Jane Goodall died on October first. She was 91, and still traveling over 300 days a year giving talks on ecology, conservation, and global warming. Before her death, she taped a film/video for Netflix, with the intent that it be aired posthumously. You can view an excerpt here, or watch the whole clip on Netflix.
I also decided to include a brief excerpt of a quote to convey something of the nature of her message:
“In the place where I am now, I look back over my life. I look back at the world I’ve left behind. What message do I want to leave? I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters, and you are here for a reason. And I just hope that reason will become apparent as you live through your life. I want you to know that, whether or not you find that role that you’re supposed to play, your life does matter, and that every single day you live, you make a difference in the world. And you get to choose the difference that you make.
“I want you to understand that we are part of the natural world. And even today, when the planet is dark, there still is hope. Don’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you become apathetic and do nothing. And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world — if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren — then think about the actions you take each day. Because, multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.”
I thought of Jane Goodall’s inspiring message the other day as I did something as simple and mundane as walking from our driveway to the front door of our house. Starting with our own yard, and very much in the spirit of Jane Goodall’s message, several years ago my wife Nicole began shifting her gardening focus to native plants; the path I walk now curves between three thriving flower beds that are, literally, humming with life. It is nothing short of astonishing to see the difference: Hundreds of pollinators of all kinds are busy all day, every day. Some bees are so busy they take a nap on top of a flower, something I had no idea any insect did.
I was slow to grasp the significance and impact such a shift in gardening can create. I recently saw an area of a yard Nicole has been working on for a good friend of ours. While these new beds had been planted very recently, they were already alive with pollinators. I was floored by nature’s resilience. The message, loud and clear, was that if humans get out of the way and work to give natural systems a chance, they can thrive.
A bee asleep on a flower in my front yard
Nicole has said that every time she plants a native plant—whether in our yard or in a client’s—it feels like an act of resistance against our government’s attempts to undo any and all progress we have made re global warming. This sensibility seems to be in the air; a gardening-focused influencer recently commented, when discussing native plants, that everything is political these days. The native plant advocate Benjamin Vogt recently posted a similar message on his website, balancing hope and action in a manner reminiscent of Jane Goodall.
Watching Nicole’s native plant work has changed the way I see a lot of things, especially how interconnected everything is. And I have to agree—everything is political these days. And all of this informs my work in the studio.
After hurricane Helene had devastated her Asheville community, the writer Barbara Kingsolver said: “…maybe the human project is to weather the storms but still show up for the wonder.”
I couldn’t help but see parallels between the way Jane Goodall and Benjamin Vogt framed how we might think about the fraught time we are all in- and how to encourage positive action and hope on our part . My painting “Hush” was well underway when I heard Barbara Kingsolver’s remarkable quote, and her words really resonated with me. Some part of “Hush” was exactly about what she so beautifully and succinctly articulated. Looking back on my thinking during the planning stages of the painting, her words accurately described the sweeping, large-scale sense of the human condition that I had worked to express.
Hush, acrylic and oil on linen, 45" x 55", 2025
In “Hush,” I then worked to create a state of tension between wonder and uncertainty as well as between harmony and chaos. The sky is as much about the failure of reason and assaults on democracy as it is about the natural world and anxiety about climate change. At the other end of the spectrum, in spite of this tension- or perhaps as a counterpoint to it- I wanted the composition to emanate a sense that there is always the possibility of hope- however tenuous.
And there is another reason Jane Goodall’s death seemed so timely for me right now. Years ago, I read her account of quietly spending time with the alpha male of a troupe of chimpanzees at the end of the day as it sat down to watch a sunset while the rest of his troupe continued on the path. She described sharing this suspended moment in time with the chimpanzee, until- as with our own experience looking at a sunset- the spell seemed to end and the alpha male stood up and continued on his way along the path to join the group.
I mention this experience Jane Goodall described because on some level it informed my response to the bonobos I documented at the Memphis Zoo a few years ago. When one particular bonobo sat down with his knees pulled up, arms on his knees and hands clasped- and then turned his head away from us, a part of me remembered Jane Goodall’s story about the chimp watching the sunset, simultaneously reminding me of our shared genetic legacy while at the same time so completely unknowable.
Bonobos already look very similar to humans, and by making slight changes in proportion I was able to insert just enough ambiguity that the image felt more like an archetype of an earlier proto- human than a specific species of primate. This helped me point the painting in the direction I wanted it to go- the painting is about us- humans- in this particular very anxious time.
I am currently finishing a painting on gessoed Rives BFK rag paper, and it seems to be helping me figure out how to steer the next larger work on canvas somewhere between the quiet, timeless sense of harmony of “Grace” and the precarious uncertainty of “Hush”. So far, so good- accidents and luck always play a role in coming up with a promising idea. Fingers crossed!
Wishing everyone all the best in these crazy times.