The song I chose for this assignment is "Introduction" by Nick Drake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emD7D2rPUI8

The things that comes to my mind when I listen to this song are nature, summertime, and simplicity. This piece of music combines the guitar, violin, and cello to create a beautiful melody that relaxes me. When I listen to this song, it brings me back to summer vacation in Traverse City (my hometown). Traverse City has some of the most stunning nature landscape I have ever been able to experience, and this song always bring these images to my mind. To me, nature's simplicity is what makes it so interesting and pleasing to look at. This is something that I really want to show in my pieces. I did this my cutting out all the shapes and gluing them onto the paper to look like different nature scenes. I think that this really brought out the idea of simplicity not just in my artwork but also in the melody of the song. Though my pictures don't necessarily have a narrative, they still shows experiences that I have had. This song brings me back to times when I would just sit in my yard staring up into the sky and looking around at the different plants that surrounded my house. I would do this in all kinds of weather and at all hours of the day. The main point that I wanted to show with my work was that we should really spend time looking at nature to marvel at it beauty and simplicity.

When we read the article "The Power of Story in the Age of Consequence", I was really able to relate to part about the environmentalist using laws rather than culture to save the environment. I loved how the author explained that environmentalist should convey conservation as the renewal of human life rather then just trying to create laws to save the environment. If humans no longer care about the land, then the laws will not stand. I think that this is a very important concept to remember, that the world's environmental crisis is more a crisis of values. In the professional world, we seldom share our values because they are seen to be a sign of weakness. It is very important we share the things that we value, and one way we can do this is by creating art. Through this project I wanted to show how greatly I value nature and the experiences nature has given to me.