volunteering

THE LOVE SERIES #12: Earth Love

Well, I missed Earth Day in April and I’m a little early for next year, but as my favorite baseball cap says “Every day is Earth Day.” This is the 12th installment of my Love Series and how the woman in the picture looks is how I’m feeling today – full of love for our Earth.

I’ve recently been watching the new Cosmos with Neil Degrasse Tyson and reading the original Cosmos by Carl Sagan. And I must admit, it fills me with awe for this Earth, humanity, and the entire Cosmos. Those great works have also reminded me of how precious and unique (as far as we know) our Earth is and how we must care for it because, right now and for the foreseeable future, it’s the only one we’ve got.

So maybe go and do a small thing for the Earth today. Plant a tree. Pick up that piece of trash (yes, I know you didn’t leave it there, but someone has got to do it – why not you?). Volunteer for a beach clean-up. Give a little extra effort to recycle that (fill in the blank here). Start composting. Hug a tree (it’s not just for hippies). Or go do a naked gratitude dance in the woods (this one might be just for hippies). I don’t care what you do as long as you do something. One small step. One small act for this pale blue dot we call home.

Marker and colored pencil. © 2017. Angelle Conant. All Rights Reserved

 

2016 Houston Art Car Parade: A Phoenix Rises

Please forgive the pretentious title, but I sure am proud of my costume for this year’s local Art Car Parade. My friend Sarah Gish has a beautiful art car called Phoenix Rising (which I’ve mentioned before) and she was kind enough to let me skate alongside. Here’s the Phoenix costume I created for the occasion:

The finished product - ready to roll!

The finished product – ready to roll!

I had a freaking blast! The best part definitely had to be the kids’ faces when they’d see me coming and the smiles and waves I got from them as I ‘flew’ by.

If you’re curious how I made my costume, it was heavily influenced by this very impressive Phoenix costume. I didn’t have the time or resources to be quite that elaborate, but I think my thrift store body suit, Amazon Isis wings and $30 Michael’s trip did it justice. Of course, I wasn’t without my share of hiccups:

No mannequin = paint in all sorts of places.

No mannequin = paint in all sorts of places.

No mannequin means I paint with the body suit on and that fabric paint does not wash off easily.

Also, my impatient, walking 10 month old didn’t wait for paint to dry before resting against Mom’s leg.

One last note: we were in a car accident a few weekends ago (a lady ran a red light – we’re all okay). That’s not the exciting part though – the exciting part was that we had to get a new car and we got a fully electric 2013 Nissan Leaf. And it’s WHITE.

Look at the beautiful blank canvas.

Look at the beautiful blank canvas.

Which means it’s just begging to be turned into an art car. Who knows where I’ll be at the next Art Car Parade. 😉