Time Changes Nothing: An Artist's Journey

This book records a personal journey by painter, Derek Slater and geologist Rick Smith, in a crusade against the manifest wrongs and injustices they see corrupting society and potentially destroying the world we inhabit.

The ONLY world that we have. That realisation overawed the early astronauts when they saw it from their spacecraft and described it as a beautiful oasis in the vastness of the universe. “A precious, fragile, ball of life hanging in the void of space” said Edgar Mitchell from Apollo 14; and Ron Garan looking down from the International Space Station saw Earth “not as a collection of nations, but as a single entity with one destiny.” Yet life has never seemed as precarious in the face of conflict, habitat destruction and climate change.

Dr FREDERICK SMITH is a County Durham-born geologist and long-standing friend of Derek, sharing the same values and views on the world. With a history of many generations of local coal and ironstone miners, Rick studied at the University of Durham, graduating in 1973 with a doctorate. His career exploring for, and mining, coal, metals and minerals here and overseas, and investigating & remediating industrially contaminated land in the UK, provides a unique insight to the seemingly insatiable demands of the world’s growing population for raw materials, and the impact we have on the land and its occupants.

DEREK SLATER This unique book is illustrated by the dramatic paintings of Derek Slater, a miner for over 25 years and now an accomplished and applauded Pitman Painter. His strong political beliefs and passionate concern over the environment, and the consequences of humanity’s greed and mismanagement, led to his production of a remarkable series of 55 paintings. Illustrating our seeming inability to learn from past mistakes, catastrophes or scientific advice, he has aptly entitled the series “Time changes Nothing”. The works depict war, habitat destruction, climate change, politics and moral corruption.”