A world away in our own backyard, the High Arctic is a vast, sublime place. From our vantagepoint near the top of the globe we watch as a hot yellow sun circles endlessly in the sky. A huge graceful arc that swings down near the horizon, briefly bathing the landscape in shades of pastel before climbing, once again, high above our heads. In a strange way, it’s as if we stepped into a scale model of the solar system or an illustration in some dusty high school textbook. The earth suddenly seems very small, just a ball of rock spinning neatly on its axis with one pole inclined slightly towards the sun. The world has shrunk and yet we feel no less insignificant as we try to comprehend the sweeping expanse of sea before us. |
| Deck of the Ioffe at sunset, “All the world's a stage.......”. |
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Our recent journey aboard the Akademic Ioffe was an experience quite unlike my first trip to the Arctic, a Hiking trip across Baffin Island; it was, however, just as profound. Both trips began in Iqaluit, Capital of Nunavut, but our journeys diverged completely from that point. It was apparent almost immediately that much had changed in the North. Iqaluit, which was a city of 3000 that last time I visited, has now grown to 9000. Only one day earlier back in 1993 (July21st), when I first saw Frobisher Bay, pack ice covered much of the water just off shore (paintings). This year, as the pictures on the first page of my 2006 Arctic travelogue reveal, there was not a piece of ice to be seen anywhere.
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The artists involved with this project embarked on the journey for a variety of reasons. Naturally, our primary goal was an aesthetic experience of the north; the arctic, because of it’s clear light and elemental landscapes, has drawn artists for years. Over the last century a long list of well known painters, beginning with the group of seven and their contemporaries, have sought to capture the 'essence' of these elemental northern landscapes. More recently though, other aspects of the north have caught our attention, from social issues and sovereignty to wildlife and environmental change. Initially, one of my principle reasons for participating in this project was to see how much things have changed since I was last there in 93 – a time when we heard relatively little about the issue of Global warming. Through Arctic Quest’s affiliation with IPY (International Polar Year), which begins in 2007, this aspect of our project has been further reinforced. Just a month before we left Time magazine, a Polar bear bounding across it’s front cover, did a special feature on climate change. “The debate is over”, they stated, “global warming is here”. Emblazoned, dramatically, just beside was, “Be worried, be very worried”. Theatrical overstatement aside, it was a subject I hoped to explore, somewhat more objectively, through my own art.
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| An alternative perspective: "Pascal's Wager" |
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Art and the Arctic |
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On our very first day aboard ship the expedition leader, Aaron Lawton, gave a presentation that included satellite maps of pack ice in the waters of Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, in just two years, since 2004, the volume of surface ice had diminished by roughly 80%. Being confronted with statistics like this does tend to paint the situation in rather a grim light. Consequently, any ideas we had of ‘spreading the word’ through our paintings and writing seemed, to me at least, rather futile… Over the two weeks just |
prior to our departure I'd put in some particularly long hours wrapping up all of my earlier projects. This was actually the culmination of six very intense months, having foregone my usual May/June vacation I was in need of a break. Most of the others were ready (paintbrushes in hand) to set out on a journey of artistic discovery, but the wind had suddenly been taken from my sails. It was time, perhaps, for a little reflection.
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In surroundings such as this however, one cannot help but feel inspired and, in time, I did put pencil (and paint brush) to paper (a small selection of which can be see amongst the new images). The main focus of this journey though, would be simple observation... our time was limited and if I were to paint onshore, it would be at the risk of missing so much more. Now that I'm back in the studio, having had time to assimilate the things we saw, it is time to paint. One of my pieces for the TD Center show, a large canvas 20” x 54”, is a reaction to the apparently imminent problems confronting us. This one stunning image etched itself into my mind like no other – To be presented at the opening of the Exhibition (please see: “Shows and Events”). It is more than just an image; it is a commentary. Human beings, certainly myself included, in order to avoid being overwhelmed by the world have an incredible capacity for denial. My first response when confronted with such a large and apparently immediate problem was to say, “forget it, there’s nothing we can do”. The words of 80’s rock band Trooper, which were often heared over the sound system in the ship's bar, seemed particularly fitting: “We’re here for a good time, not a long time”! Though I still wrestled with the ironies of this expedition. The most salient of which was the fact that a group of environmentally minded “Eco-tourists” could burned untold tons of fuel on this pleasure cruise through the pristine ends of the world. As Peter Gorrie pointed out in his National Report article in the Toronto Star, we had an ice captain aboard not to negotiate our way through treacherous ice fields, but to find them. The ice is where the life is, and that is what most passengers had paid to see. Upon my return, a friend pointed out a very convenient rational which, in a strange way, does contain some truth. “Someone”, he stated, “must go to see this distant corner of the world; not everyone can and if no one did, we would sail blithely on, oblivious to the problems at our door step”. More bluntly perhaps, were the words of one of the ship’s naturalists, Peter Middleton, “...no matter how big a mess we make, something will remain. It just might not be us. ”
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That being said, the Arctic is a complex place and much remains to be learned. One of the principle reason for the IPY is to foster an understanding of the relationship between the Earth's polar regions and the larger climatic systems that effect the planet as a whole. Perhaps this phenomena we are witnessing is actually the result of some natural cycle of climate change; and, then again, perhaps it isn't. This question is the point at which conversations usually bog down. On board ship I re-read a book by Peter Bernstein called “Against the Gods - The remarkable story of risk”. This collection of short stories, and historical anecdotes should be required reading for everyone - Gamblers in particular (not one of my vices incidentally). We are all subject to probabilities - life, after all, is one long series of calculated risks - a numbers game. Traders and actuaries are familiar with the strategies used for analyzing risk. In our global warming scenario the most applicable of these theories might very well be “Pascal’s wager” - A principle employed when the ultimate outcome of a given scenario can not be know. Pascals Wager could lead us to a position irrespective of Global warming’s cause - natural or man-made. As we cannot know for certain either the cause or the ultimate outcome, a decision to take action, or remain inactive, should be assigned the same odds as a coin toss - 50/50. The respective consequences then (risk vs. reward) need to be analyzed. The reward is simple; business as usual - we simply get to continue doing all the things we're already doing. It is the risk however, that unbalances this equation - the prospect of a very unpleasant outcome. According to Pascal, It is the disproportionate nature of these results that should dictate our course of action.
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Thirteen Days in the High Arctic, tranquil seas and clear blue skies (except, ironically, on the day of our BBQ on deck), high of 72 degrees F, shorts and t-shirt weather, swimming in mountain pools…Hmmm! As pleasant as the voyage was, our apparent good-fortune was strangely unsettling (Read more about Pascal’s Wager). All that aside, I would love to share with you some of highlights of our trip, click here, or on any of the images above, to see a selection of images and commentary from the Arctic Quest Voyage. A username and password is required, if you're not on my regular mailing list, please fill out the mailing list form below.
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“The conception and reproduction of truth and beauty are the first object of a poet; so should it be with a painter.” - Thomas Cole.
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Blaise Pascal was Mathematician and Philosopher, born 1623 in France he grew up around the time of the European religious wars. His love for logic, particularly as expressed through mathematics, often put him at odds with the anti-intellectual attitudes of the time. His father was a tax collector and as a teenager Pascal invented and patented an calculating machine in order the lessen the drudgery of keeping the accounts. Later in his life he wrote extensively on subjects such as: Scientific Method; Projective Geometry; Economics; Fluids, Pressure and the Vacuum. To the extent that he was a philosopher, his beliefs were steeped in the logic that was inescapable in his other life. In his Published work Pensées he assembled his ideas on life and religion, among his preliminary work was the question, "God, is he or is he not...?" Through a process of dialectic he attempts to find a rational answer, the results of which have come to be known as 'Decision Theory' - the theory of deciding what to do when the outcome is unknown. This is actually the underpinning of modern day Risk Management. Most decisions are based on past experience, our own or others, but an experiment could not be conducted to prove Gods existence. Since the question, ultimately, can not be avoided, the only available option is to examine the consequences of such a belief - or lack thereof. His line of reasoning went something like this: If God does not exist, then - outside the possible consequences in this world - our conduct, whether it be virtuous or sinful, is irrelevant. However, if there is a God, and an ultimate reckoning, then salvation is obviously preferable to "eternal damnation"! The course of action, to Pascal at least, was clear.
An interesting (and in its wider application perhaps) relevant anecdote. And all this talk of "virtuousness" is a convenient segue into an ongoing exploration of the Hudson River school and their views on art and life. As mentioned last time, I've already looked at the concepts of Truth and Beauty (the latter to be explored in a little more detail later on), and next time I'd like to examine their concept of "Goodness", as it applies to art. Truth, beauty and goodness were the basic precepts of their worldview and, though I'm completely out of my depth here, there are one or two interesting points to explore in rounding out this little overview.
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