Time Changes Nothing: An Artist’s Journey

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

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 Inetrnational 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 war, habitat destruction and climate change.

Praise:

“All those amazing, deeply felt paintings, a real socialist art and the texts which absolutely fit with the paintings. Climate issues etc. shown in the paintings pinned down by words to material facts and explanation. It’s a great achievement. If I hadn’t retired from teaching a couple of years ago, I’d be using the book with my students to show it is possible to create a people’s art that can communicate our state of emergency in a direct way without it becoming propaganda or resorting to cliche”.  — Peter Kennard.  (Emeritus Professor of Political Art, Royal College of Art, London)

Details:
Title: Time Changes Nothing
Subtitle: An Artist’s Journey
Publisher: Strength in Unity Books
Authors: Derek Slater & Dr Frederick Smith
Artwork credit: Derek Slater
ISBN: 9781036930691
Format: landscape paperback
Size: 22x27cm
Pages: 144
Published: 8th Ocotober, 2025

About Derek:
Derek Slater is an artist from the North East of England. Derek’s main focus is on Ecology and Coal Mining, both current and historical. 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.” To see more of Derek’s work, you can check out his excellent website: derekslater.co.uk

About Frederick (Rick) Smith:
A County Durham-born geologist and long-standing friend of Derek. They share 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.