It started with the burned trees.
My kid being in school down in Portland means that every month or so I make the four-hour drive to see him. Part of that drive takes me over Satus Pass, a landscape that moves from sagebrush into forests of ponderosa and scrub oak and aspen. There are fires. Often. As a result, there are patches of trees that were burned years ago, and which over time still stand, their branches stripped, the burned bark still clinging, the bare white of the inner wood gleaming in late afternoon light like the flash of teeth.
Every time I drive by these stands (there are several on the way to Portland), I gorge myself on the sight. They fascinate me. They begged me to explore their shapes through visual art, and who am I to deny the raw beauty of such a thing?
It came to me to construct fiber sculptures, inspired in part by the work of Clarissa Callesen, whose exhibit last year in Bellingham WA blew my everloving mind. My idea coalesced and took shape.
I had to have a place to install this idea of mine, so I pitched it to Karl Schweisow at The Palace Gallery and he was game to host a show about wildfires. I called it Pyrocene: the age of fire.
I invited some excellent artists to participate, and to my delight, they stepped up. Eighteen artists contributed to exploring the theme of megafires: how they affect us, what they destroy, what they create, how we can think about this climate phenomenon without despairing or blackening with rage.
Until we make some major policy changes and commit the resources to treating the forest, rather than investing our limited forestry resources on just putting out these massive fires that erupt from the Rockies to the Pacific in such numbers and with such ferocity that the smoke darkens the continent; until we decide that humans aren’t the only life forms that inhabit this planet and that we need to start prioritizing the health of the biosphere before there isn’t one; until we rethink our choices of where to live and where to channel our scarce water; and until or if we ever collectively step back from the economic and capitalist factors that are disrupting the delicate balances of our climate, the forests will burn. And burn.
It is an obliterating sight. A few days back I was walking in one of our local canyons, the Taneum. The wind was softly speaking in the trees. There were all manner of wildflowers: wild rose, fireweed, dwarf daisies, and the smell of the fresh earth was something I wished I could bottle. It was the definition of serenity. The path was shaded and cool, the taste of water in the air. There were small animals scrabbling in the underbrush, a grouse thumping in the distance. Such gentle, quiet, all-encompassing life.
When that burns, it’s stripped to powdered emptiness. Stark. Black. Dead. Barren. The sun standing on top of you, bearing down. Silent. So much is lost.
Yes, fire is part of the natural ecology in this landscape. But megafires are something else. They burn so hot that they sterilize the earth for up to three hundred years. They create their own weather. They chew their own tails, building on their own intensity beyond anything that humans, or certainly the wildlife who live there, can do much of anything about. They’re murderous creatures on a rampage, and we’re the ones who feed them.
Do I know what to do about any of this? I do not. Say hello to another hand-wringing environmentalist over here. I make modest donations, I have spirited conversations within the echo chambers of my like-minded friends. None of that will change much of anything.
But what I can do, what all artists do, is witness. Witness the magnificence of the forest. Witness the nodding Indian paintbrush in the soft June breeze. Witness the impact of the fires that come and come and come. Speak to those fires, speak about them, make the art, show the art. This is what Pyrocene is. It is the artist’s response to the era of megafires.
If you’re in the Ellensburg area and would like to experience this collection live, and believe me, you would, then The Palace Gallery is open Saturdays from noon to 4p and by appointment. That’s this Saturday (Solstice!) and next Saturday. It’s worth adding to your Saturday roster. Seriously.
And if that’s a no-go, then please do enjoy the video walkthrough above. The participating artists are:
Robin Mayberry/ Scott Mayberry/ Mary Duke/ Becky Parmenter/ Tabitha Klucking/ Emily Jacobs/ Christine Texiera/ Karl Schweisow/ Crista Ames/ Justin Gibbens/ Carol Lelivelt/ Terri Rice/ Renee Adams/ Janice Baker/ Howard Barlow/ Lorraine Barlow/ Kenneth Johnson/ Barbara Siegele/ Lane Chapman/ Justin Beckman/ Wyatt Landis
It’s extraordinary.
So is our landscape.
May we love it in every way we can.
If you’d like to spend some art-making time with me (and who wouldn’t), I’ll be offering a four-hour encaustic workshop on Sunday August 3 at Gallery One in Ellensburg.
Learn to layer, fuse, incise, embed and play with the ever-fascinating encaustic experience in this awesome little workshop. Only a handful of spots remain so if you’re interested, you can read more and register here.
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