Karen Lindquist’s three
pieces in the Collage
meets Landscape exhibit are part of a new series called New Mexico Love Story. She describes the
series as a visual homage to a magical state with an anti-hydraulic fracturing
sub-text. I visited the magical state,
New Mexico, or, as I call it The Holy
Land, earlier this month. I spent a
day with Karen in her home in rural New Mexico.
Getting a peek at her new work in progress and talking for hours.
Hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, is threatening rural communities
and wilderness in New Mexico and across America. All in a race for short-term profits. The long-term consequences out of this rush
to bleed the land for every last bit fossil fuels are not completely known, but
the potential for environmental disaster – unnecessary disaster – are
staggering.
We spoke on the phone last week and were discussing ways to
effectively respond to the fracking threat.
Karen is currently working on a series of handmade, original postcards
(the one I received is shown above).
Many are being mailed out to elected officials. Talking to her I realized what a brilliant
idea this is.
Most politicians are unlikely to give a great deal of attention to
email. Especially those email templates
from political websites. Posting things
on social media sites, e.g., Facebook, is pretty much like shaking your fist
and yelling at a cloud. Politicians only
take notice of Twitter when, well you know, photos of their junk is involved. Even sites like change.org are
pointless. Yes, it’s true, you might
think your electronic activism is doing something, but it’s pretty much
meaningless. Elected officials still
take note of constituent letters – original letters – not pre-printed petitions
and postcards.
Imagine if we all started taking Karen Lindquist’s lead and started
sending mail art about issues we cared about to our elected officials. We may not sway opinions, but we won’t be
completely ignored either. At the least,
the staff would take notice and you can bet your cards would be passed around
the office.
So get making some art
about what you care about, send it out!
And if you want to see more of Karen’s work, you need to go to see Collage meets
Landscape before it closes this Sunday (September 28th).
