Roll of honour

So, I have started back at uni this week. My tutor has been great so far, helpful and insightful and I like the studio I am in, so that is all good. We are currently doing a project on colour - how that will pan out I am not sure at this stage - but my initial thought was to have birds scavenging as my theme. I think this arose because I like to watch birds fly as I sit at my favourite spot at the Crags and look across at the city and the ocean. I am often envious of the freedom they have and think how fun it must be to eddy and swirl on the air currents (although on very windy days in Edinburgh I wonder if this a complete nightmare for them or whether it is like being on a roller coaster ride!). I thought of the other side last week though - the daily risk and danger of death by predators (humans included) and starvation. And today because there was a weather warning I was unable to go to the place I wanted to go to take photos of birds but went to the National Museum instead. I don't particularly like looking at stuffed animals, it makes me think of death and how these animals were once alive and the birds in particular - how they once felt the air beneath them and they felt keenly alive. I think it is good for educational purposes, but it also saddens me. Anyway, they had an extinctions role of honour from 1623 until 2010 and in the year I was born a bird became extinct - the Eiao monarch (Scientific name Pomaera fluxa). Some information on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says "This species was endemic to the island of Eiao, French Polynesia, but is now Extinct, probably thanks to introduced predators. It was last recorded in 1977, and in 1987 a search failed to find it". I keep seeing this image in my mind of this little bird searching and not being able to find a friend, a mate, that could understand it, alone, afraid. And then one day it dies too. How horrible to have that happen. And I feel that they are voiceless - people complain about the noise that birds make - but have we made them voiceless? I don't know. Tomorrow we have a screen printing induction so we need to have a black and white image to work with. I took these today and tried to make them as dark as I could.

24/7 Prayer Room

Well, I managed to paint my map of the world on the wall, albeit in a short time of about 5 hours. I was just pretty chuffed that I managed to get it done as I had a friend visiting from Australia and wasn't going to get another chance. Work has also been a bit too hectic of late, so I didn't manage to actually make it into the 24/7 prayer room for a 1 hour prayer slot. I would have really loved to have seen how the room finally came together and I think there was an idea of stringing the different countries together on my map, like a continuous prayer chain. Of course, my map had a little bit of artistic licence I confess, and being based on a couple of 16th century maps (Typus Orbis Universalis and Typus Orbis Terrarum) had some land masses in there that are not on the current map of the world. One of which being  Terra Australis Nondum Cognita which I kind of made into Antartica, as well as putting a current Australia in. Why not? Australia deserves double credits for being my homeland. I also painted the UK bright pink so it couldn't be missed! Interestingly enough, I was doing an inventory of a flat this week (after being locked out for an hour...surprise surprise) and in one of the bedrooms there was a world map paper shade for the light. The cleaner came in with a normal paper shade in his hand and said, "I was going to change it, but it's beautiful. Should I change it?" And I said, "Nope, I think it's beautiful too, I think you should leave it". And we both stood there for a few seconds gazing at the world map lit up by the light. Kind of a bonding moment, weird eh, but good. Oh well, speaking of work, I have to go do some, but here are some photos of my world map, together with some other walls that were being set up to help inspire people to think about God's heart for the nations.