featured artist Margo Geddes Missoula, MT Margo Geddes is an artist in Missoula, MT. Her photographic practice revolves around the intersections between humans and the natural world. From the cultivated landscape of the garden to the effects of people on wild spaces and vice versa, her images look to surface these complex relationships. She holds an MFA in Photography from the University of Oregon and an MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She has shown her work both nationally and internationally. featured artwork "Standing Dead" silver gelatin print, 10in x10in, 2022 "Heart Boulder" silver gelatin print, 10in x10in, 2022 "Black Ground" silver gelatin print, 10in x10in, 2022 responding to Ground Truths Visiting landscapes I have been close to for over a decade in the Bitterroot Mountains, that have been subject to wildfire and establishing a new relationship with the changed space, has been not only a mourning but a discovery, a truth about the ground, the landscape, and it's relationship with impermanence. Fire season has become ubiquitous during the summer months in Montana and places that I have spent a good deal of time hiking, wandering, knowing, have eventually burned. Finding new landscapes in the wreckage left behind has been a form of healing. In early spring of 2020, while driving forest roads in Bitterroot National Forest, I noticed the granitic boulders, previously hidden in the thick forest, that were starkly strewn across the landscape. I began photographing them to explore this new and swiftly changing landscape: as fireweed takes hold and the forest begins to regenerate they will soon be hidden again. The scope of my work has grown to include a larger view of the scarred landscape as a whole, the trees, the revealed topography, the process of regeneration. more from Margo's perspective A view of Granite Pass, where Margo shot some of the images featured in Ground Truths. Granite Pass burned in the summer of 2021. This was shot July 4, 2022. In it one can see the burned slopes and the forest road winding its way through. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist Julie Mortimer Bellingham, WA Julie Mortimer lives in Bellingham, Washington. With an ever-increasing passion to learn and grow, she has been exploring non-traditional watercolor techniques (such as avoiding dry cakes of color) for several years, and is amazed at what the medium can do. Julie spends hours exploring local wooded areas on a daily basis. This is where she feels most at home. featured artwork "Crow Memories" watercolor, 12in x 16in responding to Ground Truths The air was thick with smoke though the fires were not visible to us. Every night I thought about the myriad animals, escaping if they could. Our area went from having pure cedar fragrances, fog misted air to having the worst air quality in the world. I wondered how the birds could even breathe to escape. more from Julie's perspective Julie out exploring the Pacific Northwest. Julie Mortimer at work in her studio. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artists Sophia Hatzikos Portland, OR Oregon Episcopal School Portland, OR Sophia Hatzikos is a site-specific artist who looks towards our past to evaluate our future. She is concerned with impending environmental collapse and gains insights from experts whose deep knowledge of natural systems comes from their working relationship with the land. Sophia is interested in interdependence and the contrasting fragilities of the natural world and capitalistic demand; she investigates these themes through a scientific lens. Through exploration and observation, she throws light on the ways in which structures and environments have been built over time, giving special attention to the imprints and inerasable marks left by those who wield power. featured artwork "Lift, Coil, Zip" retired wildfire hoses, steel, ties, 2022 responding to Ground Truths This project was a collaboration with students from Oregon Episcopal School who were enrolled in I.M.P.A.C.T (innovate / make / act / collaborate / tinker), a course that encourages experimental thinking about the impact of public art. Discarded fire hoses from the Redmond Fire Cache acted as a throughline to different projects, questions, and themes that were explored by the class. If the fire hoses, used in wildfire suppression during 2020 and 2021, had not become part of the project, they would have gone to a landfill. Using an upcycled material allowed for an expansive creative environment: mistakes could be made and our budget could be spent on other materials to expand the scope of their projects. The students designed individual work around their research into wildfires, climate change, material processes, and the industry of wildfire-fighting, and all thirteen students were involved in the final collaborative effort. Lift, Coil, Zip was shaped through site visits to the Lake Oswego Gallery without Walls , where it has been on display since the fall of 2022. The students were excited by the tall trees around the platform and its location right next to the firehouse. Seeing the environment where their work would live helped finalize the design and the students embraced the process of strategizing and refining ideas for their public art installation. The work will be looking for a new home come August 2023; hopefully, it will stay in the region to continue to tell the story these students crafted! more from their experience Chat back to exhibition Chat

Wilderness Suite Music, Video, and Rephotography Ruby Fulton w/ Teresa Cavazos Cohn, Benjamin James & icarus Quartet Spring 2020 - present video clip of Wilderness Quartet courtesy of icarus Quartet Composition Professor Ruby Fulton (Composition and Music Theory) is currently midway through the research and creation process of “Wilderness Suite,” an evening-length multi-movement piece of music for the celebrated two-pianist, two-percussionist chamber ensemble the icarus Quartet and pre-recorded electronics, in collaboration with U of I filmmaker Benjamin James (English). Their project is an art counterpart to the rephotography project in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, led by geographer Teresa Cavazos Cohn . The project brought the icarus Quartet for a three-day residency at the Lionel Hampton School of Music in February, 2020, when they rehearsed the music in open workshops and presented on their work with music about science. The quartet returned to the Lionel Hampton School of Music in April, 2022 to perform the new music together with film created by Benjamin James, using old and new photographs gathered in Cohn’s scientific study. “Wilderness Suite” uses music and video to examine the impact of humans on the environment, and emphasizes the importance of community in research at every level. This interdisciplinary collaboration between science and the arts will engage both rational and emotional processing systems, maximizing meaning-making and allowing for real communication on the challenging yet pressing question of the impact of human-environmental relationships. The story of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness is more than the science, more than the river, more than the people. Our understanding of wilderness and need for wild spaces differs for each of us. Members of the Confluence Lab — Teresa Cohn, Ruby Fulton, Ben James, and the icarus Quartet — are dedicated to helping people explore their relationship with wilderness including their views of the Frank. listen to more from: Next

AIF crew 2024 Jennifer Yu Moscow, ID Jennifer Yu is the author of three young adult novels, including the forthcoming Grief in the Fourth Dimension. When not writing, you can find her weeping intermittently about the Boston Celtics, photos of the Earth from outer space, and the etymology of the word disaster. She has hopscotched across New England, Southern California, the Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest, but is perhaps happiest when living out of the trunk of her Toyota Corolla. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Idaho. TREX involvement More on her story in Fall 2024... but for now, she is looking forward to the AIF residency's emphasis on embodied learning and experiencing—so valuable to a writer who spends almost all her time parsing the word cognitively, from behind a laptop screen. She is also looking forward to the opportunity to witness fire as a subject of overlapping, sometimes conflicted or competing perspectives—fire as constructed by natural forces, by human practitioners, by scientific research, by culture, by artists, by writers, etc. Chat back to AIF residency Chat

featured artist Anne Acker-Mathieu Seattle, WA Anne Acker-Mathieu has a background in Fiber Art, Graphics, and Painting. Her work is an assimilation of her experience and involves a mixed media approach that utilizes a blend of painting and collage. The employment of mixed media has yielded a body of work that is explosively colorful, movement-oriented, and emotionally thoughtful. As a woman, and a mother of daughters, Anne’s work focuses on justice issues that deeply concern her: women’s rights and social inequality feature prominently in her art. Anne holds a BFA from the Burnley School of Graphic Design at the University of Washington and currently lives with her family in Seattle. featured artwork "Ignition Casino," acrylic collage, 17in x 20in, 2023 "Fields of Fuel," acrylic collage, 45in x 42in, 2022 responding to Fuel Loading As a Seattle native, I have witnessed the Pacific Northwest grow from a sleepy, rainy area to a large metropolitan region with a bustling economy and exploding population that is encroaching the wilderness areas. Growth has brought all the accompanying problems of pollution, overcrowding, loss of habitat, and strains on the natural ecosystems. As a child, I remember having frogs and garter snakes in the woods, because the swamps were not drained, and housing developments were not (yet) in their domain. Today, my children’s summers are void of frogs and snakes, and include checking the wildfire smoke forecast to see if they can safely go for a bike ride. My work is a response to these realities and concerns, to the growing issues of climate change and to the apprehension with which I watch the rises in temperature, drought, and wildfires across the globe. It is becoming difficult to look away. I witness the fear of changing our habits, consumption, and economy–but we are all dependent species who rely on our planet for existence. more from Anne's perspective Anne’s studio: The space where the work is made, and the ideas are examined. City Hell strip at summer’s end: This is the picture of resiliency. This inner-city strip endures drought, excessive heat, dog walkers, and discarded human litter. And yet it survives. It is inspiration every day. The space underneath the grape arbor is my favorite place to think. The junk store assemblage of tin fish and human hands is representative of the endangered PNW salmon, and the hands of humanity that can hopefully work towards the betterment of our world. City Woodland Garden: Living in a highly urban environment, much work has been done to have the garden echo the PNW native forests. The garden is filled with PNW Firs, Cedars, and Hemlocks that will outlive us and hopefully survive future Seattle’s urban sprawl. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist Justin Webb Boise, ID photo credit: Emerson Soule with Webb's turn of the century 5" x 7" field camera Justin Webb is a photographer from Boise, ID. He holds a BFA in Visual Studies from Boise State University, where he focused on photography. Justin often works with black and white film, which he believes emphasizes the narrative aspect of each image. Most of Justin’s work is recorded through analog photography using 35mm or 120mm film or his 5” x 7” large-format field camera, although he also records with digital from time to time. Justin develops and prints his film himself, and through this process imparts a level of intimacy and passion into his work. Justin’s art is often about the impacts on our natural environment, both natural and human-caused. He currently spends much of his time documenting and photography these impacts in various places throughout Idaho. featured artwork "Skeletons of Soda Fire 2" Silver Gelatin Print using Ilford glossy RC paper, 5in x 7in, 2021 "Skeletons of Soda Fire 1" Silver Gelatin Print using Ilford glossy RC paper, 5in x 7in, 2021 responding to Ground Truths These photos where captured in 2021 in Southwest Idaho; they show the impact on the sage brush and trees killed by the Soda Fire in 2015. I wanted to show the changes to the environment and its personal impact on me, seeing a landscape I grew up exploring stripped of its already limited plant life. These images also relate to the years I spent fighting wildfires in Oregon and Idaho, watching how wildfires have impacted deserts and forests throughout the Pacific Northwest and how their scale and severity is increasing as the climate gets dryer. more from Justin's perspective Personified Camera : Justin took this image while he was photographing the progress of grass growth in an area that the BLM had seed drilled. Justin engages with his home landscape through the lenses of his cameras. Backburn 2006 : Justin took this photo while performing a back burn on fire near FlintCreek located on the Idaho/Oregon border in 2006. Justin finds much of his creativity in the space between his current journey and his past experiences, which he reflects on as his guide. Passing Tree : This image was taken after Justin shot “Soda Fire 2.” He was walking back to his gear before heading to another location. Chat back to exhibition Chat

Emily Schlickman Davis, CA Brett Milligan Davis, CA featured artists Emily Schlickman is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design at the University of California, Davis, whose research explores design techniques for accelerated climate change. Schlickman received a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MLA from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Brett Milligan is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design at the University of California, Davis. There he is the director of the Metamorphic Landscapes Lab, dedicated to prototyping landscape-based adaptations to conditions of accelerated climatic and environmental change, through extensive fieldwork and transdisciplinary design research. Much of his work is based in California, undoing and reworking colonial legacies of land reclamation, water infrastructure, flood control, and fire suppression. Emily and Brett recently published Design by Fire: Resistance, Co-Creation and Retreat in the Pyrocene. featured artwork Pyro Postcard Series help pick a new mascot Interested in exploring other creatures to to rival Smokey Bear's impact on America's take on fire suppression, Emily & Brett are surveying other options. Cast your vote for a mascot (many featured in the Pyro Postcard series) fitting of our pyro future on their website . responding to SIGHTLINES While we are based in Northern California and most of our work centers on the Sierra Nevada and Coastal Ranges, the questions and considerations we pose transcend political and geographic boundaries, as many places are facing similar wildfire conditions. Pyro Postcards is part of a larger futuring project about wildfire. The project invites collective speculation on the transformative nature of fire and the ways it can change the landscapes of the American West. For one certainty we have is that our fire-prone landscapes will be different from what they are today, and we don’t know exactly what they will become. But, by looking at a few horizons, we can imagine a multitude of futures. In presenting Pyro Postcards , we hope participants can feel their way into possible fiery futures and our potential role in making them. Some are bleak. Some are exciting. Some are just fucking weird and stick in your mind. more from their perspective Image of a prescribed burn Brett helped with to try to restore native grassland and Oak Woodland habitat on the UC McLaughlin Natural Reserve. He likes to assist with intentional burns where and when he can. Yolo County recently launched a prescribed burn association (PBA), a community-based network focused on educating and training residents about intentional fire practices. This is an image of their first burn just north of Capay, California. Emily likes to spend time in burn scars to observe how landscapes respond to wildfire events. This is an ash sample that she collected from the footprint of the LNU Lightning Complex Fires. above: LNU Berryessa left: Quail Ridge Reserve These images are part of photographic documentation Brett takes of landscapes to see how they change and regenerate after wildlife. These locations feature chaparral habitats in California after burning in LNU complex fire in 2020. This is an image of an indigenous-led cooperative burn in Cobb, California. Emily is part of TERA’s on-call ecocultural fire crew for the 2023-2024 season. This is a sample of design work by landscape architecture students Madison Main, Yining Li, Xinyi Gao for the Field Guide to Transformation studio Brett recently taught. In this studio students worked together to re-envision how the UC McLaughlin reserve might become a place for more proactive fire research, offer hands-on experiential learning for students, and foster greater ties to surrounding communities. Chat back to exhibition Chat

a profile of Jennifer Yu by Bailey Lowe My Favorite Activity was Lighting an interview with Kylie Mohr by Bailey Lowe During the Artist-in-Fire Residency Program, environmental journalist Kylie Mohr participated in a Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX ) in the northeastern Washington wilderness where she spent two weeks burning sections of land to help prevent the negative effects of natural wildfires in the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tell me about yourself. I'm currently a freelance environmental journalist and a correspondent for the magazine called High Country News , and my work really focuses on all things wildfire—everything from the health angle to the ecological angle to what rebuilding and recovery looks like, inequality in those things, and preparedness land management. In addition to wildfire, my work really focuses on wildlife, conservation, public lands, and wildlife and water in the west. These western environmental issues are really front and center in my work and often overlap, which is great. And in addition to High Country News, I publish for a lot of different publications. Some of the biggest titles that I've worked for are National Geographic and the Atlantic, and then a whole host of others—Grist, Vox, Business Insider. I just love getting western stories and environmental issues out to a regional and international audience. What I do has taken me to some really cool places, in addition to getting to play firefighter/firelighter for a couple weeks this fall. I got to spend a night at the top of an old grove tree for an assignment with Sierra Magazine last year, which was really fun. It was crazy. I definitely learned I am terrified of heights and won't be doing that again. I've been to Alaska to report on snowy owls. I got a bunch of cool stuff in Montana and Glacier with some scientists studying pink snow and snow algae in the high alpine. In my background before that, I got a Master’s at the University of Montana in their Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism program. I've got my undergrad from Georgetown. I used to live in Wyoming. I'm from Washington originally. How did you learn about the Artist-in-Fire Residency Program and what made you want to do that? I think I saw a posting for the Artist-in-Fire Residency on Instagram or X or some social media platform. I was instantly like, “ooh, what is this?” Because anytime I can do something that kind of is hands-on and grounds my work in actual lived experiences and being able to do something that not very many people have access to, I immediately was interested in that. I was reading the description, and I was just like, “wow, this this seems incredible and such a cool opportunity.” I think one of the issues with prescribed fire is that it is so hard to get into as a civilian. You don't have the training or the gear or really anything to be a responsible participant. You can't really just show up to one of these things and be like, “hey, I want to help.” And so, even though it's something I read a lot about, I've never (before this fellowship) had the opportunity to actually participate in it and being a journalist, sure, we can go to things and observe, but there's something so different about actually doing alongside people rather than standing 20 feet behind with a notebook. So, the opportunity to do something like that just really jumped out at me, and because I'm a freelancer, one of the benefits of that is I have flexibility to go on a two-week prescribed burn and spend 40 hours over the course of a couple months taking the classes that we needed. What did you do to prepare and what were some of the things you learned in the training? The online training was cool in the sense that I realized I knew more than I thought about fire behavior and firefighting techniques and things like that from my journalism and from my reporting background, so that was nice to see some of my professional knowledge actually integrating into this in a useful way. I participated in a lot of government webinars and things that were a little bit dry at times, but they did give me the basis to understand terminology, techniques, and the basics of the science of fire behaviors, so that I’m not wondering, “Oh, it's really windy today. Why aren't we lighting? Oh, because wind carries fire.” Or, “Oh, it's been really dry. It hasn't rained in a long time. Why aren't we lighting? Oh, okay, because relative humidity and the different fuel moistures matter when you're thinking about how to control a fire and keep it contained and not burning too hot and severe to ruin things rather than regenerate them.” And then the physical training: I think I probably over prepared for that. I was really nervous about not being fit enough to do it, so I got a weighted vest and timed myself speedwalking around a track near my house with the weighted vest and hated that! But then the test was totally fine, so I think I might’ve overprepared for that a bit. I'm in a cool position in that my fiancé was actually a wildland firefighter before we met, and so I was peppering him with so many questions of what to expect or what kind of gear I should buy. That's the other thing, too, that was really helpful about this fellowship: we had the stipend to cover some of our time being spent on all of this, but also to pay for fire boots (because those are super expensive); you have to have certain certified types that go up high enough on your leg and have the right thickness to be fire resistant and all this stuff, and they can be three or four-hundred dollars if I remember correctly. That's a lot if you're not a firefighter and you're never going to wear these around town! You borrow from your TREX all of the Nomex shirts and pants and a fire backpack that carries all your stuff and hard hat. You buy your own gloves, but gloves are cheap at hardware stores. A lot of the prep was not only “how is this all going to work?”, but also “what do I need to not be totally miserable or unsafe?” During the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX ), what was your onsite training and what did your day to day look like? Before we started burning, we had a couple days of part classroom instruction and then also part field instructions. We went around to different stations and learned about all the different pieces on a water engine truck, and how you open and close the hose and nozzles and all this stuff, which it sounds really basic, but you don't necessarily know how to use it in the context of fire. I had this weird tool: I think it was called a combi—a combo tool that you have to screw and unscrew the head in different ways. There were many very basic things that I don't know (as you work behind a computer), and I needed people to be constantly explaining everything to me. So, we did a lot of that kind of training, like “here's how to use a drip torch” and “here's all the steps to screw and unscrew the lid.” It’s just all of this very fine detail that if you're a firefighter, you don't even think about it, but can be confusing if you have never touched these tools in your life. But I learned most by doing and by being a member of different groups. I remember the first day I was like, “wow, I feel really unqualified to be standing here near the fire because I don't totally get what's going on.” But you really do learn very quickly because you're so immersed and because the cool thing about TREX is there are a lot of people there with different skill levels. There are entry level novices as well as full-time firefighters and people that do prescribed burns for a living. You could learn a lot just by observing what they were doing and following orders. That's the other interesting thing about fire culture: it's very militaristic. It's very, “here's your squad leader” and “here's your captain” and “here are the roles you're going to play” and “here's the person that you answer to.” It's very hierarchical. So, to an extent, as long as you follow your little individual orders, then everything is fine—at least in your own little bubble. That was interesting to witness. What was your favorite day/favorite activity? My favorite activity was lighting. You definitely get an appreciation for how pyromaniacs exist! People in fire call it getting bit by the firebug, and I was definitely bit by the firebug. I mean, if you think about it in your daily life, you don't really have very many sanctioned opportunities to light things on fire, right? Like you're lighting a candlewick, you're maybe lighting a campfire, and that's pretty much it. But this is like, “here is a jug full of fuel” and “here's this whole area that you get to burn.” And you do it in a controlled way; there's a lot more to it than just throwing matches and being like, “okay, let's see what happens.” It's very controlled, very slow, very methodical, but also mesmerizing, fascinating, and very fun. Lighting the fires was very challenging physically—the torch is really heavy. The little unit that I burned was on a hill, and so we were walking up and down and up and down and up and down, and you're wearing long sleeves and long pants, carrying a bunch of stuff. You have a bunch of things on your back. I was dripping in sweat. It was absolutely one of the hardest physical things I've ever done, and everyone else was just being really nonchalant about it. My favorite day was the day that I got to light—I think it was a 14- or 15-acre area—with a bunch of other people, and in addition to just the enjoyment of lighting things on fire, it was also really cool to work in tandem as a team with other people. There were people lighting and there were people holding. There was someone who was overseeing all the lighters. Really being part of a team and also feeling like I was a contributing member of that team was awesome, and I feel that just speaks to the uniqueness of the fellowship and TREX in general. Being able to embed in that way and become part of this world temporarily (that is very much not part of my daily world outside of that) was cool. I felt so welcomed by people who were excited to teach and share their skills with someone who was just coming in bright eyed and bushy tailed. How did your understanding of fire change throughout this experience? I learned a couple of things. One, it really struck home to me what I already knew but didn't know quite so viscerally, which is that fighting fire and lighting fire is very hard work, and the people who do it are really putting their bodies on the line to do these things. Even just breathing in smoke from a couple days, I was like, “Wow, I report all the time on how smoke is killing people and how toxic it is, and here are people who are doing this all summer, all fall, all winter.” So that was, I wouldn't say eye opening to me because my eyes were already a bit open to it, but just realizing how tired I was after two weeks and then thinking about people who do this all summer and to a much more extreme extent gave me an even deeper respect for people that work in fire. It also reinforced to me, quite frankly, how many hurdles there are to implement prescribed fire. The sheer amount of planning and checklists and resources and different agencies that were involved, just to do relatively small units on private land was eye opening to me in a way that I found a little depressing at first because I was like, “wow, how are we ever going to be able to scale up prescribed fire to the extent that we need when we are doing all of this for a total of, like, 30 acres?” And plans say that we need to burn millions more acres. I raised that to a couple of people at the training to be like, “what is going on? How is this at all scalable?” And then I learned some of the complexities of burning on private land and how you have to be extra careful when there's a neighbor 20 feet that way. If you're on public land or reservation or just somewhere that has more land mass, you can be a bit more, “okay, we're going to burn this whole area, and it doesn't really matter if it goes a little bit more this way because there's not someone's house and livelihood on the other side of it.” So, my understanding of fire—just the amount of work and human hands that are necessary to do these burns—hit home after all of this. I also gained an appreciation and fascination for fire behavior. I learned about how to have the fire merge toward itself or how to draw a fire away or how to hold a fire in a certain area. It's crazy how you can light fire here, and you can light a bigger fire here, and the fire moves towards itself like a magnet. It's fascinating thinking about how fire goes uphill and downhill. It reminds me of a dance. That has been cool to reflect on. Do you think that this experience will impact or has already impacted your writing? Yeah, definitely. I've written two things specifically from this—the first was a story that was all about the prescribed fire labor force for Business Insider. That was a really awesome opportunity. If you live in the West, you might know about prescribed burns, and you might know why they're necessary, but if you live somewhere else in the country, or if you even live in the west, but you live in Seattle or Portland or something, prescribed burns are probably not really on your radar. The chance to promote awareness of ways to reduce wildfire risk such a huge, national audience was really awesome. I never know who may read that and what they may go do with it, but I'm optimistic that people read my article and maybe opened their mind a little bit, or became curious about what kind of stuff was going on in their state or in their county. I also wrote an essay that's coming out in High Country News that is about my personal reflections on the experience and how it added a more nuanced take on fire for me as a wildfire journalist. I'm excited about this essay because it was really it was fun to write. I don't often write about myself, and that's always kind of scary as a journalist to say what you're thinking and feeling because we're trained not to do that in a lot of ways, so this was a really cool opportunity for me to reflect, write more creatively, and describe things in a more fun way.

featured artists Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes: Overlook Field School Eugene, OR The Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes (FIPL) is an internationally recognized center for research-based design and design as research, focused on the role of place in cultural sustainability, and grounded in the arts and humanities. Guided by a team of scholars, students use fieldwork and art methods to investigate the ongoing stewardship of landscapes and culture. featured artwork RECOVERY Overlook Field School 2021 Highlights of this five week project can be reviewed in this digital booklet . featuring works by: William Booner, Hanna Chapin, Celia Hensey, Abby Pierce, Kennedy Rauh, Audrey Rycewizc, Massayo Simon, Ian Vierck, Nancy Silver & David Buckly Borden responding to Ground Truths In the western United States, wildfires are becoming bigger, hotter, and more frequent due to the effects of climate change. During the summer of 2021, as smoke from western fires stretched across the country, the Oregon-based session of the Overlook Field School explored the theme of “Recovery” as it relates to wildfire burns. Analogous to resilience, restoration, and regeneration, recovery is a return to some previous state - perhaps a new normal - and ever more complicated when applied to a medium as dynamic as landscape in the time of rapid climate change. Over the course of five weeks, we visited post-fire sites in the Willamette National Forest, most of which occurred within the last 30 years. The projects shared in the Recovery booklet are the outcome of these forest explorations and creative interactions led by educator, Michael Geffel, and artist-in-residence, David Buckley Borden. We were also strongly influenced by concurrent environmental events: a record heat wave which coincided with the first day of the field school, and the explosion of wildfires as we entered our final design phase. Despite the prevailing narrative of catastrophe and destruction, the recovery we observed was incredibly inspirational. The Field School culminated in a public exhibition of temporary landscape installations that centered the dynamism of post-fire landscapes and what they can teach us about resiliency, as we aspired to communicate the beneficial impacts of fire in the face of increasingly longer fire seasons. more from FIPL's projects Despite the prevailing narrative of catastrophe and destruction, the recovery observed by the group was inspiring. We aspired to communicate these experiences through landscape installations in order to express as well as document the beneficial impacts of fire, as we are experiencing increasingly longer fire seasons. The work draws extensively from field visits to post-fire sites within the Willamette National Forest. We were also strongly influenced by concurrent environmental events: a record heat wave and the explosion of wildfires bookended the Field School. Chat back to exhibition Chat

The Confluence Lab, in conjunction with the University of Idaho's Prichard Art Gallery, is seeking creative, visual works for an online exhibition series, Stories of Fire. ARTISTS-IN-FIRE Frequently Asked Questions Do I need previous experience with fire? No. Do I need to do the training before I apply? No. I’m not a resident of Idaho, Oregon or Washington. Can I still apply? For this inaugural residency, we are prioritizing artists and writers living or working in these states or adjacent regions. If your state, province or tribal nation is within or borders Idaho, Oregon or Washington, you are eligible. We look forward to hearing from you. My creative work is not about fire. Can I still apply for the residency? While a demonstrated interest in social and/or ecological issues will be helpful, you do NOT need to have made previous creative work about fire to apply for the residency. You WILL need to explain through the application questions WHY you are interested in experiencing prescribed fire and HOW you see it impacting future creative work. My creative practice is more interdisciplinary. What kind of work samples should I apply with? Up to 5 samples of creative work will be reviewed by jurors no matter how many ways you label yourself or your practice. When submitting samples, you are welcome to submit any mix of files including images, .pdf documents, sound clips, short video clips (web-links are preferred), etc. If you have further questions, please contact us. How do I prepare for the on-the-ground training? Residency participants will complete approximately 40 hours of online training at their own pace but prior to attending the prescribed fire training module. Physical training for the arduous pack test may also be helpful. I’m slightly overwhelmed with understanding the training involved. Can you help me sort it out? Two phases of training are involved in this residency: the first is online and the second is an immersive, on-the-ground prescribed fire training. The online training can be done at your own pace but MUST BE COMPLETED BEFORE the on-the-ground, prescribed-fire-training module and NO LATER THAN MAY 1, 2024. On-the-ground module dates are determined by the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) organizers. In the Pacific Northwest they generally take place in the spring and fall of each year. And don’t worry! The Confluence Lab will host a training orientation via Zoom for selected participants and be available to guide them through this process. How much time will I need to devote to training? Residency participants will complete approximately 40 hours of online training at their own pace but prior to attending the prescribed fire training module. Physical training for the arduous pack test may also be helpful. The on-the-ground training is immersive and runs from 7 to 12 days depending on the TREX module. PARTICIPANTS MUST BE WILLING AND ABLE TO ATTEND A FULL TREX MODULE. Does this residency provide studio space? No. Since the main goal for this residency is that your creative work finds its way out into your local community, we want you to have the ability to return and/or create in locations of your choosing. Will I be required to travel as part of this residency? Yes. Recipients must be willing to attend a full TREX module and will be responsible for arranging their own travel to and from that module. A portion of funding awarded to participants is meant to help cover cost acquired through this travel. I have some ideas of how I might connect with my community after this residency, but don’t know yet when and where that will happen. Can I still apply? Yes. We expect applicants to have put thought into how they would like to share their experience with their communities, but do not expect that all of the details of that to be resolved before applying. The experience itself may influence how and what you share. Our lab understands that this will take time and can help advise you in this process in the future as needed. I don’t intend to work as a firefighter beyond this residency. Can I still apply? Yes. There is no requirement that you become a professional wildland firefighter, though you would be qualified. And you may find that you want to keep participating in prescribed burns as a volunteer! I already have experience with TREX training. Can I apply to just get funding for my creative practice through AIF? The AIF residency is intended specifically for artists and writers to experience prescribed fire. While previous experience with fire will not disqualify you, recipients will be expected to attend a TREX module and priority will be given to those who would not otherwise be able to have this experience. What if my creative reflection takes longer than 6 months? We understand that your creative processing and reflection may take longer than 6 months, BUT we ask that you share some portion of your creative reflections, even if still in process, with your home community within 6 months of your TREX experience. Once I return home, how much time am I expected to devote to this project? The time devoted will vary from participant to participant. You will be expected to write a creative blog post to shared through the Confluence Lab website within one month of participation and to share your experience through your creative practice with your home community within six months of participation. Will I be at the TREX with all the other AIF residents? No. There may be more than one AIF resident but the whole cohort will not attend the same TREX. The Confluence Lab will work with selected participants to find the TREX that works best for them and for TREX organizers. How much does the training cost? There is no fee for the online training. Most TREX modules charge a participation fee of $300 but these fees will be covered for AIF participants (up to $300). A few TREX charge more, depending on their location, accommodations, and length of module. Participants will be responsible for arranging their own travel to and from the TREX module. The Confluence Lab will help participants find the TREX that works best for them. PLEASE NOTE: As required by TREX organizers, participants will be required to maintain their o wn medical insurance during the TREX module. They will also be required to liability waivers with the University of Idaho and TREX organizers prior to participation. For more clarification, please contact theconfluencelab@gmail.com Next

As the second part of the Stories of Fire online exhibition series, FUEL LOADING showcases creative works that reckon with the accumulations of fuels in the Pacific Northwest and surrounding regions. Stories of Fire On line Exhibition Ser ies Part II: Anne Acker-Mathieu Ignition Casino acrylic collage, 17in x 20in, 2023 Fire depends on the fuels that feed it. Together with topography and weather, fuels determine a wildfire’s behavior: where it burns, how quickly it spreads, how hot it gets. Fire managers use the term “fuel loading” to categorize the amounts and types of vegetative fuels in a given area. But whether dry grasses, shrubs, dense stands of conifers or logging slash, the accumulation of fuels on the landscape reflects both the ecological processes and the cultural and social imperatives that shape land management. Fire suppression and industrialized land use, structural racial and economic disparities, residential development, roads and recreation, the support or hindrance of ecological stewardship and Indigenous fire sovereignty: all these “fuels” load onto the landscape as uneven densities, distributions and renewals. As the second part of the Stories of Fire online exhibition series, FUEL LOADING showcases creative works that reckon with the accumulations of fuels in the Pacific Northwest and surrounding regions. These works engage a broad conception of fuel loading to measure the weights, densities and arrangements of fuels across ecological, social and material landscapes. They celebrate the dynamic potential of fire, while also pressing on the build-ups, sparks and residues that contribute to flammability. They attend to the fuels themselves and ask how fire and justice converge. “The whole earth is fuel-loaded; there is nowhere apart and smoke drifts easily across borders ...” Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma Bat Cone Burn, pyrometric project ritual firing. final form: clay, terra sigillata, underglazes, 2014 Suze Woolf Splintered varnished watercolor on torn paper mounted on laser-cut polycarbonate & shaped matboard, 52in x 25in, 2023. An ancient burned juniper from the new BLM wilderness area Oregon Badlands. This work is presented in collaboration by: And made possible by the generous support of: Martina Shenal clockwise from left: Slash Piles 06, Slash Piles, Slash Piles 07, La Pine, Oregon, archival pigment prints, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 aj miccio Davis Burn Scar (w/detail) ink on bristol, 11in x 14in, 2023 Lisa Cristinzo How to write a painting acrylic on wood panel, 36in x 48in, 2022 Eric Ondina Nearer My God to Thee 2021 Kate Lund Brush Fit rip-stop nylon, wool, flannel, fleece, 2023 Lisa Cristinzo Marked Trail acrylic on linen, 60in x 82in, 2023 Kelsey Grafton Morphosis ceramic & organic found object, 16in x 4in x 2.5in, 2019 Anne Acker-Mathieu Fields of Fuel acrylic collage, 45in x 42in, 2022 Karin Bolender / Rural Alchemy Workshop (R.A.W.) RQP Card seemingly an autograph card, one of few existing pictures of the Rodeo Queen of the Pyrocene. “Fuel” is a designation inherently concerned with material and materiality. But, of course, fuel also signifies energy. Erin James read more on how artists are "Feeling Fuel" Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma Pyrometric Whirl Ink, ash, medium, Phos-Chek flame retardant on paper, 84in x 40in, 2017 photo credit: Larry Lytle Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma Pyrometric Landscape ash, medium, Phos-Chek flame retardant on paper; 84in x 40in, 2017 photo credit: Kevin Boland Lisa Cristinzo Birch Bark is like Snake Skin acrylic on wood panel, 36in x 48in, 2021 Suze Woolf Core Values fabric installation of knit/felted tree cores, woven ice cores, dyed and quilted sediment cores, dimensions variable, up to approx. 18 sq ft, 2023 Kelsey Grafton Remnant (two views of wall piece) ceramic, 14.5in x 11.5in x 6.5in, 2020 Kelsey Grafton Becoming ceramic, organic materials, found objects, and conviction, 8.3ft x 3ft x 5ft, 2021 Eric Ondina Check emulsion on canvas, 2021 Eric Ondina Inferno 2020 Eric Ondina Hot Leather 3 emulsion on board, 2020 " The planet, like many of us, is experiencing the build up, the burn, and the burn out ." Lisa Cristinzo read more about Fuel Loading's impacts through Erin James' reflective essay Lisa Cristinzo Fraternal Fire acrylic on wood panel, 77in x 60in, 2023 Suze Woolf Carved Out with Fire Pit tree: Varnished watercolor on torn paper mounted on shaped Gatorboard with wood hanging cradle. fire pit: black paper, rocks, spray-painted gas pump handle, empty propane tank, coal, insulator, corn cobs, 2022 barbed wire, model airplane, model semi-truck and model oil tanker railroad car added 2023. Suze Woolf Logged, Drifted and Burned varnished watercolor on torn paper mounted on shaped foam core with wood hanging cradle, 52in x 25in, 2023. washed-up log found on Newskowin Beach, Oregon. Anne Acker-Mathieu The Hand that Feeds You acrylic collage, 22in x 22in, 2023 Amiko Matsuo Zuihitsu video of site-specific, temporary public art project, Seattle, WA, 2023 video credit: Tom Reese further considerations FL Burn Out "The Build Up, the Burn, and the Burn Out" Eric Onida’s Nearer My God to Thee depicts a marching band on fire, or perhaps a marching band emerging from fire; the bright reds of the band’s uniform, coupled with the yellows of their instruments, blend into the fire behind them, such that it’s difficult to tell where music becomes flame and flame becomes music. Onida explains that his paintings, produced with a unique recipe of egg tempera that blends viscous balsam, fossilized hard resins, egg yolk and water, depict “a society in the midst of its discontent, desperately trying to make sense of a destiny that often feels elusive, slipping beyond control and comprehension.” He also notes that paintings such as this one and Check , which similarly depicts an urban gas station emerging from (or perhaps about to be consumed by) threatening red flames that lurk in the background, draw conceptually from the fires depicted by the news media to be consuming the Pacific Northwest to represent “our social malaise as we grapple with the forces of unyielding natural and political environments.” These paintings certainly pose a stark question to me: what is the relationship between marching bands and wildfire? What about the city corner gas station–what role does it play in today’s firescape? Indeed, how, exactly, are ecological and social environments intertwined? Lisa Cristinzo’s Marked Trail poses a similar set of questions. As a Canadian myself, I easily recognize the symbols of Canuck patriotism in her work: the wheat and the geese that frame the painting, the pine cones and snowy, cloudy fields that root us in the North, and the cottage core kitsch of the colored mailboxes, flags, and place signs. These images combine to evoke a knee-jerk sense of national pride–for me, they drudge up an overly simplistic and idealistic idea of Canada that typically lives in a land of maple leaves and syrup. Yet the red brush strokes on the left side of the painting niggle me. These strokes could echo the most iconic of Canadian images: the red leaf, standing brightly against a white background. But they also disturbingly look aflame. Once again, I ask myself: what are the connections between these tokens of national pride–geese, snow, red foliage–and the fires that increasingly appear where we think they should not? And how do these artifacts of culture in and of themselves fuel these fires? Cristinzo’s artist’s statement gives us some answers to these questions. She notes that her current work, including Marked Trail and Birch Bark is like Snakeskin , came to her during a stay in a stone cabin. She began each morning collecting fuel for the wood stove, and “soon came to see the pieces of wood, newspaper, burnable objects, and ash as triangular compositions suitable for painting.” She quickly found herself delaying the fire each morning, pausing first to sketch her fuels before burning them. “Building a fire is a means of building a painting,” she states. Yet her process of accumulation-to-burn also speaks to a problem that she extends to the human species. “Our obsession with possession has caused a warming planet,” she writes, “leading to intense weather systems and catastrophic events. The planet, like many of us, is experiencing the build up, the burn, and the burn out.” This emphasis on the build up, the burn, and the burn out is fitting for an exhibition on Fuel Loading . As the introduction to the exhibition explains, fire managers use this titular term to account for amounts and types of vegetative fuels in a given area. In the Pacific Northwest, these fuels include dry grasses, shrubs, and dense stands of conifers. But Onida and Cristinzo’s work helps us take a much broader view of fuel, not just as materials that accumulate on a forest floor but also as social and cultural practices that facilitate a build up and subsequent burn. Work like Nearer My God to Thee and Marked Trail helps me realize how the everyday practices of my life, including attending the local football game, filling my car with gas, and taking a quick break at a cottage up north, are all part of the complicated network of values, attitudes, and behaviors that shape the world in which I live. Fuel loads, not just via ecological accumulation, but also via social tradition and routine. Eric Ondina, Nearer My God to Thee Lisa Cristinzo, Marked Trail Shenal's Slash Piles 06 & 07 Karin Bolender’s work with the Rural Alchemy Workshop also emphasizes the link between fire and our region’s cultural traditions. Her playful Rodeo Queen of the Pyrocene autograph card presses on, as she explains, “generic myths of the ‘Western Way of Life’ as they manifest in Pacific Northwest forestry, ranching, conservation, and other land-management practices, in both obvious and less visible ways.” The Rodeo Queen’s ghostly face and crown of flames task viewers with the question: How do iconic (and beloved) cultural practices of the North American West respond to an epoch increasingly determined by fire?" She also demands that we rethink the role of cultural ambassadors of this region right now. Bolender explains that the Rodeo Queen “thunders in and out of arena spotlights, waving a spectacular, distracting red flag amidst the more hidden dimensions of cultural, capital, and fossil flows and legacies that shape the land as we (don’t) know it and fuel its range of conflagrations.” What are the Rodeo Queen’s responsibilities to this region and its legacies, both positive and negative, overt and hidden? And what responsibilities do we, as viewers and potential fans, have in protecting the cultural and ecological heritages that she symbolizes before they–and she–burn out? Finally, Marina Shenal’s photographs give a forward-looking spin on the entanglement of ecological and social fuels. Her portraits of slash piles gathered in La Pine, Oregon, in late November 2022, are a much more literal take on fuel loading: they depict the vegetative fuels that have been cleared and piled as part of forest fuels reduction work. In Slash Piles , the scale and size of the accumulated material might appear as a warning. The brown slash piles frame and center the green, living trees as if to highlight the violence and destruction of the clearing that has taken place. What was once living, green, and standing tall is now dead, brown, and on the ground. Yet upon a closer look I also see two additional timelines in Shenal’s photos. One looks backwards to grapple with the accumulation of ecological fuels, due in no small part to the cultural suppression inherent in fire suppression policies. In this timeline, accumulation goes hand-in-hand with erasure: the build up of vegetation in the Pacific Northwest is intimately linked to the nullification of indigenous fire practices that center around the regular implementation of “cultural burns”--controlled fires used to renew the land and culturally important plants and animals. The other timeline looks forward. These slash piles have been staged in colder, wetter months for an upcoming prescribed burn to reduce fuel loads in the forest. Viewing them with a longer, future-facing timeline, I understand them not as symbols of a healthy forest that once was, but as the fuel of the more fire-resilient forest that will be. As Shenal explains, her photographs inspired her to learn more about “efforts to create healthy forest ecosystems” in the Pacific Northwest including “reducing fuel loads during the winter season” to “reverse the decades-long fire suppression strategies that . . . have left the forests vulnerable to intense wildfires.” The intimate, close view of Slash Piles 06 and Slash Piles 07 encourages me to appreciate the intricate beauty of these fuels and reconfigures my understanding of the dead materials as emblems of destruction to those of creation. They signify land management practices that are moving beyond suppression-at-all-costs to embrace the implementation of fire for both ecological and cultural purposes. They thus stand as potent images of a different kind of fuel loading which can support different kinds of fire, renewing social and ecological landscapes. "Feeling Fuel" Kelsey Grafton's Becoming Suze Woolf's Splintered As the introductory statement of the Fuel Loading exhibit makes clear, fire practitioners and managers tend to classify fuels by type: dry grasses, shrubs, dense stands of conifers, logging slash piles, etc. These categories emphasize that “fuel” is a designation inherently concerned with material and materiality. But, of course, fuel also signifies energy, in that fires burn differently depending on the type of material that feeds them: grasses are quick and hot, while slash piles tend to burn slow and steady. It thus makes sense that much of the artwork in the Fuel Loading exhibit foregrounds the energetic presence—and emotional valences—of specific materials. Take, for example, the pieces that make up Kelsey Grafton’s Trees of Morrow series. These sculptures are directly composed of the raw materials of fire’s fuel. As she explains in her artist statement, Grafton draws from her family homestead in Colville, Washington to “hand-harvest earthenware clay, pull textures from fallen structures, and gather artifacts left behind by my ancestors as a way of preserving our fading family history through art-making.” As structures like Becoming and Morphosis illustrate, this material engagement increasingly concerns itself with fire—as the homestead has become vulnerable to wildfire and the family busies themselves with tree thinning and slash pile burning, the fuel that provides the energy to Grafton’s artistic practice becomes the same fuel driving fire prevention measures on the site. For Grafton, this material fuel lends her creative practice an optimistic energy; Becoming clearly juxtaposes preventative burning with new life, as it depicts fresh berries growing from charred wood. Suze Woolf’s work shares this fuel and energy. She was formerly an artist who painted “beautiful intact landscapes,” yet works like Splintered and Logged, Drifted, and Burned provide us with intimate portraits of individual burned trees. This focus and its detailed representation of the fuel’s transformation by fire is a means of mediating Woolf’s anxieties about human impacts on the climate. As she suggests, the carbonized, “eaten away” snags of her paintings task us with finding “unusual beauty” in what is all too easy to dismiss as used up. right: Kate Lund's Brush Fit left: aj miccio's Davis Burn Scar Feeling Fuel Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma, Pyrometric Whirl The Northwest Fire Science Consortium’s informational pamphlet “What is Fuel?” tells us that “fuel is the only component of the fire triangle that land owners and managers can influence.” In this declaration, they confidently position fuel as within our control. Yet several of the pieces in Fuel Loading call this confidence into question. Kate Lund’s imposing Brush Fit , which she composed of rip-stop nylon, wool, flannel, and fleece, evokes the emotional experience of being caught in too much fuel—of not being able to influence this particular corner of the fire triangle, no matter the equipment that you have on hand. Lund explains that a “brushfit” is a temper tantrum that you throw “when you succumb to the challenges of walking in an overgrown forest.” The particular brushfit that inspires Lund’s sculpture took place as she and a crew were hiking 50 lb bladder bags into a small fire in the steep terrain of Northern Idaho. Lund and the crew begin their hike with positive attitudes, buoyed in part by their gear and saws. Yet the density of the forest quickly defeated them. She explains: “I remember stopping, grabbing a hold of a tree so that I didn’t roll down the hill, and thinking, What am I doing here? Why do I do this to myself? Why are we even putting this fire out when this whole hillside needs to burn anyway?” Brush Fit powerfully visualizes this transition from idealized expectations to frustrated realities, progressing from clean lines to a frazzled mass that looms over us. The piece is dominated by a literal increase in the density of materials and poses a vital question: how much control over fuels do we have, really? aj miccio’s drawing of the Davis Burn Scar and Anne Acker-Mathieu’s acrylic collages—especially Ignition Casino and Fields of Fuel —replicate the affective tension of Lund’s brushfit. Like Lund’s sculpture, miccio’s drawing and Acker-Mathieu’s paintings relish in the density of visual information to provoke emotional responses from viewers. In their packedness and abundance of detail and color, respectively, they too suggest that we may not be as in control of fuel and/or our emotions as we might assume. The airier pieces in Fuel Loading offer me some relief, albeit fleetingly. Amiko Matsuo and Brad Monsma’s Pyrometric Whirl initially provokes in me the opposite emotional and affective experience of Brush Fit . Whereas my anxiety increases as my eye travels upward in the latter, I feel a sense of calm as I scroll from bottom to top of Matsuo and Monsma’s image. A dense red clump lifts into ethereal black and white whisps, providing me with a sense of upward relief and evaporation. I am released from the brushfit of the painting’s bottom half, finding solace in a dance of vapors. But, fitting to form, this respite is as transitory as the swirling air that evokes it—the longer that I look, the more that bottom half and top half intermesh such that I’m confronted with the process of one becoming the other. The whisps are not relief from the red clump but its latest iteration; as I learn that the red pigment of the painting stems from the fire retardant Phos-chek, I am once again thinking about fuel, feelings, and control. Matsuo and Monsma explain that their work, especially the “wound-like” Phos-check marks on paper, expresses “the ironies of fire suppression rhetoric while also suggesting the rage of a combustion and intolerant political landscape.” “The whole earth is fuel-loaded,” they continue, and their work demands that we grapple with the full extent of our desire to influence any (or all?) parts of the fire triangle. I now see the painting as depicting the transformation of material from a site-specific measure of prevention into a traveling vector of toxicity waiting for our inhale, and become aware of how we, literally, become and embody the very fuels that we add to today’s firescapes. The artists’ connection of the physical and cultural fires that dominate contemporary life in the American West broadens the scope and urgency of this tension: how do our suppression efforts—suppression of fire, but also of political debates and schisms—become fuels in and of themselves? And to what sort of energy do these fuels give rise? further considerations contributed by Confluence Lab member Erin James, December 2023. Next