CLOSING THE BOOK

Kathy Smith, Homer

 “March 24, 1989 was a black day in Alaskan history, and twenty years later, the saga of the Exxon Valdez still continues,  a never-ending Dickensian tale mired in endless legal technicalities and lawsuits, as persistent and toxic as the pooled oil that remains along beaches in Prince William Sound. If tar and feathers were put to historic use,  maybe we could finally avenge ourselves on Exxon. We are still learning our history lessons from the spill: how long is long-term damage? When will the pacific herring and pigeon guillemot reappear? When will the shoreline habitat recover?  When will oil companies become responsible?

I was already living in Homer in1989. It didn’t matter if one was a commercial fisherman, a grocer, an artist, a child. We were all affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It wasn’t just that the oil came to our beaches as well as those in Prince William Sound, it was the oil spill itself. Disbelief turned quickly to dismay, to horror, and finally to anger. How could such a thing happen? Why was the spill so large, the response so slow, the measures so ineffective, the oil company so arrogant? I think we need some closure. I used tar and hot wax to assemble this black book of the dead, the deed, the blameless, and the blameworthy.  The last paintings I showed, in November 2008, were a celebration of subsistence: fishing, foraging, and gardening. Revisiting the 1989 oil spill serves as a reminder of how quickly our lives and our livelihoods are changed by such man-made disasters.