❤️🔥 I would hate to see you burn out, little star.
Digital illustration of a square matchbox with four matches, with one missing from the box. Text reads, ‘you can’t light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.’
Steven Spazuk paints with fire in a technique he refers to as “fumage,” reinventing traditional artistic approaches. Since 2001, Spazuk has refined this skill – creating exquisitely vivid figures and animals from the residue of his candle’s brushstrokes.
In August and September 2020, massive, fast-moving wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and displaced tens of thousands of people across Oregon, Washington, and California. This installation serves as a memorial for those who lost their lives, a tribute to those who worked tirelessly to prevent a much larger loss of life, and a testament to all who suffered through the flames and emerged on the other side. Each charred leaf commemorates a lost life.
photo captured and accompanying caption transcribed from "Rethinking Fire" exhibit at the World Forestry Center in Portland, OR