A Political Painting..

We’re grateful to Garth, Tanya’s brother, for lending us this powerful painting by Margaret Lawlor-Bartlett- an 85-year-old grandmother!  She painted it in 2015- and now in her 90s, she is still painting, after a 60 year career as an artist.

It will be displayed next year in a retrospective of her work over many decades. For a while, it hangs over our sofa, where every visitor will see it, and we will think about it daily and talk about it with visitors.

The painting is called “They Must Harness the Sun”, and it shows the artist holding her two grandchildren, who are pulling on ropes, trying to harness the sun, to prevent the numbers reaching 400 (which is the tipping point at which carbon emissions precipitate disaster).

We are so grateful to be able to share this painting in our home for a while, because it is a continuing reminder to us and our guests of our responsibility to live, as much as we can, in ways that protect our environment and reduce our carbon emissions.

Margaret’s own comment is “I try to show in my paintings that this escalation can be arrested by the determination and immense shared brainpower of our Mokopuna and Us”.