Humility

Blue Whale, charcoal on paper, 30”x11.25”

I touched a whale once. It was brief, thrilling, and counter-intuitively lasting, affecting me now for over 40 years. Some experiences are like a psychological avalanche, the bad ones like a hot-iron branding, and the good ones like corrective Lasix for one’s insight. 

First, the whale story. I had a job accompanying a marine biologist who was gathering data in Southeast Alaska, by boat. I was undoubtedly quite useless at that point, good only for carrying gear and maybe radioing for help if the actual scientist got into trouble. I’m quite sure I only got the job because of affirmative action in the Forest Service, and the fact that I was studying Animal&Veterinary Science. Nevertheless, it all became fodder for art, later, art being what many consider useless as well.  A humpback rose up right next to the Zodiac, curious, and I reached out and touched it’s back. Cold, firm, rubbery, ALIVE. It was as if I was hit by lightning, suddenly truly ALIVE myself, for the first time! The other story (which I cannot help adding because of my mention of Lasix) involved being dropped off on a beach in Southeast Alaska, only to see my workmates run for the trees. I saw, in time, thank goodness, that a mother bear and cubs were approaching! The next time I got to Sitka I had my eyes checked and got glasses. All of a sudden the visual world was transformed! I saw individual needles on spruce trees such that they appeared hostile in their prickliness! The texture of the world was now available, whereas before, in myopia, I was lost in a simplified state of mass forms, or turning inward toward daydreams.

This drawing, of a Blue Whale, humbles me. I believe that one truly useful purpose art can serve in these times is to remind us of the humility we have lost, as a species. Art can counteract our arrogance, our reductionism, our idiotic focus on ourselves through endless deconstructivist navel-gazing. 

I also add a book that I fished out of the discard pile of the library. It was a profound read also, written from the point of view of a Blue whale calf, truly the best ever attempt at not anthropomorphizing another species. The calf survives, but because of many factors, chance, yes, but many human-caused effects, he does not successfully reproduce. I lived as a Blue whale while reading it. Afterwards, I made the drawing. An obscure book, unknown, probably out of print, gave me this gift.