You make art while the ground shifts under your feet. Some days the change feels small. Other days, the whole landscape tilts and you brace yourself without warning. You feel boxed in. You feel tense. You carry old grief and fresh frustration at the same time. You replay the could haves and the what ifs and the how dare they’s. Your chest tightens in that familiar way, and you wonder why the place that once felt like a sanctuary now feels like drills, rocks, and tension.

Caribou in the aftermath of industrial mining, Caroline Anders 2025

You work anyway.

You show up with your ideas, feelings and your pages, and your stubborn focus. You build something inside the same space that left you out of decisions. You try to speak about the pressure without sounding like you are the one who holds all the answers. You are not claiming a moral trophy. You are talking about what it feels like when change happens around you without your voice in the room. You talk about what it does to your body when you speak up, and people tilt their heads like you used the wrong tone.

Meat Bribe, a drawing of meat and dead animals, Caroline Anders 2025

That tension fuels the work. It pulls the truth to the surface. It sharpens the details you notice. It shapes my books, my prints, my sketches. My art becomes a way to claim memory, place, and story. It becomes a way to hold the things you love steady while everything else shifts. I am not trying to prove I am doing it right. I am trying to stay honest to my work. I am trying to keep my footing, and if I am honest, I’ve lost it sometimes.

Dead Caribou on a table as a feast, Caroline Anders 2025

I draw and create to steady myself. The work helps me move through a hard situation without spinning out. I record what happens even when it feels uncomfortable. This practice has been done by many before me and will be done by many after me. I only add my piece to the wider record.

Drawing of a crane looking up at the giant concentrator built on nest, Caroline Anders 2025

Art created in turbulent times carries its own unique strength. You feel the push. You feel the sting. You still make something real out of it. The work becomes a map back to yourself. It reminds you why you care. It gives you room to breathe again. It helps make use of the frustrations, anger and audacity.

Creating Through Pressure and Change

Once Upon a Baker…

Cariboo Gold Project: The Great Cariboo Shift.