WILDFIRE

In 2014 I saw a small wildfire up close. I was hiking with my dad, and I will never forget the sound the fire made when it moved from the forest floor to the trees - from silence, to a low rumble like a train in the distance. Within minutes, the sky was an eerie yellow. While I did not know it at the time, that moment was a portent of the new normal in the Pacific Northwest.

In my home region, we now have a fire season when ecosystems from forests to rolling fields of grasses are ablaze, often for months. While these fires do play an integral role in many of these ecosystems, climate change combined with decades of aggressive fire suppression tactics have led to the perfect storm and our fires are now bigger, hotter, and spread more rapidly.

One of my recent painting projects (shown at right) highlights a critical impact of these fires; smoke that lingers in heavily populated areas in addition to the mountains. During the fall of 2022 the air quality around Seattle ranged from moderate to extremely hazardous for over a month and half.

These paintings depict the view out my studio window, and observations of a shift from incredibly smoky to when a rainstorm finally cleared the air. For six days I painted observations at at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 5pm, and 6:45 pm. Each small painting is 3x3 inches and was made with watercolor, gouache, and when available, raindrops.