Art From the Ashes Benefits the Bastrop Lost Pines

Hello Everyone! After a sort of crazy month buying our first house, packing, finishing some pottery for the show I’m about to tell you about while packing up the house, traveling internationally and moving (tomorrow!), I’m a little down to the wire in announcing my total excitement about the Art From The Ashes (AFTA) benefit for the Lost Pines Recovery Team of Bastrop, Texas which opens tomorrow in Austin! I wrote about the Bastrop County Complex fires a couple of times last fall (click to read my original posts, The Art of Fire and AFTA Goes To Texas), which got me in touch with the amazing creative team at AFTA. I’ve had a great time collaborating with Joy, Stacy and Nina to curate an art-science exhibit that will be displayed within the exhibition space.

I also had a blast creating a piece of pottery for the show (special thanks to Roxanne Hernandez  of the Lost Pines Recovery Team for helping me get my piece fired when all of my pottery equipment was packed away!), which you can view – along with art from over 70 Texas artists – at the show’s opening tomorrow, Saturday April 28, 2012 from 6-10pm at the Starr Building at 121 W. 6th Street (beween Congress and Colorado) in Austin, Texas. Gallery hours are 12-7pm until May 5th. There are several special events scheduled (details below) and all donations and proceeds from art sales will benefit the Lost Pines Recovery Team, a multi-faceted organization dedicated to reforesting and recovering the Lost Pines ecosystem of Bastrop, Texas. Not in Austin or can’t make it to the show? Dont’ worry – you can still donate to this wonderful cause by clicking here!

The AFTA show has already garnered some great press in Austinist, Austin Chronicle and AltSounds. You can also see a TV spot this morning on local Fox Austin (channel 7.1) featuring Joy and some of the AFTA artists!

ART from the ashes Benefit Exhibition
April 28th – May 5th Austin, TX
Starr Building
121 W. Sixth Street (between Colorado and Congress)
Austin, TX

The exhibition will showcase over 70 works of art donated by Texas based artists and ART from the ashes. In AFTA’s spirit of “Support. Inspire. Create. Renew,” works featured will incorporate materials salvaged from fire site locations in Bastrop County. This diverse spectrum of mediums will be further enhanced with the inclusion of a video installation of “Lost in the Flames” filmed by Andrew Shapter in Bastrop County, TX during September 2011, a unique art-science exhibit that will explore the creative ways in which artists have depicted fire ecology through the ages; and “Works On Wood” an installation created by Bastrop County’s youth utilizing reclaimed Loblolly pine. Proceeds support the efforts of the Lost Pines Recovery Team.

Contributing Artists: Leon Alesi, Stella Alesi, Bale Creek Allen, Peggy Anderson-Mapes, Jill Bedgood, Joan Bohls, Susi Brister, Debra Broz, Max Butler, Monique Capanelli, Stacy Conde, Shannon Curfman, Edgar Diaz, Laura Dugan, David Dunham, Cassandra Emswiler, Joy Feuer, Mary Fischer, Brooke Gassiot, Hayley Gillespie, Leah Godfrey, Joshua Goode, Louis Greco, Jesse Hartman, William Heath, Roxanne Hernandez, Melanie Hickerson, Peggy Jo Hilburn, Jessie Johnson, Pat Johnson, Kelly Johnston, Mona Kasra, Chris Klink, Surin Maryn Vesoett, Jon Langford, Suzanne Lewis, Shea Little, Keith Lorcher, Carol Lyon, Peter Mangan, Revi Meicler, Paul Meyer, Aaron Michalovic, Raina Michalovic, Marjorie Moore, Kandra Niagra, Amanda Overton, Jamie Panzer, Carol Schumacher, Brian Phillips, Randall Reid, Karol Rice, Rebecca Roberts, Debbie Sager, Barbara Samuelson, Nina Savill, Russell Smith, Sharon Smith, Jessica Stone, Lisa Studier, Kenny Trice, W. Tucker, Wendy Wight, Jon Windham, Michael Yates

OPENING RECEPTION
SATURDAY APRIL 28TH
6-10 p.m.
Suggested donation $30
includes sips, bites and entertainment by the Aiana String Quartet

GALLERY HOURS
APRIL 29TH – MAY 5TH
Noon – 7p.m.

SPECIAL EVENT PROGRAMMING

SUNDAY APRIL 29th
3-5p.m.
Suggested Donation $10
Join us for an afternoon of Texas bluegrass music performed by The Lost Pines, one of the fastest groups on the Austin music scene.
Refreshments provided.

WEDNESDAY MAY 2nd
Art & Fire Ecology Panel Discussion
6:30-9p.m.
Suggested Donation $10
Join ecologist and artist Dr. Hayley Gillespie as she discusses fire ecology and how it has been depicted in the arts through the ages. Come and learn more about the ecology of the Lost Pines of Bastrop County, the native species that live there and how Bastrop County Complex Fires may affect endangered species. Arrive early to meet a real, live endangered Houston Toad (courtesy of Rachel Rommel of the Houston Zoo). Panel discussion to include Mike Forstner (Professor of Biology, Texas State University), Christina Andruk (PhD Candidate Ecology, Evolution & Behavior, University of Texas, Austin) and Meredith Longoria (Biologist, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department), Greg Creacy (Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept, Natural Resources & Fire Coordinator for State Parks)

SATURDAY MAY 5th 3-4 p.m. Suggested Donation $10
Performance by the Peterson Brothers Band. The Peterson Brothers combine the classic blues sounds of legends with their own unique blend of soul-infused inspiration.

Proceeds from all programming support the Lost Pines Recovery Team’s restoration efforts of the Lost Pines Region of Bastrop County, TX.

The Spring 2012 benefit to support the restoration of Bastrop County’s Lost Pines Region, will mark ART from the ashes’ sixth benefit exhibition since its inception in 2007.

Art from the Ashes Goes to Texas

This image by Austin author and photographer Deanna Roy (taken at Loop 360 and Lost Creek Blvd just west of Austin, TX) went viral in the first few days of the Bastrop County Complex Fire. The 'live' version of this terrible sight inspired me to write about Art + Fire back in September.

A few months ago, as the wildfires were just beginning in Bastrop, Texas I wrote a post about the art of fire, and about the ecological function and renewing power of fire in the landscape. Since then, the Bastrop County Complex Fire (the most destructive in Texas state history) has destroyed 34,000 acres, 1649 homes and claimed the lives of two residents. The fires also burned over 90% of Bastrop State Park, and much of the remaining Lost Pines habitat of the critically endangered Houston Toad (Bufo houstonensis; Yes, I am old-school. I still call this Bufo).

Image of Houston Toad by Texas Parks + Wildlife Department's Chase A. Fountain.

Little did I know that my post would end up connecting me with some very caring and creative folks in California who were independently hatching plans to use the healing power of art to aide my neighbors in Bastrop. In my research for my Art of Fire post I came across Joy Feuer and the organization she founded, Art from the Ashes (or, AFTA). I think their mission statement does a pretty excellent job of introducing them:

“Our goal is to support communities devastated by natural disasters through the creation of art. ART from the ashes is about transformation. By using reclaimed materials as our medium, we hope to inspire and support the heart, mind and planet.” -AFTA Mission Statement

Joy and AFTA’s PR + Marketing director Stacy Conde immediately replied “YES!” to my requests to use AFTA images in my post and told me (to my delight) that they were already talking about their first show outside of California to support the victims of the Bastrop wildfires.

I am excited to report, after these few months, that they are here! This past weekend Joy Feuer and Nina Savill came to town to reclaim materials from the Bastrop fires and distribute them to Texas artists. By February 2012, these materials will be transformed into works of art that will be shown at an exhibition in mid-March and then sold to support reforestation and other fire recovery efforts in Bastrop. I am so honored to get to be a part of this exhibition to support my neighbors in Bastrop, and I finally got to meet Joy + Nina in person last Saturday when I picked out my reclaimed materials.

Materials salvaged from the Bastrop County wildfires by Nina and Joy.

Rebecca, Hayley & Cole choose reclaimed materials for the AFTA for Texas show.

A few of the salvaged materials from the Bastrop fires that I chose for my AFTA project.

For more details about the March 2012 benefit show you can visit the AFTA Goes to Texas page of AFTA’s website. You can also view photos of Joy + Nina’s recent trip to Texas and meet some of the artists on AFTA’s Facebook page. What will my materials become? Stay tuned…but it will probably have something to do with toads. Until I’m done with my piece, enjoy this beautiful woodcut of a Houston Toad by artist Lisa Studier, who will be featured in my ECO Art + Science series soon!

Reduction woodcut print of Houston Toad by Lisa Studier. Used here by permission.

Interestingly, “fire” continues to be the #1 search term drawing people to the biocreativity blog (though I like that “cool snakes” is also on the top 10 list). I hope that I have, in some small way, helped to give some ecological perspective on fire, which has been a part of human life for millennia. I also hope that I can directly contribute to wildfire recovery by creating art for AFTA’s Texas show and indirectly by encouraging all of you readers to spread the word about AFTA and their efforts. Joy and the rest of the AFTA crew are deep in the planning stages for the Bastrop show in March 2012, and financial donations to support the show would be greatly appreciated (click here to donate). AFTA is especially looking for volunteers in the Central Texas Region who can help in the planning stages as well as the execution of thier series of fundraising events. Interested sponsors, partners and volunteers should contact AFTA4Texas@artfromtheashes.org.

Top 10 search engine terms connecting readers to the biocreativity blog.

the art of fire

Driving back from a Labor Day visit from Fort Worth to Austin earlier this week I was awestruck by the size of the smoke plumes emanating from the wildfires currently raging in Bastrop County. It’s overwhelming to consider the extreme devastation that my neighbors to the East are experiencing in the wake of these fires. As an ecologist, I’m also thinking about what this will mean for the Lost Pines ecosystem and populations of the endangered Houston Toad that have already been devastated by the current drought and habitat destruction. My thoughts are also on Bastrop State Park that is all but 100 acres burned, and nearby Buescher State Park and Stengl Lost Pines Biological Field Station. All of this got me thinking of ways that the arts and biology have merged over one of nature’s most destructive and renewing forces, and with a little bit of research I’ve found some very interesting examples.

fire is ancient history

It probably goes without saying that our species would not be where it is today without fire. Some very ancient forms of artistic expression would not have been possible without it. Our ancestors that created paintings located deep within caves would not have been able to access such depths without light from a fire. Pottery, my own preferred medium, requires fire to vitrify the clay into a strong and watertight form. One of the most beautiful examples of earth, fire and biological materials coming together to create art is horse hair raku-style pottery. In this technique, the fired pottery is heated and coarse horse hairs leave behind their carbon markings as it burns off of the pot.

Large Horsehair Vase by Lisa Dempsey. Available from http://www.lisadpottery.com/

Fire also plays an important role in the mythology of one of my favorite types of creatures: the salamanders. The ecology of woodland salamanders that live underneath logs is responsible for the genesis of this mythology. When people collected logs from the forest and burned them for cooking or warmth, the once-hiding salamanders ran for their lives, emerging from the fire (wouldn’t you?). Our early ancestors found this quite magical, and their stories around the campfire later influenced early texts on alchemy and zoology. Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) was one of the first to describe the association between fire and salamanders in his Historalis Naturae, and several medieval bestiaries also described the salamander as a creature of fire. In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci writes about the salamander, “This has no digestive organs, and gets no food but from the fire, in which it constantly renews its scaly skin.” An excerpt and emblem from the Book of Lambspring, a book of “spiritual alchemy” first published in 1599 by Nicholas Baurnaud describes this association a bit more lyrically:

In all fables we are told
That the Salamander is born in the fire;
In the fire it has that food and life
Which Nature herself has assigned to it.
It dwells in a great mountain
Which is encompassed by many flames,
And one of these is ever smaller than another—
Herein the Salamander bathes.

"Figure X. A Salamander Lives in the Fire, Which Imparts To It A Most Glorious Hue" from the 1599 alchemical text the Book of Lambspring

One of the first landscape paintings of the renaissance, Piero di Cosimo’s 1505 painting The Forest Fire, depicts quite a bestiary of real and imagined animals fleeing from a wildfire. This painting is said to have been inspired by the ancient philosopher Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, which asserts that the foundations of civilization were laid when man finally lost his fear of fire and started to use it to craft metals. Thus, our ability to “control” fire is often seen as the beginning of human’s dominion over nature, and is what sets us apart from other animals.

The Forest Fire. 1505. Piero di Cosimo.

fire: friend or foe?

The view that humans should control and suppress fires in wild landscapes is perhaps exemplified by a well-known mid-20th century campaign by the Ad Council and US Forest Service: Smokey the Bear. A lot of us have fond memories of Smokey, who turns 65 this year, and who is now considered one of our national symbols. We can all thank Smokey for reminding us of the importance of properly extinguishing our campfires and cigarettes and avoiding any activities that could start an unplanned fire – a message that is especially relevant in drought-stricken central Texas right now.

See more Smoky the Bear Posters at http://www.smokeybear.com

The stop-fires-at-all-costs ideology behind Smokey’s campaign, however, has been criticized by many as ignoring the important role of fire in landscapes that have evolved with natural fires as a renewing and necessary element of landcape ecology. Some landscapes – such as grasslands, chaparral and many types of forests – require periodic fires to clear away dead understory material. Many of these fires are low-heat and slow, and do not get hot enough or large enough to reach the crowns of trees and kill older plants. Many species of plants even require the heat from fires to open their seed-pods, and simply cannot reproduce without being exposed to fires. Fire suppression in these ecosystems can lead to the build-up of dead trees, shrubs and grasses that will provide an unusual amount of dried fuel when a fire eventually sweeps through an area. When combined with drought, high winds and dry air (sound familiar, central Texans?) these fires can become so large they reach the crowns of the trees (“crown fires”), and often are so hot and powerful that they burn everything in the landscape, including mature trees that are usually benefitted by lower-intensity fires.

"Mexico Fire" by Bruce Dale shows a 1990 crown fire in Chihuahua, Mexico. Available from National Geographic's Wildfire Photos gallery http://on.natgeo.com/q03gS7

An entire branch of ecology – fire ecology – is dedicated to understanding the effects of wildfires on ecosystems, which can be essential in maintaining and restoring native landscapes. One of my favorite artists, Charley Harper, provides an exquisite example of the integral role of natural fires in ecosystems in his painting Kirtland’s Warbler. Charley’s artwork appeared alongside an article by Jean Ducey in the April 1978 issue of Ford Times Magazine describing the necessity of fire in conservation of breeding habitat for the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler. This rare bird makes its nest at the base of Jack Pine trees, whose seeds require fire to be released (skillfully illustrated in Charley’s painting below) and a bed of ashes in which to germinate. Fire suppression in Michigan’s lower peninsula kept Jack pines from reproducing and, as Ducey describes,”Man’s efficiency…has tamed the forests and threatened the warbler with extinction.”

Kirtland's Warbler. 1978. Art used here by permission and Copyright Estate of Charley Harper. A lithograph is available at http://www.charleyharperartstudio.com.

Through the use of prescribed low-intensity burns that are set intentionally under controlled conditions, ecologists were able to restore the specialized habitat of the warblers. And guess what? It’s working! Here are the population estimates for Kirtland’s Warbler – provided by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR). For more information on efforts to conserve this endangered species, visit the MDNR site.

Number of singing males is used to estimate population size in Kirtland's Warblers. Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Recall 1978 was the date of the Ford Times article featuring the artwork of Charley Harper.

emerging from the ashes

“In the wake of devastation and destruction, these works of art symbolize one’s ability to renew, rebuild and persevere” -Art From The Ashes

Whether you see wildfires as agents of destruction or renewal, it cannot be argued that they are agents of change. While we might not be able to see it now, current wildfires could possibly bring about positive changes, either for the landscape or in our own lives, and can help bring us together as stronger and more connected communities. A California group called Art From the Ashes, whose mission is to provide support for communities devastated by wildfires and other natural disasters through the creation of art, is working to do just that. By using reclaimed materials left in the wake of fires, artists create works that are donated and then sold to provide relief for victims of natural disasters. A local news story from KTLA illustrates this creative process with Art From the Ashes  founder Joy Feuer. The exhibitions themselves are also opportunities for communities to try and find some solace and perspective. The group has recently expanded their scope to include all natural disasters and their upcoming exhibition Artists Unite for Japan runs September 17-30 at Royal/T in Culver City, CA to benefit the Japan Society Earthquake Relief Fund (opening reception 9/17, 6-11pm). Among many other talented artists, this exhibition will feature work from the master of wood firing, potter Peter Callas. I’m sure the presence of Art From The Ashes in central Texas in the near future would be welcomed and appreciated. In the meantime, find out what you can do to help by visiting the Central Texas Red Cross.

Xenia Zampolli 'In Flight' Reclaimed branch from Deukmejian Wilderness Park-Station Fire, feathers. Photo courtesy of and used here by permission from ART From The Ashes.