Artists and the Environment

What is the responsibility of art and the artist to the environment?  I’ve been giving that issue more than a little thought since the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Climate agreement.  Our top scientists tell us that the earth is heating up rapidly causing the ice caps to melt and putting our wild life at risk.  Living on the beach as I do, I’m aware of polutants in the oceans due to off-shore drilling and other man-made threats that erode our waters and the life in them.  The great barrier reef is dying according to oceanographers, and human-kind continues to gobble up the remaining natural areas on the planet for our own uses.  Some turn a blind eye to these threats and some flat out deny global warming is a real thing.  To me the responsibility of art and the artist is to shine a spotlight on the beauty that does exist in nature so that peoples of the world will cherish the octopus and the fish and the great blue heron and the buffalo and all the habitats and creatures of the earth.  My recent paintings bear titles evocative of this theme.  Please visit my gallery and drop me a comment.  Together we can spread the word that clean air and clean oceans are indeed important.