#2985 "October First Ice 2014"

#2985 "October First Ice 2014"
11 x 14 Inches oils on stretched canvas. 
Started at 9:00 am Sunday, November 9th, 2025.

I photographed this inspiration at 4 pm on Saturday, October 4th, 2014. What caught my eye back then was certainly the clouds and the subtle crepuscular rays cast by the setting sun. What seized my eye more than a decade later was quite different. I was searching for inspiration during the first snowfall of the winter of 2025-2026. Heavy snow and freezing rain encouraged me to remain in the Studio in front of the wood stove, listening to tunes. 

The contrasts in the climate were glaringly obvious. I was quite taken aback by the high water levels and the extent of the ice over the western basin of Singleton Lake in 2014, as seen in early October. There was fresh snow on that ice, contrasting strongly with the dark, backlit colours of the far shore. The 2025 water levels were near record low values, and the first snowflakes of the year had just arrived. There was no hint of any ice anywhere on the lake in November, a month after that image in 2014. 

The fossil fuel corporations would rightly claim that a single weather event does not constitute climate change. The summation of weather over a few decades does constitute climate, and both have been changing. I have written about these issues for years. See "The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery - Become Informed and Involved in a Good Way" and "Big carbon's strategic response to global warming, 1950-2020" among many such blogs.

Tim Flannery in "The Weather Makers" investigates “the corrupt relationship between government and industry." David R. Boyd exposes the simple game plan of Big Oil in “The Optimistic Environmentalist”: 

•  Deny the existence of any problems. 
•  Pay charlatan scientists to lie and claim that their products or emissions are safe. 
•  Finance scientific journals with official-sounding titles to publish bogus articles based on junk science. 
•  Buy the support or acquiescence of politicians and bureaucrats. 

For me, this painting will serve as a reminder of what once was. Climate is a very delicate balance between many immense physical forces, and human activities have upset those precarious equilibria. Corrective measures are already too late, even in 2025. 

 For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. Thank you for reading, and stay well!

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick