dready ‘tap water’ – 30×30 – original commission part of a triptych

on my grandparents farm, my mother’s parents, there was no fresh water; there was water, from a catchment cistern on a nearby hillside, for bathing and washing – in dry times sometimes not even that – but none for drinking and cooking … we went down to the nearest village, about 3 miles away, with milk churns in the back of the land rover to collect the drinking water from a standpipe.

the churns sat on the cool limestone of the breezeway between the pantry and the outside kitchens … it is a strong memory for me.

on my father’s farm we pumped water from a deep well to a tank above the house over a distance of about quarter mile and up a height climbed of probably 200 feet …

but we were lucky we had a car to haul the water or a pump to drive it …

still today people carry their drinking water from just such communal standpipes to their homes, for cooking, drinking and bathing … sometimes they carry it long distances …

a rich man was heard to say ‘water is not a right’ … that is because he never had to carry a 5 gallon bucket full of it over a mile, as a small boy, so that his family could drink …

clean water may not be a right but it is a need, we can’t survive without it, and to treat it like a commodity not available to all is probably one of the most sinful things we can do to the humans of our greater tribe.

drink the love