​Pat Brentano

The Artist as Visual Guide for
​an Ecological Civilization
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Pat Brentano Website

​Interviews with ​Pat Brentano

"Flock I", 22"x30", cut paper, 2011: @ Pat Brentano

​Biophilia

​​There have been anthropocentric tendencies in most civilizations.  But none has been as systematic in this regard as that of the modern West.  The dualism of Descartes juxtaposes the human mind to everything else – even the human body. Animals are part of the world that is turned over to science for objective study.  They are not supposed to have any subjectivity.  Although Westerners, for the most part, do not really believe that animals have no subjectivity, our treatment of animals today, as we raise them for food, reflects this dominant theoretical position. Even those who call for avoiding the extinction of animal species typically provide only anthropocentric arguments.
            
Earlier I indicated the importance of reaffirming the marginal Enlightenment view of humanity as the crucial “we.”  This certainly cuts in the right direction on many issues, but it does not touch this one.  As long as serious and influential thought remains completely anthropocentric, the likelihood of real restraint in wiping out other creatures is slight.  This is true even when the consequences are obviously deleterious to us -- as in extreme overfishing of the oceans and damaging of its physical capacity to sustain marine life.

We need to expand the ideal of benevolence to all human beings to biophilia. Children have biophilic tendencies. These can be encouraged, whereas they are now taught to think of them as merely sentimental. A biophilic civilization can be a sustainable one.  

My own judgment is that biophilia needs a further support.  We need to understand life as a force present everywhere including in us.  It is not only what makes us alive, but also what heals many of our sicknesses and injuries. Of course, doctors do much to free it to do its work.  It is the same force that leads to more complex forms of life and finally to love and thought.  It is a force with which we can seek to align ourselves.  Whereas biophilia relates us well to particular living things, it is also important to devote ourselves to the service of this life force.  

I call it “God,” and see it as playing a role even beyond the living world.  But other labels are fine, if they draw forth the gratitude, love, and service of those who use them. 

-- John B.Cobb, Jr., Five Foundation for a New Civilization

​Artist's Statement

​My work is about observation, exploration, and a deep spiritual attachment to the natural world. I want to create skillful, innovative work that communicates environmental responsibility and visual literacy.

-- Pat Brentano

​Excerpts from the Interview

As you get older and you want to leave your mark, it seems to me that an artist has the opportunity to make a social statement and to make some kind of contribution, to influence people, to inspire people.  What am I doing with this work? Am I painting a lot of beautiful things for my living room, or do I want to say something?

Visual language is the oldest language on earth, and it's the one that gives you inspiration and can make you feel something.  It reaches something deep inside of us.

Bird Apocalypse is about migratory birds in this part of the country that are flying to nowhere...They are flying and they fall and crash into each other, because they have no place to go.

I'm interested in teaching the everyday person to pay attention. If you do 'just something' that might make a better world...Artists have an opportunity to make people stop for just a minute and say: "Hey, look at this."

-- from the video

Gratitude to Pat Brentano:
The Artist as Visual Guide

Ecological civilizations are the best and only real hope for the world.  Always they will take the form of a own local culture: Chinese, Arabic, Mexican, French, Islamic.  Its people will understand themselves as part of, not apart from, the larger web of life.  They - we -- will want to help build and live within communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth -- with no one left behind.  Such communities are the building blocks of ecological civilizations.  At least this is how those of us influenced by process philosophy and theology understand things.  See The Center for Process Spirituality.
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One role of the artist in an ecological civilization is to help us see clearly: to know that all things have beauty and value worthy of our respect and care.  After all, we are kin to the other creatures and they to us. The artist helps us awaken to our extended family.  We become life-centered and life-appreciative: biophilic.

Sometimes we are too busy to see and know this. Thus, the artist invites us to stop and take a look. Accordingly, she has a special role in ecological civilization.  We might call her the visual guide: the guide to life's poignancy and beauty, as seen with the eyes and felt with the heart.

Of course, if need be, she is also the warner.  If we are carelessly and callously destroying the habitats of other creatures for the sake of big homes, big cities, and big money -- if we are bringing about a bird acocalypse -- she must help us see what we are doing, too.  The birds are flapping their  wings, but they have nowhere to go. 

In short, the artist becomes the bearer of bad news and good news.  The bad news is that we have lost our souls in a mindless quest for modernity; the good news is that we have companions who can help bring us back home: the birds.  We can only hope that they will flap their wings into our souls and let us fly, too.

-- Jay McDaniel

Critical Understory @ Pat Brentano

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