[Art] Tragedy (Koala as Totem, Australian Fires 2019-2020)

[moonvoice]

This piece has already sold, and all proceeds (except shipping) have been donated to the WWF Koala Emergency Crisis fund. You can also see a general round up of donation links here. Don't donate to the Salvation Army or St. Vinnies.

I'm sure many of you know by now, but the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season has been catastrophically intense, and of a level not seen by any firefighter in their lives. Over a billion animals are dead, people are dead, species are extinct, houses lost, and the fires are still burning. There are horrible misinformation campaigns by Rupert Murdoch (who is categorically evil) to convince people that these fires are the results of arson, but the majority of them are not, and the intensity is all down to climate change. The fires dwarf the Amazon and Californian fires combined.

They are still burning.

I did this piece after a huge art slump, in part because I just needed to do something. It didn't seem like much, but I am grateful that it ended up selling (I didn't think it would), because I could donate all the proceeds. I cried while sketching it out, and a few other people shared that they cried while seeing it as a work in process. But catharsis can be good, we're all - so many of us - processing so much grief.

This piece deliberately parallels a much earlier 'Koala as Totem' piece from over a decade ago. You can look beneath the cut to see the radical difference in tone.


Tragedy (Koala as Totem, Australian Fires 2019-2020) // Phascolarctos cinereus // ETSY (this piece has sold)
Pencil/watercolour pencil/ink/metallic paint + illustration board












The original 'Koala as Totem'

Comments

[silverjackal]

Your art is *stupendous*. I can only stand to read the news from Australia in small doses because the magnitude of the loss is so great that I can't function if I think of it. I don't believe in a Christian hell, as well you know, and yet for Murdoch and his ilk I wish the thing existed. :(

[redheart]

In my humble opinion? Ammit's waiting for him. And I do not say that lightly.

[silverjackal]

I'd agree except I do not think he could even find his way into the Duat given how lost he is to any concept of Ma'at in life.

[moonvoice]

Yeah, it's... and the fires are *still* going. There's been some respite (and a fair bit of flooding, because that's just what smoke does to the land when it lays upon it as ash), but the heat's going to turn up again soon, and the fires... they don't stop.

I believe one of the ground parrots may already be extinct, and our Western Ground Parrot has lost some 60% of its habitat and it was *already* critically endangered. Gah.

[syntaxofthings]

thank you for posting this. <3

[moonvoice]

<3

[nialoke]

This did make me teary, too. I confess I also only read the most general news about the fires, because it makes all efforts for a better world just feel so pointless; but obviously that's something I can only afford to do because I'm at the other end of the world.

Thank you for posting this, and thank you for the link to the donation link roundup, as well, that is very helpful.

[moonvoice]

The donation link round-up was a good one, and I'm glad for it. Because there's sadly some scam donation sites too. And not all the sites are overseas / paypal friendly, which has been another issue I think some charities frankly never considered until something like this!

[wendelah1]

The artwork is stunning.

The fires--it feels like this is a planetary tipping point. A continent on fire.

I'll signal boost the donation links.

[moonvoice]

It does feel like a planetary tipping point, that's a good way of putting it <3

[cmcmck]

Ouch. :o(

[moonvoice]

Indeed.

[halfmoon_mollie1]

They are beautiful. And they make me very sad.

[moonvoice]

Thank you, and same.

[redsixwing]

I saw the sketch of this you posted on Tumblr, and ...ouch.

Beautiful, of course. The smoke curls are as lovely as they are frightening.

That contrast is a gut punch.

[moonvoice]

Yeah the contrast still gets me. I looked at the image briefly just to get the composition notes and then looked away, but when I looked at the end I got choked up all over again. *sighs*

[calissa]

This is beautiful and such a wonderful way of taking action.

*sending big hugs*

[moonvoice]

I'm just glad that after I ran out of 'something' I could do, I could do this, and then other people could help too via their donations through art. At a time when Australia has turfed its support for artists, it's like...amazing what the artists, authors, and creators are doing to help.