Eagle Creek Fire

Kristi McCluer, American

Eagle Creek Fire, 2017

McCluer, a novice photographer, was hiking to find a good view of the Eagle Creek Fire when she stumbled on this scene. Her photograph quickly went viral, perhaps, because she perfectly captured environmental justice and climate denial. Golf, a symbol of wealth and environmental carelessness, appears to be the only concern for the white men in the foreground. Behind them, a fiery hellscape lights up the mountain as smoke fills the sky. Wealthy individuals can afford to be unperturbed by such crises, continue their game of golf, withstand and even deny environmental disaster. However, through an invisible contrast, the photograph forces the observer to think about those who cannot afford this kind of leisure when facing environmental harm. Label by Katie Lee

Typewriter

Norma I. Quintana, American

Typewriter, 2017

This image depicts a remnant of artist Norma I. Quintana’s burned typewriter in the aftermath of the wildfire that destroyed her Napa home. The deadly fires, making idyllic wine country into hell on earth, left dozens of artists throughout the region without their studios, materials, or archives. As a consequence, many artists were forced to adopt new processes and mediums; in digging for her memories, Quintana had to shoot digitally and in color for the first time. The content itself of the photo is a counterpart to this forced adjustment to a newer and more accessible technology—if not of less dimension; the antiquated typewriter bears no hope of itself producing ever again. Quintana’s response is one of many adaptations of medium as well as repurposings of destroyed property and the ashes as evidence of disaster. Label by Hannah London

Creek Fire

Jennifer Rochlin, American, born 1968

Creek Fire, 2017

Jennifer Rochlin’s clay sculpture is a product of her emotions surrounding the growth in fires around her California residence, with this piece specifically recalling the Creek Fire in the winter of 2017. On the clay, she depicts horses, birds, mountain lions, and other animals, inspired by the 29 ranch horses that were killed in the flames. Rochlin explains that the abstract etches on the outside of the clay are a visual representation, and an actual product, of her anxiety during the fire and the fear and sadness that fills her as she hears fire stories like this. To round out the symbolic nature of the piece she writes, “It’s sad and poetic somehow that you fire the clay to solidify the marks.” She uses art in this instance to represent the Creek Fire in an expressionistic way, as well to represent her own emotions and difficulty coping with these fires in California. Label by Maeve Marsh

Beautiful Morning

Karen Lynn Ingalls, American

Beautiful Morning

This work incorporates the ashes from the artist’s prior works and materials after a wildfire destroyed her art studio in California. The juxtaposition of the dark material which forms the mountains and the surrounding land and the bright hues of the horizon mirror the contrast between the destruction wrought by the fires and the rebuilding of life after the destruction. The morning sunrise also implies rebirth from the ashes, a theme that the artist claims is central to her work. The use of the ash itself as a material within the work plainly establishes the idea of creating life from loss. Label by Grace Moser