2024

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL EXHIBITION

TAMI PHELPS

TAMI PHELPS

(Anchorage, Alaska)

Forget-Me-Nots of the Sea

cold wax, oil, on wood panel, 16 x 20 x 2 inches

Price: $1100 + $65 shipping fee

Artist Statement:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness…”

Such was the vision of Nature’s beauty to the young English poet, John Keats, 1818, before the Industrial Age began. Coral reefs are more than things of beauty; these complex animals make other life possible in our oceans. I first encountered them some forty years ago while savoring the underwater mysteries of the Bahamas. Not only do reefs provide food and safety to over a million forms of sea life, they protect coastlines from storms and erosion, provide jobs for local communities, and offer joy to landlubbers like me. New medicines, too, come from coral. Over half a billion people depend on reefs for food and income. Coral cannot survive in heated waters, just as we are now threatened on heated land. Humanity and coral are both things of beauty, perishing slowly due to rising temperatures caused partially by human technology and indifference.

I needed to try and share beauty, awareness, and the vulnerable mortality of coral through my painting, “Forget-Me-Nots of the Sea.” I try to be actively hopeful and not cry as I realize that by 2050, if the current rise in ocean temperature continues unabated, 90% of our incredibly amazing coral reefs will disappear. Gone forever. Unlike Keats’ poetic words of imagined beauty.

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