“No Compromise in Defense of the Earth” is a famous Earth First! slogan. The image is framed by giant coastal redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, the tree that first awed me as a child. While they are more common in the area where I grew up, they still exist in a  strip along the coast that enters the Cascadia bio-region where I currently live. At their feet are clusters of ferns. The figure in the center has the skull of a mountain lion, Puma concolor, the largest apex predator in North America in the subfamily Felidae. This figure has a halo of mountain lion teeth, and is clutching a dagger behind their back. Their hair twists and tangles into a waterfall of Trillium flowers. The banner at the top holds the wood-type letterpress quote “”NO COMPROMISE in defense of the Earth”” with the top branch being that of the Twinflower, Linnaea borealis subsp. americana. For me this print tries to encompass and give recognition to some of the biopic members of an ecosystem  (predators, trees, fungi, etc.) and our communities that people world-wide are striving to defend. The land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.

Relief and letterpress print