What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Landscape painting as strategy
“Arms Around the Marsh,” 76”x86” oil on linen 1999 Aviva Rahmani
The global landscape we confront today includes many unprecedented challenges, such as climate change. Winter holidays are all about stories that teach. Celebrating the Judeo-Christian holidays that dominate this season address a Western, predominantly religious solution to harsh conditions. Do Chanukah, Christmas and celebrating the New Year teach us how to survival this world? Chanukah is about patient faith. Christmas is about generous love. The New Year is about having a fresh start. Those are aspirational values that require internal, spiritual growth but they aren’t necessarily directives to action: Faith that snatches victory from defeat, receiving a God coming to Earth to redeem sinners, the old yielding to the new. None of those are practical solutions to climate change.