Lionfish Invasion

I am preparing proposal artwork for a panoramic installation artwork.  Started by making a scientific illustration of our villain, and will transfer and rework in pencil and watermedia.  Work process ended with a serendipitous intersection of urban sea level rise with the lionfish invasion....

Azuma Makoto

Laplanders Spray Caribou with Reflective Paint

From the BBC:

Herders in Lapland are spraying their reindeer with reflective paint to help drivers see them in the dark, it appears.

The special spray is being tested on their fur and antlers to see how it holds up in different weather conditions, Finnish national broadcaster YLE reports.

"The aim is to prevent traffic accidents. The spray is being tested on fur at the moment, but it may be even more effective on the antlers, because they are seen from every side," says Anne Ollila, chairwoman of theReindeer Herders Association.

As many as 4,000 reindeer die in traffic accidents every year in Finland, the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute says. Most incidents occur in the dark months of November and December, when roads are prone to becoming icy, the Helsingen Sanomat newspaper reports.

Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.

Polar Bear Monoprint

Arctic Hares

Maiden's Tower Istanbul

I have begun a series of portraits of man-made monuments which will ultimately be submerged as climate change raises sea levels-- starting here with the Maiden's Tower of Istanbul.  From a photo I took there in summer 2013.

Greenland Iceberg

Iceberg Minis

My recent watercolors about icebergs just 6 in x 12 in.  Studies for much larger works.

Cedar Waxwings

Started this 2005 in a sketchbook--decided to work it up.  Here's the penciled comment within the frame:  "A flock of cedar waxwings arrived in Fall 2005.  They have returned to take up residence this summer (2006), feasting on viburnum berries."  They have come and gone ever since, btw--- now happily established on my lakeshore.

How to say 'I love you' in Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet by Nancy Campbell

Radiant Soil

Radiant Soil interactive art installation from Canada by Phillip Beesley.  
The video is almost 9 minutes long.  

I am not sure what this artwork really accomplishes, but it is bursting with ideas and possibilities....


http://www.designboom.com/architecture/philip-beesley-presents-radiant-soil-at-espace-edf-in-paris/?utm_campaign=monthly&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_source=subscribers

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Deluge of Ash in Wyoming

Late July 2012 in Wheatland, Wyoming, USA....HR Ranch.
Deluge of ash washing down from the Arapaho Fires. 
Ok, at last I am ready to describe it.

We had just arrived at the ranch.  This is a working ranch, mind you-- just down from the Bighorn Mountains.  No where near the easy wealth of Jackson Hole -- more prairie than Teton.  I was passing through for an overnight at my sister's family ranch with my triplet sisters and childhood friend.  Just arrived, and ditched our bags up the staircase with the bullet hole.  Sunset.  We had just finished pouring gin & tonics  to wash the dust down when we heard the sound of water gushing down the little branch of the Laramie River which runs next to the "big house." Figuring this was something to watch, we grabbed some plastic lawn chairs and settled in next to the cottonwoods.  First sip. 

By the second sip, it was clear that the sudden wash down from the distant mountains was rising rapidly enough to have my sister on her feet.  The water was boiling up; it was black with fine ash, and all the little creatures were thrashing onto the bank, dying from the fine silt filling their gills, lungs, and air tubes.  Shocking.

I have saved this ash for use in my drawing and paintings. 

Forest Fires of Greenland 3

As climate change brings forests to Greenland, so will it bring the forest ecologies of forest fires! Photo by Lisa Forman, with collaboration with the astounding members of the Chasing the Light Expedition (see the FB page!)

Forest Fires of  Kalaallit Nunaat

I created 2 simple ink & watercolor paintings, each of a driftwood stick with Greenlandic lichens.  One of them traveled with a different group to the scientific camp NEEM, which is further north and on the top of the Greenland ice cap.  There, its paints were partially dissolved in glacial meltwaters there and photographed about the base.  The 2nd painting is its companion, traveled with the Chasing the Light Expedition, and was also partially dissolved in glacial waters, where more green paints were released.  Like its companion painting, my hope is that they evoke the "greening" of the polar landscape, and its advance northward along the Greenland ice, from Disko Bay towards Thule. Both paintings were later partially burned by my collaborators.  Why?  If forests do advance into Greenland, eventually normal forest ecologies will be established on this currently treeless "continent-island"-- which would include the normal forest ecological cycles of forest fires.  These two "twinned" artworks will be iidentified by their GPS locations, be framed and shown together in future exhibitions, and be shown along with photographs of the artworks placed on a Greenland beach and in the NEEM research station.

Forest Fires of Greenland 2

Taken on a beach on the West Coast of Greenland in July 2012.

Photos by Lisa Forman, with collaboration with the astounding members of the Chasing the Light Expedition (see the FB page!) To her, my deepest gratitude!

First step-- The "Greening of the Arctic" as climate change advances by diluting the extra watercolor paint on the branch painting by dousing with glacial waters.

My statement about the project:

Forest Fires of  Kalaallit Nunaat

I created 2 simple ink & watercolor paintings, each of a driftwood stick with Greenlandic lichens.  One of them traveled with a different group to the scientific camp NEEM, which is further north and on the top of the Greenland ice cap.  There, its paints were partially dissolved in glacial meltwaters there and photographed about the base.  The 2nd painting is its companion, traveled with the Chasing the Light Expedition, and was also partially dissolved in glacial waters, where more green paints were released.  Like its companion painting, my hope is that they evoke the "greening" of the polar landscape, and its advance northward along the Greenland ice, from Disko Bay towards Thule. Both paintings were later partially burned by my collaborators.  Why?  If forests do advance into Greenland, eventually normal forest ecologies will be established on this currently treeless "continent-island"-- which would include the normal forest ecological cycles of forest fires.  These two "twinned" artworks will be iidentified by their GPS locations, be framed and shown together in future exhibitions, and be shown along with photographs of the artworks placed on a Greenland beach and in the NEEM research station.

Forest Fires of Greenland

Photo from Zaria Forman of the Chasing the Light Expedition (see Facebook page), taken on a Greenland beach in July 2012.

To her my deep gratitude.

Zaria says of this: "Beautiful painting by Diane Fiedler. She gave it to us to "deploy" in Greenland, with explicit directions to burn and then splash with glacier water before it was entirely destroyed. The burning part was tricky with damp paper and strong winds!"

Snowy Owl

The photo of snow-covered mountain peaks from Chasing the Light Expedition Facebook pages have reminded me of a this watercolor of mine of a snowy owl with an aurora borealis. Snowy owls are very close to my loft in South Boston-- just across the harbor at LOGAN AIRPORT! It is a favorite stop along their migration route to and from the Arctic.  See more about Audubon's Snowy Owl Project, which has tagged hundreds of owls, at the Snowy Owl Telemetry Project:

http://www.massaudubon.org/Birds_and_Birding/snowyowl/index.php

http://www.massaudubon.org/Birds_and_Birding/snowyowl/maps.php

"As part of his research, he (Norman Smith) has worked with Logan Airport, observing and capturing Snowy Owls that could potentially pose a danger to air traffic, banding them and releasing them further along their migration path.* 
Unfortunately, 
Snowy Owls love airports."

Polar Bear Effigies painting floating in Disko Bay

Here is my 5 ft by 8 ft watercolor of polar bears, photographed by Milbry Polk, floating in the 1000 year old glacial waters near the Illiusat Glacier in Greenland, August, 2012!  I am told that Greenlander hunter who helped with placing and removing it from the waters was moved to tears, and that he endeavored to keep it for himself afterwards.

My Polar Bear Paintings set sail from Aasiaat today!

This is a portion of a watermedia painting sent along with the Explorer's Club Flag to Assiaat, Greenland this week.  

I have made a simple representational watercolor & acrylic painting on a roughly 4 ft by 9 ft watercolor paper (vertical) of 3 polar bears swimming. 

They will be dropped into the seas of the Davis Strait and filmed as they sink below the waters to symbolize the peril that polar bears face.  

Polar bears use ice floes as a station for hunting seals and belugas; as the ice floes disappear from climate change, polar must seek ice floes further and further away from their hunting grounds.  Many drown while finding these-- the distances are becoming too too far.

I am offering painted "effigies" or polar bears sinking below arctic waters to substitute & "protect" actual polar bears who are in danger of drowning due to climate change's reduced ice floe coverage. 

Today the Wanderbird sets sail from Aasiaat, Greenland in Disko Bay with my polar bear painting and several other projects of mine.  She is on a mission to follow the 1869 expedition of Romantic painter/explorer William Bradford as he recorded Greenland's icebergs and glaciers for artistic use.  See more about his voyage at the Clark Art Museum's online show http://www.clarkart.edu/exhibitions/bradford/content.cfm?id=1

and about our expedition at

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/701351414/chasing-the-light?ref=live

Summer Solstice 2012

This drawing/watercolor is leaving with my friend Alejandra on Sunday, bound for the northernmost research station of Greenland.  She is gathering cores of the ice sheet for her Ph.D.-- and dousing my watercolor in glacial waters!  

The drawing/watercolor uses water-soluble inks & paints, along with acrylic grounds on watercolor paper.  The image was principally drawn and applied using curly willow branches as brushes/palette knife— a cousin to the arctic willows of Greenland, which hug the soil.   I have added extra surface and texture to the paper using acrylic modeling and fiber pastes.  The clumpy areas are meant to simulate the lichen areas attached to the stick I was using as a model.  Embedded and dried into these areas are extra daubs of watercolor paints-— principally greens and blues.

Glacial waters will activate the reservoir of paints, thereby "greening" the page.

There are no trees in Greenland, as the permafrost makes deep root growth impossible.  But with increasing global warming, we could see Greenland become full of meadowlands, bushes, and ultimately trees.  Ale and I am bringing some of the first "trees" to the northern parts of the ice cap-- even if they are only virtual and artistic.

The drawing for Greenland was made today, June 21,  on the Summer Solstice, in Boston, at 97 degrees Farenheit and at 42.3583 degrees north and 71.0603 degrees west. Photographed by me on my roof. Its next stop?-- well beyond the Arctic Circle!

Secret Life of Glaciers

While cruising about on NPR's Science Friday, I found this video "Secret Life of Ice" by Edward Aites, a Seattle photographer
NPR Science Friday's "The Secret Life of Ice"
This beautiful work is done with time lapse photography using a microscope with a  polarized filter on backyard ice. Imagine "flying" about inside of Greenland's ice cap,  on a continental scale, up to almost 2 miles thick!  More NPR about the melting ice cap-- including some good news can be found at
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151790470/greenlands-ice-melting-slower-than-expected