Fires of Change

Nineteen

Katharina Roth

photograph by

Tom Alexander

The Coconino Center for the Arts has a remarkable, "Fires of Change" show on exhibit this month. I have seen it twice and I know I will go again.

There is one piece in this show that brings me to my knees. Artist Katharina Roth of Sedona, Arizona  chose the Yarnell Fire and the tragic deaths of 19 of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to memorialize. The installation is entitled "Nineteen", 19 beautiful crafted porcelain helmets were fired in a wood kiln. The result is beautiful and profound. Traces of black and red are the marks left by the fire. The intense heat has wrapped and in some places has cracked the fragile media. It is breathtakingly beautiful and terrifying in the same moment, just like wildfire.

She has also given us hope. There is a small tree growing out of an upturned helmet place on a tree stump. For this I am grateful.

After I left the Center I thought about this piece, it haunted me. As artist we are in the world and experience that. Some of these experiences and public events take hold of are thoughts. Scratching away at us, embedding themselves in us until they are part of us. Like seeds, they start to germinate, to sprout, and then to leaf out. They will not be ignored.

When they become mature, or just to painful to carry alone we start to create. We take are private moments with these subjects and turn them into art, and then we expose our wounds to the world for healing.

Not everyone will ever be moved by a single piece of art. However, those who are touched by are work, become our tribe. A group of individual points of consciousness that are connected by fine strands of understanding, filaments of the heart. We may never meet them and we may not have anything else in common with them except for this one moment. It is though, sublime. It is enough.


This exhibit is "Fires of Change" is up at The Coconino Center for the Arts , 2300 North Fort Valley Road, Flagstaff, AZ and on exhibit until October 31st, 2015

A Garland of Flowers

I am never quite sure of where I am going or what I will find. I was surprised and delighted to see this garland of flowers turn up.

An Image Appears

This is the image so far. It will be only a roadmap keeping me from running too far afield. Keeping me reined in.

Now for some colour!

Finding the Shapes

 The canvases sit against the studio walls so that I may sit and look at them until I start to see where the shapes are. Sometimes it's a matter of hours, sometimes weeks. I outline the shapes with charcoal.

  

 I used to hate using charcoal, but now I am in love with it. It is so forgiving and makes a mark that is earthy and ethereal at the same time.

Once there are enough shapes I will begin to paint, but for now I am enjoying the search and the quite there is in it.

Clouds Full of Meaning

When I was a child I would lie on my back a watch the clouds move a cross the sky. Finding the shapes and watching them change. A fox would become rabbit, a ship would turn into a whale. It was magic.

 I still love to be still and watch the sky, looking for the stories in the clouds. I use this same trick to start my composition. I sit and look at my under painted canvases and search for the story.

Still needs something

 So after several layers of colour I am quite happy with what has happened. It still need some tweaking, so I give it a cream coloured wash and apply some plastic film in various areas.

Now it looks like this.

and then,

After several layers the canvas starts to look like this.

Other areas look like this.

At this point I am still not ready to start creating an image. I still want more, of what, I am not sure of, but I know it not quite enough to begin the next phase.