The month of May gets its name from Maia, the Roman goddess of springtime and new growth. We more commonly refer to her, now, as Mother Nature. As new life emerges following the dark days of winter, we celebrate the return of her abundance.
However, our human ways threaten her survival, so for the May Sculpture of the Month, I’ve chosen a piece that implores us to recognize and protect all life on Earth… before it’s too late.
Last Call
May also has connections with the death and suffering brought about by war. At the end of the month, Memorial Day honors those who have died in our wars. And ironically, Mother’s Day, now a mostly commercial extravaganza, has early ties to getting past the tragedy of war.
After the Civil War, Ann Jarvis, who created Mother’s Day, called for the holiday to promote healing and foster peace between former Union and Confederate families. Later, Julia Ward Howe dedicated the day to empowering women in the eradication of war. Howe felt that mothers should band together to prevent the cruelty of war and the waste of life, since mothers truly know and bear the cost.
I believe the sculpture I have chosen to share this month speaks to the dual difficulty we face in responding to both the urgency of the climate crisis and the senseless loss of life and home in the war in Ukraine. Oddly enough, the wholesale destruction going on in Ukraine isn’t so different from the onslaught that resource extraction and carbon emissions have on the natural world. Both get fueled by the short-term self-interests of those in power over the long-term needs of humanity and the living ecosystems we depend on.
Sadly, our need for change only seems to come into focus when things are at their worst. And yet, change can only come about by mutual actions. The specter at the center of this sculpture, named during a recent naming session, appears to issue a Last Call for us to change our ways, not only for the survival of humanity, but also of Mother Nature herself.
