Leaving Things Better than I Found Them
- Kayla Koeune
- Nov 9, 2019
- 2 min read
“Hope in the Ash”. 24x36 Oil on Canvas Original Painting
I wanted to start putting more good in the world than I was taking from it. This painting with be the first of several pieces in a series called: Art with a Cause. An image presented in my mind and wouldn’t leave till I got it out on the canvas. Hope, after everything I wanted to plant a seed of hope. Once I decided I wanted to put money where my heart was, I did some research on organizations that are trying to help future generations. The one that seemed to fit the bill was Earth Alliance which was cofounded by Leonardo DiCaprio. They do a lot of work to conserve clean and help the environment so humanity has a cleaner future. I mean whether you believe we have an issue or not the military has always taught me to leave something better than I found it and I am taking it to mean planet earth.
When I read about the 76,000 fires tearing through South America, my heart just folded in on itself. The rainforest, the Amazon, a mythical yet real place I dreamt of exploring since I was a child is dissappearing at a rapid rate, mostly due to human activity. As our numbers keep increasing desire for land increases and we continue to destroy what carry’s us into the future. I will be spending quite a bit of time in South America next year so to find fires were devastating the area, I was just beside myself. I know it is lame to care but I cant help myself and I just try to do my best to not add to a problem that there are just too many of us and we are all using tons of resources. Other than our motorcyces Charile and I live a pretty low waste lifestyle. Our food isn’t packaged for the most part, we don’t buy bottled beverages, we bring our mugs to the coffee store, our water is carried with us in reusable Nalgenes, our TP is recycled, and shit we don’t even use paper towel. This helps the pocket books and in a small way we can help to not add to the consumption issue we as humans tend to try not to see.
“Hope in the Ash” was created with the goal to donate 50% of the net proceeds of all print sales as well as the sale of the original of this piece to Earth Alliance as a part of my mission to leave things better than I found them. Support art for a cause and help me do some good in the wake of so much disaster. There are so many organizations out there that are trying to do good for the future, and if I could donate to them all I would . We can say “its fucked up and theres nothing we can do about it” or we can try to do small thing that together will make a big difference.
Earth Alliance Website: ealliance.org
LeonardoDicaprio.org
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