Green Man explores Reminiscence using Art

However, art can do more than inspire us, make us feel wonderful, thoughtful or even repulsed; some may have the ability to help us reminisce and relive our past.  This could even be theraputic in the case of people recovering from illnesses including brain injury and degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's.

I am referring to the creations of a friend of mine, who earns his living as a nurse but has a passion for creating interesting works of art.  'Dexter' as he is known in the art-world, first experimented with murals and then biodegradable 'retro graffiti' using flour and water paste. He re-created famous graffiti from the 1950's, 60's and 70's and even got arrested and immediately released when he ate some of his 'paint'!!!

His current works are blocks of colourfully printed words, lists of names, places and events from someone's life or a particular decade.  One of his first was 'The Death of 20th Century Comedy', a list of all the comedians who rose to fame and died during the last century. I like his 'Dexter's World of the 70's' as this was the decade when I was a child.  He's sold a 'Dexter's World of the 80's' with an image of Thatcher underneath to a commodities trader, and was exploring offering his works to a hospital (not the Thatcher one!!!).  He can do a personalised version, for a price, with words pertinant to an individual's life, or a business, or almost whatever he's asked to do!  To see his website, click here, and the York gallery which displays his work here.

On a completely different and traditionally green subject, I am delighted that the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, has gone public with advice to cut down on meat consumption, saying that individuals should have a meat-free day each week and then cut down further to help combat climate change.  I've been vegetarian for well over 20 years, initially through personal health (my head and intestines both felt clearer when I gave up meat) but soon, when I became aware of the greenhouse effect and the role that methane and carbon dioxide play in warming our planet, that became another good reason to be veggie.  Meat is a very inefficient method of using land and resources to feed people, and many food animals emit huge volumes of methane.  A meal with beef and milk products will be responsible for far more climate change gases than are produced with a meal of rice (paddies emit methane) and chick-peas (both imported) and the resultant human-produced methane!

I like the little illustration that a vegan (uses no meat, fish or dairy) who travels an average annual distance by car emits fewer climate change gases than a meat eater who uses public transport, walks and cycles everywhere.  I enjoy being nearly vegan (if only I could get soya stilton!) and using public transport etc etc... thus helping my carbon footprint to be about a twelfth of the UK average.  So, my 'green tip of the week' is to eat less meat!