"Carbon Footprints" ~ Charcoal Still Life Drawings of my Trash

As I stroke the soft charcoal across the paper, enveloping the artifact, the image forms where the charcoal isn’t.
A footprint in the dust. Fragments of faded pastel, like a hand-colored photograph, speak of times past.

This is my carbon footprint. What does it tell you about me?
What will yours say about you?
These are the things that will show them how we lived.

See earlier Carbon Footprints

The left-overs from my life catalogued and documented in larger than life charcoal drawings. From the dusty darkness a strange self-portrait emerges – broken glass, empty boxes, discarded plastic.
We are what we eat? To the archaeologist, we are what we throw away afterwards.

I relish delving through my own trash: unearthing treasures, conserving, preserving and consecrating my ephemeral (and not so ephemeral) daily detritus. Paying attention to the discarded; things useless and broken; things never really seen or looked at or even thought about.

As I stroke the soft charcoal across the paper, enveloping the artifact, the image forms where the charcoal isn’t.
A footprint in the dust. Fragments of faded pastel, like a hand-colored photograph, speak of times past.

Although, not so long past. Eggshells from breakfast, broken yet perfect; my favorite blueberry muffins, seduced by the elegant packaging; fast food ephemera, irrefutable evidence of nutritional misdemeanors.
This is my now.

This is my carbon footprint. What does it tell you about me?
What will yours say about you?
These are the things that will show them how we lived.