To me, Nature is God. Without it, we simply would not exist. Conserving the world’s natural spaces and the creatures that live there is paramount to the survival of humans as a species, and I have therefore dedicated my life to studying environmentalism in order to help people co-exist more successfully and sustainably with the natural world.
All natural materials I use in my creations are either sourced from roadkill, Fish and Game, secondhand sources such as fellow artists and estate sales, or are antique. In this way, I'm ensuring that no animals were needlessly killed for the sake of the artwork I produce. I fully believe that no part of any creature should go to waste if a purpose can be found for it, but I do NOT support trophy hunters or overseas fur farms by buying 'byproducts' like bones, skulls, or claws directly from them. The only exception I make for this rule is for parts from animals legally culled for population control programs approved by Fish and Wildlife.
As a photographer and wildlife enthusiast, I've been involved with many fantastic organizations such as Images4Life and Wild Tiger, as well as the Sierra Club and many smaller, local groups.
I've been published, interviewed, and even featured on Rainn Wilson (Dwight from “The Office”)'s personal networking website, SoulPancake.com.
I’ve also been blessed with the opportunity to visit many of the world’s most amazing wild places, like Komodo Island, Bali, Lombok, Malaysia, and the Cayman Islands, and have even documented entirely new species previously unknown to science.
Other interests include: Wilderness survival, primitive skills, backpacking, fishing, kayaking, boffing, airsoft, snowboarding, meandering around town, and caving.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
![Window Display of the Day: Jacqueline Traide, a 24-year-old performance artist, recently volunteered for a starring role she won’t soon forget: 10 hours of torture — cosmetics testing — in a Lush Cosmetics window display. The shocking performance, during which thousands of London passersby witnessed Jacqueline being roughly manhandled and administered to by a “lab technician,” was meant to draw attention to the pain and cruelty inflicted on animals during lab tests for beauty products.
Dressed in nothing but a flesh-colored body stocking, Jacqueline and her counterpartre-enacted widely used tests. She was given injections and had her skin abraded and smothered in lotions and potions, then endured eye irritants and having a strip of her hair shaved off on one of Britain’s busiest streets.
“I hope it will plant the seed of a new awareness in people to really start thinking about what they go out and buy and what goes into producing it,” Jacqueline said.
[dailymail]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m33u4lgPA31qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Window Display of the Day: Jacqueline Traide, a 24-year-old performance artist, recently volunteered for a starring role she won’t soon forget: 10 hours of torture — cosmetics testing — in a Lush Cosmetics window display. The shocking performance, during which thousands of London passersby witnessed Jacqueline being roughly manhandled and administered to by a “lab technician,” was meant to draw attention to the pain and cruelty inflicted on animals during lab tests for beauty products.
Dressed in nothing but a flesh-colored body stocking, Jacqueline and her counterpartre-enacted widely used tests. She was given injections and had her skin abraded and smothered in lotions and potions, then endured eye irritants and having a strip of her hair shaved off on one of Britain’s busiest streets.
“I hope it will plant the seed of a new awareness in people to really start thinking about what they go out and buy and what goes into producing it,” Jacqueline said.
(Source: thedailywhat)
On Anarchy, Equality, and Human Nature
I’ve received quite a few inquiries regarding my stance on Anarchism and its roll in my partaking in wilderness survival training. So to clear a few things up, I am not an Anarchist. I used to be. My understanding of Anarchy then was the want to live in a world of Freedom without Violence or Law. And I still currently support the idea of living in such a world, but I no longer participate in rallies, meetings, or riots.
My decision to partake in wilderness survival training came about as the result of the belief that one day, society as I knew it would no longer exist - that is something I do not deny. But I am not an Anarcho-Primitivist. Rather, I believe that if Anarchy is achieved, I’d spend my days in the woods on my own, perhaps with just a select few close friends (I’ll get to them later) and Bear by my side.
The issue with Anarchy, of course, is that humans are pack animals. Some may try to deny this, but in my travels across the world, I have found no evidence to the contrary, and in fact, have only seen that which re-affirms my understanding of this notion to be true. The weaker of us seek out guidance from the natural leaders; a natural leader thus has power over his/her followers. And that creates a hierarchy which stands in fundamental opposition to the idea that everyone can live in a state of equality.
This is not to say that I believe some humans are “more equal that others” - we are all born equal. How we live our lives, though, is and always will be vastly different, and the things we experience along the way are what define us as mouse or man, leader or follower, and that is why I don’t believe that humans can exist as a society without someone taking charge.
I’ve witnessed Anarchy working short-term on a large scale at festivals and fairs on private land where law enforcement does not exist, and where no one group or single person is in charge. But these have been short-term experiences, shared by like-minded groups of people. I believe that even among them, over time, leaders would emerge, for better or worse, one way or another.
At this point, it would seem that I’m delving into the logic shared by the aforementioned Anarcho-Primitivists. But the fact of the matter is, I don’t see society as forever flawed by this imbalance of power.
I believe that society can exist without the power struggles, without the leaders and followers, and without the issue of inequality. I believe this because of my friends, who are, in many ways, verymuch like me. I’m told that I am one of the fundamentally flawed leader-type people I’ve been going on about. According to my own logic, then, I am a cog in the system. I believe that my friends are much the same way.
Even so, together, we are equals. We co-operate in the woods, we share our wealth, and we function better as individuals thanks to the aid of the group as a whole. Though small, I like to believe we are still a society unto ourselves. And if we can work together in such a way as to better the community we are a part of, why can’t everyone else? We are not infallible, and we’ve had our issues with power struggles in the past, but the resolution had always been quick, clean, and effective. We’re still friends today.
What this has brought me to believe, then, is that society can exist without being subject to a core power, if society manages itself in small-scale groups of like-minded people who are all similarly matched in cunning and strength. This eliminates the need for power struggles, and each person is then a leader of themself and nothing more.
This is brilliance.
(Source: out-of-plain-sight)
My mom’s dislike for my existence only increased.
I have no regrets, though; my life today is better than I ever expected it would be!
(Source: fuckyouandgoodnight)
Humanity.
(Source: subtleoddness)
Bite the hand that feeds.
(Source: disturbingimages)
DuctTapeBobcatII on Flickr.
Bobcat made from modified vintage bobcat taxidermy rugshell, duct tape, spray paint, gold paint.
We’re living in a concrete jungle.
(Source: femmefeminist)
While the white or golden tabby coloration of these animals may be pretty, what the zoos won’t tell you is that, in reality, it’s a deadly genetic mutation. THEY ARE NOT A SUBSPECIES, and are not albino.
The white gene is a double-recessive one caused mostly by inbreeding (in a natural mating, there is only a one in 10,000 chance that a tiger will be white), which is why they say that it exists ‘only in captivity’. Zoos are not willing to wait for this one in 10,000 miracle tiger, and so find that the only other way to produce them is through inbreeding.
Click image to read more…
Now this is something I can relate to on more than one level. Being an individual who hardly stands out in the wild town of Portland, my travels have shown me all too often that each and every person in each and every culture has their own ways, which may seem strange, absurd, or even offensive by accordance with our own customs; but it’s learning to appreciate these things regardless that brings us to a state of worldliness, and by extension, a state of self-understanding.
We are all human. It’s about time we started acting like it.
Allow me to explain something: First and foremost, I am a punk. Thereafter, I am a world traveler.
I grew up in Jakarta during a time of civil unrest, political turmoil, and violence. The rift between the upper and the lower class was growing wider and wider as the rich were granted government benefits at the expense of those less fortunate.
Every day on my way to an English-speaking, wealthy private school, we passed lepers begging in the streets, and saw the effects of poverty everywhere. More than once, I witnessed death. Nothing about the city of Jakarta stuck with more profoundly than seeing this pain. I was just five years old, and I had no idea that such suffering even existed.
When I returned to the United States, I was somewhat disturbed. Though I had lived in Jakarta within a wealthy gated community, and was unwittingly a part of the upper class which fed off of the government’s injustice, it upset me. But I didn’t think I was strong enough to make any kind of change. I pushed Jakarta out of my mind.
Later in life, I moved in England, where I discovered my love for music. It was there that I learned that everything I heard on the American radio was a lie; I wasn’t in love with what I heard there; I was in love with Punk.
So when I once again returned to the USA, my transformation began, and I learned that there were messages in Punk music which were heartfelt, deep, and even life-altering. Punk music, with its harsh vocals, fast-paced rhythms,and meaningful lyrics, gave me hope to stand against the injustices which I believed were forced upon me by the schools, my parents, and society as a whole. I was a rebel, and I was proud; I went to protests and threw rocks at riot shields, shouting “FUCK THE POLICE!” and “END THE WAR” and I believed I was making a change.
But when I learned about the situation in Jakarta, in which Punks were being rounded up at anti-government shows, having their heads shaved, and their rights being taken away, I realized that they were doing what I once believed I could not: They were making an impact - and they were doing so with far more gusto than I ever had at any of the anti-war protests I’d ever been to. They were the true Punks.
By singing songs to spread hope to the lower-class, giving street kids the chance to have a future, and bringing media attention to the plight, they are, slowly but surely, making it harder and harder for the rest of the world to ignore the corruptness of Indonesia’s government. And for that, they are being persecuted.
THE ONLY WAY THAT THEIR EFFORTS CAN BE MADE WORTHWHILE IS FOR OTHERS TO KNOW THE TRUTH. And for others to know the truth, they need to be aware of the situation in the first place. Please pass this on, and help spread the word. The more people who know, the better!
(Source: youtube.com)
Oh, PETA - you crack me up.
What must have crossed your mind when you thought, “What tattooed celebrities can we pay to help our anti-fur campaign this time?” and came to the conclusion that Steve-O was just right for the job? Has it skipped your mind that this man has made a living by pissing off wild animals, encouraging rodeos, bull-fighting, and general harassment of dangerous creatures in the process?
No, probably not. But you did it anyway. Because you’re all a bunch of hypocritical, lying, self-righteous nut-jobs who kill more animals than you save: http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
I’m personally against fur farming, but I have no qualms about wearing recycled fur. Yet you’ll never find me donating to PETA’s anti-fur campaigns - EVER.
Why? Well, aside from the fact that PETA kills animals, I believe that my money would be better used if donated to a non-profit organization which has CONSERVATION in mind rather than hypocritical propaganda such as this.
If you really care about animals, focus on preserving their natural habitats instead of harassing fur farmers.
Fur farmers don’t give two shits about PETA. Their mink are domesticated to the point that they wouldn’t survive if let loose into the countryside anyhow, and thus serve no conservation-related purpose. So your efforts are genuinely lost there.
But if you focus instead on saving wild animals and the places they call home, the impact of your efforts can have an impressive, long-standing, positive impact on the ecology of an entire ecosystem, ensuring that future generations will know what it’s like to see animals where they actually belong: In the wild.
Think about it…
(Source: facekid)
http://www.furisgreen.com/ -Fur is a natural, renewable and sustainable resource. That means we only use part of what nature produces each year without depleting wildlife populations or damage the natural habitat s that sustain them. The goal is to maintain long-term ecological balance.
In nature, each plant and animal species generally produces more offspring than the land can support to maturity. Like other species, we live by making use of part of this surplus that nature creates. We also have a responsibility to protect the wilderness areas that provide these valuable resources. Modern conservationists define this as the “sustainable use” of renewable resources.
(Source: maninmink)
