Human beings are naturally egocentric and a bit self-absorbed. After all, we spend our days interacting with the world around us and we define the world through these daily interactions, with us as the center of attention. Of course things happen to other people, but we experience their responses remotely or second-hand, not as direct give and take between the world and our inner self. It’s understandable that we see ourselves as the center of action and meaning, and how this carries over into religion. But the reality is, Homo sapiens are latecomers to the party, and we may overrate…

As human beings, we sometimes find ourselves trapped by our assumptions. What should a picture look like on a page? Landscape, portrait, square, and sometimes round are our usual choices. We see art in a gallery and, while it comes in various sizes, we can encompass the work in a single glance. I’m not saying we can understand or appreciate it in a single glance, but certainly, we see its top, bottom, and sides.

Art on a computer screen in Medium is a bit different. Formatting constraints can limit the width, and we strive to provide a height that accommodates…

Today, on the east side of Antarctica, the deepest continental canyon on our planet plunges 3,500 meters (11,000 feet) below sea level. But you can’t stand on the edge of Denman Canyon and peer into its depths because the entire canyon is filled with ice from the Denman Glacier, which measures 16 kilometers across and runs for 110 kilometers along its length. The volume of ice contained in the canyon is stupendous. Yet, it is just a fraction of the ice in Antarctica. This continent’s glaciers and ice sheets account for a full 90 percent of earth’s ice and 70…

On the fringe of Antarctica lies the deepest canyon found on any continent in the world. The canyon bottoms out at 3.5 kilometers (11,500 feet) below sea level. But you can’t see the bottom because the canyon is completely filled by ice from the Denman Glacier. Located in East Antarctica, the Denman Glacier measures 12 miles across, and its glacial ice flows the length of the canyon from the continent into the ocean. Thus, Denman Canyon forms a dangerous conduit from the ocean into the heart of Antarctica.

The glaciers and ice shelves of West Antarctica garner significant attention. Studies…

I happened upon a chance encounter several days ago on my way through the Safeway parking lot. A gentleman, perhaps in his fifties, was standing on the sidewalk addressing three other people. He had a neatly trimmed, graying beard, which offset piercing blue eyes. He was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt with a turtle painted on the front. The turtle was smiling and had a light blue bow for a tail. I was sure there was some meaning hidden in the image, but I tried not to think about it.

I picked up the conversation at, “… they…

The phrase “Hey, that’s been photoshopped” immediately brings images of heads placed on the wrong bodies and such. So, yes, there have been some nasty tricks played with the freedom of digital reworking. But these episodes of poor taste shouldn’t rule out the role of digital techniques in merging photography with traditional analog painting.

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, lies ten degrees of latitude south from the Arctic Circle, approximately even with the Scottish-English border and distinctly north of Edmonton, Canada. The city is not quite the land of the midnight sun, but it’s close. …

An Exposé of Intrigue with Nature’s Minutiae

Nature and art have always been a dynamic duo since the first primitive Homo sapiens took to rubbing pigments onto cave walls. This combination often finds nature expressed in sweeping landscapes. But when we delve into nature’s minutiae, we see the world swirling and flowing in unexpected ways, creating unique art as the biosphere mingles with rock and water.

The word “rock” does not do justice to the unexpected patterns produced as geological forces bend and fold solid stone as if it were some type of putty. Some thirty to forty million years…

Researchers at ETH Zurich scoured satellite images from the last 20 years and recently reported the planet is losing 267 gigatonnes of ice each year from its glaciers. The rate of loss has accelerated from 227 gigatonnes per year in the early 2000s to 298 gigatonnes per year by 2019. Cynics point out we are simply gaining more freshwater as the ice melts. This statement only seems true when we fail to understand that freshwater rivers run to the sea where the water translates into higher sea levels — more saltwater, not more freshwater.

A recent Smithsonian report placed yearly…