The Wonder of What We Stand to Lose

I’m so excited to share with you my cover story, The Wonder of What We Stand to Lose, for the winter issue of Venü Magazine 2017/18.

In this issue, I cover the work of pastel artist Zaria Forman. Zaria creates large-scale drawings inspired by her trips to the Arctic and Antarctic aboard the National Geographic Explorer and NASA’s Operation IceBridge. Zaria’s story is not only about creating beautiful work, but it also shares her personal story and her mission to spread awareness on the very real concerns of global warming.

Venü Magazine Cover Story by Lisa Mikulski

Here is an excerpt from the story:

Changing and shifting, the exact subject matter of Zaria Forman’s art can never be captured again. Unlike paintings or photos of landscapes or landmarks – those places where an artist can return again and again – the icebergs of the Arctic and Antarctic are melting and the waters of the Maldives are raising. By the time Forman has completed a drawing, the natural landscape that once existed has diminished and transformed.

Forman has made it her life’s mission to provide us with stunning large-scale artworks of icebergs, glaciers, and the sapphire blues of thousand-year-old ancient ice. In addition to providing us with these highly detailed and majestic views – she creates her work using only her fingers – the work serves to call attention to the urgency that climate change is having upon some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

Traveling with NASA and National Geographic Explorer, she has passionately sought to capture the story of what we stand to lose. However, rather than bringing to us the tragedy of what is unfolding in these areas, Forman brings the beauty of what she has seen.

“There is, of course, all kinds of bad news out there about climate change. There’s the fact that the past three years have been the hottest on record, extreme weather is wreaking havoc all over the world, the polar bear population in the Arctic is in rapid decline, and now we’re faced with an administration that ignores these problems – contributing to environmental decline with their denial of it,” says Forman.

How I became a writer (and the single life)

It’s autumn now. The leaves turn gold and red. The Morning Glory vines have shriveled and turned brown, the chilly nights altering their assent toward the roof of the porch. Autumn makes me self-reflective and I’ve been thinking about where I’ve been and where I’m going. I consider the paths and opportunities available to me and these ideas remind me of my youth when all things were possible. I became a writer partly because of my mother’s insistence that I become a reader. She told me that books would “take me away” to far away lands, introduce me to interesting people, and teach me about the world.

My mother would strategically put books in places for me – on the back seat of the car and on the tank of the toilet. Always a book and a Reader’s Digest. This was pretty good thinking on her part because where else could I go when in a car or in the loo? But as a young girl, I wasn’t interested in books. I was interested in bugs and hanging around in the woods with my dog.

Being in our body

It was almost shocking – the feeling of submerging my body into that crystal blue pool on a brilliant September afternoon.

I can’t remember the last time I went swimming. It had become a long forgotten experience and the sensation of cool water completely suspending me was so foreign, so surprising, that it took my breathe away. It was a visceral awakening and I wanted more. I plunged beneath the surface.

Setting myself to dry in the sun, I thought about the last time I actually inhabited my body? Meditation and yoga will encourage these feelings of mindfulness, but what about all the other experiences we have – the daily experiences – that we miss because of our too busy schedules, our addictions on mobile devices, and fact that we are all too often lost in our own minds. Or perhaps it is that we simply are no longer aware of the pleasures our body can give to us.

Thoughts on rebuilding a life

A friend of mine recently wrote to me asking, “How does one go about starting a new life?” She explained that everything in her present situation was unacceptable and she desperately needed changes. She needed really big life changes.

Her reason for writing to me was because, knowing my past history, she considered me to be a bit of an expert on the subject. I’ve gone about and reinvented my own life twice in the last five years – the first time through choice, the second from trauma. Both events were life changing and challenging, the second much more than the first.

Having given my friend’s question a good deal of thought – for this is not a question to be taken lightly – I wrote to her providing the only answer I could, “It takes something extraordinary”.

Your Daily List of Desires

Tasks on a To-Do list can grow like the snakes on Medusa’s head. No one likes a To-Do list and yet we make them in attempt to keep our lives and our goals on track. But the thing about the To-Do list is that is becomes rather counter-productive as you check one item off and add four more. We begin to get the sense that, despite our best intentions, these lists don’t benefit us in any way except to remind us of how much we have to do and mostly how much we haven’t done.

Several years ago I wrote a post which suggested replacing the To-Do list with something that I considered a better idea – a Done list. That post received quite a nice reception so I thought I’d share the idea here again but with some refinements.

When Inspiration is Lost

I am feeling absolutely non-inspired today. Yup, it happens. Every artist, writer, designer and creative person at some point has days (hopefully not too many) of complete and utter dysfunction. Perhaps, in my case, it is because today is Monday and after a weekend of activity, I need the day to regroup. I scan my apartment and see that there are a hundred pounds of laundry needing care, plants that are screaming for my attention, and I have a ToDo list which is making me anxious. I’m wanting to read too many books, share too many thoughts, and achieve too many things. It’s hard to sit and write when such distractions loom huge.