Big Yellow Taxi

Joni Mitchell’s song is the inspiration for this work, I’ve always loved it and sadly it seems more relevant now than ever.

Even when things are gone, we don’t seem to realise what we’ve lost. The eradication of habitat is so quick. We don’t have time to stop it. Governments are good at distracting us while they get on with facilitating the destruction. Maybe people just don’t care.

When there are no trees, no acorns, no flowers not even the maligned grey squirrel will be able to survive.  It is a fantasy that the red squirrel will return if we get rid of all the grey squirrels. There is no-where for the red squirrels to live. At least the industrious grey squirrels keep planting trees in their absence.

I lived in Easton in Bristol between 2005 and 2022 and often mentioned the lack of birds, people say it’s because there are a lot of cats and few trees.
During the Covid 19 lockdown, I noticed many more birds and yet there were no fewer cats or extra trees. I did notice the lack of cars and not so much human activity. There were no planes, no fumes, no noise, and by some miracle lots of birds I hadn’t seen in my garden before. 

We seem delusional, that if we look the other way, somehow the problem we have created will go away. With every piece of work I make, I have the same thoughts, most of the animals I use have died because of humans.
We are destroying the world we all inhabit, reducing the territory of our fellow inhabitants and what we leave them we fill with our rubbish, our noise and pollution.

We are the virus, like bacteria destroying our host.  Squirrels are one of the few animals that manage to successfully share the same space as humans. They scratch an existence in the little patches of green we leave in cities. 
How do we think we will manage to survive when we’ve systematically killed every wild creature and concreted over every blade of grass?

The squirrel is clutching a N.O.S canister which will soon be more common than acorns. I wonder what the squirrels make of them?

If you want to find out more about what is under the skin of this work see my sketchbooks page

I present the squirrel on a plinth which is made of reclaimed wood, leather and has zinc corners. It stands on four snail shells.

The piece stands 47cms high and 29cms wide

This piece is for sale. Message me for details through my contacts page