Steve Irwin and the Art of Living

Posted by Mary Rayme Sep 10, 2006

You know, for weeks I've been trying to shake the sad feeling I have about the freaky and untimely death of Steve Irwin. And what does a TV celebrity and animal wrangler have to do with art or society? I think it has to do with passion and discipline, two things that you need to possess if you want to excel in any field, including art.

The TV show The Crocodile Hunter debuted in 1992 and was an overnight success with Steve's enthusiastic delivery and his catchy Aussie slang-word, Crikey. He clearly loved the animals he preserved, worked with and studied. His passion for animals is what drove his life and it is a passion he inherited from his animal-loving parents. The senior Irwins started a reptile park in Queensland Australia, that the Irwin family later turned into the very successful The Australia Zoo.

As the Irwin's reptile farm grew and became more successful, Steve assumed more responsibilities such as performing a live crocodile show where he played, fed, and interacted with the crocs. His shows were the the catalyst that propelled the Irwin's establishment into greatness and pushed Steve into the limelight with a tv show based on his croc prowess.

His TV show, his vivacious and contagious love of his work reached out to millions who responded by making The Crocodile Hunter one of the most popular TV shows. Many of us who were fans of the show would wince when Steve would sidle up to a poisonous snake or dangerous croc and try to make friends with it, or handle it to give the camera (and us) a better glimpse of rare and wild beauty. Many of us assumed that Steve would perhaps be taken out in a moment of hubris and bad animal temperment.

It is sad that Steve's work is what eventually killed him, but it is also comforting to know that he died doing what he loved and that it was a freak accident and no fault of his own that killed him. Steve's single-minded passion, discipline, and love of life are what we will remember. It is also what makes Steve's life more of an experiential work of art. As artists, we should be so driven by our passion for life and our discipline for learning more. May we all be so lucky to be able to share that passion with the world as Steve Irwin did.