In the beginning there was only water
In the Beginning There Was Only Water reframes the biblical creation myth – in which “man” was granted “dominion” over all the Earth’s plants and animals – into a new, non-human-centric story. Comprised of 39 mixed media paintings on paper, each 30 in. x 15 in., the work is hung without any space between the panels and measures 50 ft. The extended horizontal format of the piece creates a dramatic running narrative that begins approximately 3.8 billion years ago, when our fiery planet started to cool and the rains began to fall, and fall continuously, for centuries – filling up the basins that eventually became the primeval ocean.
In the Beginning There was Only Water is an abstract interpretation of what scientists have determined really happened at the creation of the planet and for the billions of years that followed. It grew out of my providential participation in a group of eight female, eco-artists who met virtually on a regular basis during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had assembled to read and discuss the newly published book, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson.
While reading All We Can Save, I was viscerally struck by Kendra Pierre-Louis essay, ‘Wakanda Doesn’t Have Suburbs.’ In particular, it was Pierre-Louis’ cri de cœur for new stories that galvanized me – new stories to replace the biblical creation myth that cast humans as separate from and, worse, superior to nature. Such a colonialist world view justified our species’ relentless appetite to use and abuse the Earth’s resources in any way we choose, without regard to the impact of our actions on non-human beings – including the rivers, oceans, forests, land and atmosphere – upon whom we depend for our own survival. According to Pierre-Louis, this creation myth set humans on an inherently destructive path that evolved, over the millennia, into our “innate tendency to destroy the environment” ever since “Eve, allegedly, took a bite of that damn apple.” In my new story, the whole world is Eden without a human being or apple tree in sight.
