Burning Ridge

During early September of 2017, I had the good fortune of being in an artist's residency in nearby Willits, California. Desirous of preparing for my Politic-OH! art show at the Willits Art Center, upstairs gallery, I worked feverishly to frame and prepare work for hanging. I was lucky to have the aid of a young man recommended to me by Noel Woodhouse, one of his shop students. The show was hung, and our farm had recently experienced two wildfires which destroyed our fruit and nut orchard, a labor of love and jokingly referred to as my husband's and my retirement. Despite the fire's destruction and work needed, my husband urged me to do the residency. We had the agreement that I would come home if there was another "Red Flag Warning" which meant that fire was probable. Well that happened, the 2017 Redwood Complex Fire, which strangely enough coincided exactly with the Napa and Sonoma County fires. I went home that October 8th, a Sunday, and made dinner for us. We reveled in the joy of being together again. I awakened at 1 am to the smell of smoke. Bill sleepily said it was just a warm night, and we both fell back to sleep. Within a half hour we were both wide awake, the noise of clanging wind chimes and chairs from the porch being blown and tossed around by a fierce and wickedly fast wind whipping from all directions. I jumped up and looked outside to see a black and red sky. The mountain tops with flaming chunks of our neighbors' and our trees in embers resembled erupting volcanoes.

Several days later, I was still in a state of shock, but was asked by the director of the residency program, what I had seen. Wordlessly I went into the studio and this was the product. It was an image stamped forever into my memory of the beautiful groves of Manzanita and Madrone trees burning. Their berries and branches provided food and shelter to my bear neighbors, and many other woods loving creatures.

This image was used in a book of poems and writings from the fires, as well as the key image for the show "Out of the Ashes", which I served as curator. It also was exhibited at the Mendocino County Museum in Willits, CA.