FUTURE BEAR: PAST IMPERFECT, 2011

Part One: Faith’s Arrow

In the first “issue” of this collaborative project between myself and writer Julian Chambliss, we meet our hero Future Bear as she prepares to leave the future for the past. Her mission, to save our planet from the ravages of climate change, is only vaguely hinted at by scientists Skallgards and Bush; in fact, as the story develops, it seems clear that she will need to find her own strategy to complete the mission. When she arrives at her destination in the past, however, she is without her gear, lost and in trouble. Will she survive this initial encounter with humans from our time? And if she does survive, how will she convince us to save ourselves from a future without hope?

I created the Future Bear piece during a 2008 workshop at Anderson Ranch with Kansas City printmaker Hugh Merrill. At the time, I was experimenting with combining digital and traditional approaches to image-making. I was also just months away from my first visit to Antarctica and polar exploration was on my mind (okay, it was more like an obsession). I was reading the epic adventures of explorers like Shackleton, Amundsen and Scott, enthralled with the grand narratives and heroic figures of their life or death experiences.

When Future Bear emerged in my sketchbook, I immediately liked the idea of a similar type of hero, one that seemed to be lifted from the pages of an adventure/ sci-fi comic, but whose narrative had to be invented by the viewer. After a few more works featuring Future Bear and a TEDx talk in which I described the polar bear as a visual symbol for global climate change, I became interested in expanding the Future Bear pieces into an expanded narrative. My colleague, Julian Chambliss, an urban historian and comic authority who also presented at TEDx Orlando in 2010, saw an opportunity to write his first comic script. Both of us were intrigued by the possibilities of a collaboration in which he provided the story and I provided the images.

It has been a lot of fun to see my character come to life through Julian’s vivid imagination. In his script, Future Bear has taken on the identities of both mother and hero, a protagonist who possesses great strengths and abilities, but who is vulnerable just like us. I have enjoyed the challenges of working from a script and telling a story through images. The wall-based format of the current installation of screen prints came from a wide range of comics, both classic and contemporary. These colorful graphic images are arranged in a sequence from left to right, with the text appearing in the “gutters” or gaps in between. The text reveals the characters’ voices and details of the action, giving the viewer a richer understanding of the narrative. The  digitally printed “wallpaper” background reflects my ongoing fascination with retro-futuristic scientific imagery and reminds the viewer of our scientific past as we consider the future.