Thanks to The Post Carbon Institute for exploring the relationship between sustainability and resilience in the most recent Think Resilience Course!
Natural rivers have a high level of resiliency. They create buffers as they wend their way downstream and across valleys and create new channels that contribute to the overall health of all beings living on the land through which they flow. We can use this as a guide, or a metaphor, if you will, for how our communities can adapt and support this natural process of resiliency.
By juxtaposing my on-site watercolor studies of the spring runoff with fragmented rivers from human-created maps of the land I hope that one thinks about our negative impact on rivers and watersheds as well as the vital role our communities can play in wetland restoration.
This work restores the resiliency of a river and creates a trickle-down effect on nearly every aspect of the life of communities worldwide. Meredith Nemirov is an artist living and painting in the Uncompahgre River Valley in southwest Colorado.