Local botanical artist Sharon Field has decided to paint a plant, object or animal a day for 3000 consecutive days in an active stand against the effects of climate change. She is 1000 days into that goal.

In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a warning to keep the rise in temperatures below 1.5C by 2030 or risk losing significant numbers of wildlife.

A volunteer firefighter for 20 years, Sharon wasn’t a stranger to seeing deteriorating ecosystems and the negative impact of humankind on flora and fauna. 

Sharon thought about the future, realising that, on March 22 2022, 2030 was only 3000 days away, which didn’t leave much time to change the world. 

Sharon gave herself the mission of drawing and painting a single plant, animal or object each day until 2030 in an active stand against the effects of climate change. 

Working entirely in pen, Sharon says the permanency of her chosen utensil has “archival ink” meaning it is forever written in time. 

Utilising eight-metre scrolls as her medium, Sharon says her work is something of a climate change timeline. 

“When you think of a scroll, all the stuff that’s on the completed part of the scroll is the past, it’s history,” she says.

“You can’t change history, but you can change something in the present.

“So, when I’m drawing, that’s the present day, you can make decisions about the present day.”

Sharon says the part of the scroll that hasn’t been touched is something akin to the future. 

“It’s a blank slate and we can influence that future if we’re smart.”

Sharon is now nearing her third year of her project.

“It’s like anything when you start something, you have to be self-disciplined but after a while, it’s routine,” she says. 

“It’s like a journey of 1000 miles, because it’s just one step after another.” 

Sharon’s drawings take anywhere from an hour to multiple hours, sometimes returning to complete the drawing the next day, and she says she has no set plan for the sizing or location of each drawing on the scroll. 

“I can’t think ahead,” she says. 

“If you think about nature, Mother Nature is pretty clever, just putting things together, and it all works.”

Sharon’s scrolls reveal lines marking the rising climate levels from 1880 to the present, with sections above and below the line differing in colours and black/white to show the greater impact. 

Sharon plans to slightly adjust how she represents climate change statistics in her scrolls each time to show the greater impact. 

In her next scroll, she plans to show the great difference in average temperatures, with her drawings coloured from left to right in blue and greens to reds and browns. 

Her final scroll will feature endangered Australian flora and fauna in black and white, a somewhat dire warning of the repercussions of negligence. 

Sharon’s scrolls have already taken her around the world, being shown in America, the UK, France, the Netherlands and Singapore as well as across Australia.

Memories from these travels have been documented in the representation of various plants that she saw while travelling. 

“It’s a bit of a visual diary,” she says.

Her work now has a following and Sharon finds herself overwhelmed with gratitude from the important conversations she gets to have with her audience. 

“There’s a flow-on effect,” she says. 

“I had someone tell me that they felt guilty about the weeds in their garden before realising that they’re just as important as everything else to have a flourishing ecosystem.” 

The scrolls, now on display at the Belko Arts centre until March 22 is the first time that Sharon has seen all of the scrolls opened together. 

“It’s amazing to see because I’m only ever focusing on one drawing at a time,” she says. 

Hitting her 1000th drawing, Sharon says she’s started an accidental tradition of repeating kangaroo grass in her drawings. 

“It was the first drawing that I did and each scroll starts with kangaroo grass,” she says. 

“My 1000th drawing was kangaroo grass!”