Art-e-cats

***FREEBIE***

Well, yet again I'm a day late!  Maybe I should re-christen this, "any day's freebie"!!!!    As I'm in Christmas mode, here's an image to use in your own cards.

WORKSHOP

Yesterday I ran a workshop making Christmas cards.  We made lots of background papers using different techniques with walnut ink and embellishments from paperclay.  We made cards and a slide mailer.  Here's a sample of the cards, more can be seen in my Picturetrail album.   

Borneo

FIRES DEVASTATE BORNEO

Report from BOS UK ..... "Fires, primarily set by palm oil companies, continue to rage out of control in Borneo and Sumatra, sending a thick, choking haze over Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and even as far away as Guam, 3600 km to the east. Schools and airports in the region have been closed, and people advised to stay indoors. The fires now have nearly reached the level they did in 1997-98, which cost the region an estimated US$9 billion in disruptions to air travel and other business activities, and which wiped out as much as a third of the existing population of orangutans. The fires were estimated to have destroyed 5 million hectares -- an area equivalent to Costa Rica.

Palangka Raya, the area where our Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Project is located, is the worst hit, with over 2.5 million acres of peatland currently on fire, and with visibility now down to less than 30 meters. The reports from the field are horrendous, and our rescue teams have been working without let up. The area where we released 42 wild orangutans in March is now on fire, as well as parts of the Mawas Reserve."

If you wish to read the full report, please email me at Fiverdog@aol.com and I'll send it to you.  Sadly many orangutans have already died, not only in these fires but at the hands of the palm oil companies employees!

To demand urgent international action to address this issue at the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, go to:

Climate Ark    Click on the link under "Alerts" 

BOS UK special report

The report came at midnight: a newborn baby orangutan was in the Agro Bukit palm oil estate and needed rescuing. There was no time to waste; we knew that the fragility of a newborn meant it could die very quickly without proper care. But all of our rescue teams were out in the field doing rescues in other areas. The only thing left to do was for Lone, Hardi and I to take the last vehicle at the project and rescue the baby ourselves. 

The 6 hour journey on a road pockmarked with craters was made bearable by the music of Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel and Elton John, allowing our minds to go to another place rather than the dismal surroundings on either side of the road. Only a few fruit trees remained here and there, and otherwise the landscape was sand and rubbish and burnt out skeletal remains of once mighty trees. Ramshackle villages appeared every so often, with residents who seemed somehow washed out as they watched the passing traffic. We spoke of how Lone and I could possibly relay to the outside world just how serious the situation is in the palm oil plantations. We are due to make some presentations in other parts of the world in the weeks to come and are concerned that we won’t be able to properly express the urgency of the crisis in a way that will result in action.

Time passed surprisingly quickly and we turned into the vast estate. The terrain here became yet more degraded. Except for tiny stands of trees which sometimes appeared far in the distance, nothing stood. Mile after mile, the only evidence you could see that this was once a forest was great upturned root systems of trees now on their way to become patio furniture, and small trunks and branches scattered like so many matchsticks. The ground was black and grey from the soot of recent burning, and smoke billowed up from the peat like a dying barbecue. The huge sky was a lighter shade of brownish-grey, the sun completely obscured by the dense haze. When we got out of the car at the main office, we were greeted by the most eerie silence. Nothing could be heard—no bird song or insects chirping or wind through trees, like that which we hear day and night in Nyaru Menteng. For a moment I understood what it might be like to suddenly become deaf. I scanned the horizon from this somewhat elevated position, and as far as I could see, in every direction, not a single tree….only destruction. We were standing deep in the heart of the plantation, where a few years ago we would have been standing deep in the heart of a life-filled forest.

We let ourselves into the office where well-dressed young men and women ticked away at their computers or chatted to colleagues around the water cooler. We could have been anywhere, in any office. Polite smiles and greetings all around as we were led to the office of the Malaysian manager, who ordered coffee to be served. After the customary small-talk, Lone remarked, “We have a report that there is a baby orangutan at the plantation.”

A surprised, almost incredulous look came over the manager. “A baby orangutan? Here? I have no information of that.”

Lone pretended not to be exasperated. “Yes, we received the report last night. We were told by Ibu Ida to come and get the orangutan. I certainly hope we didn’t drive all this way for nothing.”

So Ibu Ida was summoned. “Ibu,” asked the manager, “is there a baby orangutan here somewhere?”
“Oh, yes, Bapak,” she replied. “The workers have it in their home at the next camp.”
“Is it still alive?” asked the manager.
“Last I heard…” came the reply.

Ibu Ida accompanied us to the next camp, a row of hastily constructed barracks with open doorways, and children in soiled and torn clothing playing in the dust out front. A young man invited us into his small residence; the only furnishing, a cardboard box on the floor. In the cardboard box, a few rags, and amongst the rags, a baby orangutan, barely moving, silent. Lone picked her up and held her close, whilst inspecting her. There were some healing wounds on her head and hands, which the owner said were caused by dogs chasing her and her mother. He explained that the orangutan and her baby had been wandering around the plantation when a pack of dogs set upon them. The mother orangutan ran into a large pipe, pursued by the dogs. In her panic,shed dropped the baby and was able to escape. Knowing that there was little, if any, truth to this story, Lone looked right at the man. “Oh, is that right?” she said.

Of course we know that mother orangutans do NOT abandon their babies, and a baby’s instinct to clutch is immediate after birth and she would not have fallen off her mother. Indeed if she fell while being pursued by dogs, what likelihood would there be that she would have survived? But it was too late to argue these details. The main thing now was to give the baby some milk.
The owner’s wife handed Lone the baby bottle she had been using, which obviously had not been cleaned during the last three days in which they had the baby. We had brought clean bottles of our own, and we made up some milk, which the baby drank thirstily. By this time, we were surrounded by members of the camp, young and old, peering into the dark tiny room and talking all at once. Somebody remarked that there were two more orangutans in another camp. The location was determined, and with Ibu Ida and the baby, we set off.

It was miles to the next camp, through this horrifying landscape. Lone turned to me and said, “This area was forest three weeks ago when we filmed here with the BBC.” At the time, the bulldozers had just started on the area. They made short work of it. Nothing remained. I recalled the statement of the Indonesian Minister of Agriculture, that oil palm production has no negative consequences on the environment.

Lone spoke to Ibu Ida. “Ibu, does it not break your heart to look out and see all this where there was once forest?” Ibu Ida just chuckled and said nothing.

At the next camp, we asked where the orangutans were. “Oh, they ran away the other day,” said a shirtless man smoking a clove cigarette in the doorway.
He began to laugh. “Yes, they were here and I tried to push the female into a deep ditch of water.” He laughed harder and shrugged his shoulders. It was hard for Lone to try to mask her anger. The conversation with the small group of people continued. Men boasted of their successes in overcoming wild orangutans, of keeping infants before selling them on in the illegal species trade.

“Shall I take your son,” Lone said, pointing to a young boy with wide eyes, “and put him in the forest and feed him leaves? Do you think he will do well?” The boy cowered and clutched his father. I pointed to the truck. “We have the cage ready with some nice leaves now, if you want.” The man chuckled nervously and his son clutched tighter.

Almost as an afterthought, a man told us there was another orangutan at yet another camp. We set off and arrived at this camp and again were surrounded by curious individuals. “Where’s the orangutan?” we asked.

“The orangutan? Oh, we already ate it,” laughed a woman. “We also had a bear, but we ate it too.”
“But we still have a slow loris,” interjected another. “Do you want to see it?”

We were led to a small wire cage baking in the sun. The slow loris was curled up into itself on the wooden floor of the cage, with a couple of rotten bananas quickly drying up nearby. It protested loudly when we scooped him up with a towel to take him away, but as soon as he was in his box with some lush branches, he settled down.

With no more reports of animals to go on, and an orangutan and slow loris needing to be seen to, we set off home, where there still is some forest.

If you would like to make a donation or become a member of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, please visit their website:  BOS UK

ARTWORDS online art journal

My entry for the topic "Gothic":

Take a look at the other entries at ARTWORDS

GRAB A BARGAIN!

One of my best buddy's, Linda Koch, has some fabulous artwork for sale on ebay - here are some of her latest tags.  Go check out her blog for more eye candy! 

ART BOOKS

I've just borrowed Beryl Taylor's book "Mixed Media Explorations" and it's absolutely TDF!  It's bulging at the seams with the most gorgeous eye candy - so totally different to what I usually go for and at the other end of the spectrum from grunge.  Her attention to detail is AWESOME! 

Of course I had to order it straight away ... along with "Collage Unleashed" by Traci Bautista.  Well, after the disappointment with the Gabe Cyr book, I had to treat myself didn't I? 

I've ordered them from The Book Depository as the waiting time for Amazon was almost 4 weeks.  They also offer free postage worldwide with no minimum order value.  It's the first time I've used them so will report back.

Btw, Beryl Taylor is originally from the north of England, although she was born on the wrong side of the Pennines! :oP

TONIGHT MATHEW, I'M GOING TO BE ....

... Julie Andrews!  Altogether now .... "high on a hill was a lonely goatherd, yodallayee yodallayee yodallay hehe"

Artwork by Charlotte Kemsley using freebie image of Theda Bara

***FREEBIE***

I blinked and Wednesday disappeared!!!

Alexa Wilding as Sybilla Palmifera - painting by Rossetti