The last artists for this week are Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane. She does expressive, lush and simultaneously elegant illustrations for the words written, in spellbinding fashion, by him.  I am willing to make an exception and include a man in this week devoted to women artist, because the book they produced together is a treasure.

 

I am talking about The Last Words, a compilation of poems based on words that are all linked to nature and have been omitted from the Oxford Junior English Dictionary. Blackberry had to make room for BlackBerry; acorn, bluebell, buttercup, heron and nectar are gone and replaced  with words such as attachment, blog, chatroom and voicemail.

 

As it turns out, British children spend less time outside than prisoners. Urbanization, difficult access, technological developments that keep the entertainment-hungry in thrall all contribute to a loss of knowledge about nature. Kids, and adults as well, are increasingly unable to define things in nature, much less identify them.  And what you can’t name you often don’t see; what you aren’t familiar with will not be loved. And the absence of love will make it unlikely for you to fight when nature is under attack, given the increasing threats to environmental protection and the exploitation of what little is left of nature.

 

 

Morris’s watercolors capture both a sense of awe and a sense of dread, teach about details with care and are utterly devoid of patronizing. They make the words come to life and create potentially more lasting memories, particularly for young readers. However, if you read the attached article below, Macfarlane got the primary attention, when the book became an overnight success. What else is new.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-the-loss-of-vivid-exacting-language-diminishes-our-world/2017/12/08/4630e920-c265-11e7-84bc-5e285c7f4512_story.html?utm_term=.50e6dcbe6c21

I ventured out into a meadow yesterday, to provide my own illustrations for what is waiting for us out there. Wandering through clouds of chamomile scent, whole fields of it in bloom, surrounded by flitting swallows, I felt uplifted from this rotten week.I have certainly been trained well to be able to name most of what I saw, at least for flora. I wonder if I gave that gift sufficiently to my own offspring, or if they belong to the 2/3 of the population who cannot identify a Hawthorne tree…much less a barn owl.

 

Here is to feeding the young, their minds as much as their bellies….