded in their chosen medium. Since my artwork for the last 9 years has been created on a computer using electronic collage techniques, I chose to create a panoramic view of my own back yard, Grizzly Peak, as a long horizontal narrative for the difficult changes this valley faces in the next 50 to 100 years.

This piece is titled DIVIDED LANDSCAPE: ARK and is a direct reference to Noah's Ark from the biblical story. As I listened to the scientific presentation of the NCCSP report, the notion that we would be wise to prepare for upcoming disasters became my main inspiration. While it is easy for me to be pessimistic about our chances of thriving in the face of what lies ahead for the human race over the next century, I tried to insert the possibility that things would be OK; a cautious optimism. Reading the art from left to right shows a disjointed landscape moving to an extremely chaotic one, then into a period of relative wholeness and harmony.

The same narrative direction plays in a companion piece called DIVIDED LANDSCAPE: ARC that I did for Madrona Arts.

Madrona Arts primary mission is to raise awareness of ecological restoration through the arts and one program towards that goal was Klamath River: Freeing the Waters. Artists were asked to create art of a place within the Klamath River Basin, given the knowledge that Native American tribes, farmers, politicians and activists were discussing the possibility of removing 4 hydroelectric dams along the river. For this project I chose a spot along Spring Creek north of Chiloquin, Oregon.

The photos that comprise this piece were taken in a “moving panorama” where I walked alongside the creek and snapped frame after frame, instead of a more typical panorama where the series of side-by-side images are taken from one point of view. This multiple vantage point process gives the distinct sense of the chaos and divisiveness of the creek's flow. Emphasizing the picture frame edges, I overlayed charts and graphs and other man-made patterns that further disrupt the flow. Then at the right, instead of showing the remaining photo panels, it fades out, with a cello replacing the creek. The story is not yet complete, and can be written in many ways. It will be an awesome project to watch as the river heals itself and the land when fish can return to their original spawning grounds.

It has been a wonderful opportunity to create art in response to the major environmental issues that are shaping our current history, our culture and our lives.

Bruce Bayard
Artist