The Sustainable Souls Project: February 2017

Hello and Welcome to The Sustainable Souls Project February Post.

The Sustainable Souls Project is a monthly artist collaboration inspired by sustainability issues, concerns, ideas, and thoughts. Each month, we will pick a sustainability topic and create awareness through art, using the monthly theme as inspiration. Projects may include art-journaling, mixed media, assemblage and more.

The idea is to create awareness around Sustainability through art, one paint stroke at a time!

We hope to educate, entertain, and share pretty things for both humans and the earth.

February's theme is a theme that we have all witnessed and experienced in our lifetime: EXTREME WEATHER.

Even as I write this blog post, we experienced tornadoes in February, in PA. The temperature was in the mid 70's all week, and on Saturday, we had one of the worse thunderstorms I've ever experienced. The wind and rain was so severe, water poured in around the edges of my front door, and seeped into my basement. If we see weather this severe, it is usually in May-August, not in February when the temperatures should be in the 30's, with snow. Extreme weather situations are becoming more of the norm in these times of Climate Change and Global Warming.

Before we begin, let's start with the definition of Extreme:

The key word in the definition is 'exceeding the ordinary, usual, or expected'. Extreme weather is typically rare. But climate change is increasing the odds of more extreme weather events taking place.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explain extreme weather and it connectivity to Climate Change HERE. Visually, here's how they explain extreme weather, using a bell curve graph.

David Suzuki, a notable Canadian scientist and environmental activist, sums up Extreme Weather with this quote.

"The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts and floods is in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades - and evidence is mounting that what's happening is more severe than predicted, and will get far worse still if we fail to act."

We asked the Sustainable Souls to create, using this theme as an inspiration point and as a point to share how extreme weather affects them. I think you will be amazed at how each artist interpreted the theme and how they shared their message.

Let's see how 'Extreme Weather' was transformed into art.

(Click names for links to the artist blog post)

Camille McCoy