featured artist Enid Smith Becker Bellevue, WA Enid Smith Becker lives and works in the Seattle area. Inspired by the complex dynamic between humans and the surrounding world, her paintings remind us of how our interactions with nature can transform ourselves and the land. Enid studied art at the University of Washington and has taught art in secondary school. Her paintings are in numerous collections around the US and abroad. In her work for this show, Enid presents a fluid, multifaceted experience that mirrors our own interactions with place and time as we frame our experiences through the screen of a mobile device. The sharp edges of the planes within the painting represent the human influence on the land. The layering of multiple perspectives invites the viewer to see the world through shifting lenses of time, scale, and space. The work is painted in acrylic on canvas. featured artwork "Witness" acrylic on canvas, 30in x 48in, created in response to the Maple fire that burned on the Olympic peninsula in 2018 responding to Ground Truths Witness was created in response to the Maple fire that burned on the Olympic peninsula in 2018. This is a painting of contrasts- the contrast of the organic of the old growth forest and the sharp cut edges of the windows of fire (representing the human impact), the contrast of the cool green of the woods and the hot orange of the fire. If ground truthing establishes the veracity of a map, I see my painting as a verification of reality -a kind of map that asserts the veracity of climate change. Like all my paintings, there is an intentional beauty in the depiction of the natural space in order to draw the viewer in. But the beauty of the old growth forest is broken by the windows of fire. A reminder of what has happened and what will happen if we don't work to protect our natural world. The painting presents a kind of ground truthing for the future- both a warning and an admonition. As a native Washingtonian almost all of my paintings are inspired by the pacific northwest. It's a place I know well and love. I spend a lot of time outdoors. The places I explore and the photos I take are the starting point for my paintings. Within each painting the windows I create tell a story about the place be it a change of season, a new perspective or an event such as a wildfire. more from Enid's perspective Salish Tides, acrylic on canvas, 48in x 72in The Salish Sea, Hood Canal, is a place Enid often goes. Her one room cabin is surrounded by old growth forest. The beach view is the one you see here. It was also from this perspective that Enid watched the Maple fire burn on the Olympic peninsula in 2018, inspiring the painting, Witness. Spring Stream, acrylic on canvas, 24in x 48in This work is inspired by an area that Enid hikes through, just east of Seattle. As is often the case in Enid’s paintings, the sharp edges of the frames within the image represent the human view and action upon the land. Winter Woods , acrylic on canvas, 48in x 72in Enid painted this work a year ago, inspired by a winter storm and how snow drains color from the land it covers. The trunks of the Douglas firs are brown and their branches are dark green, but the effect is one of a black and white landscape. Brighter Haze , acrylic on canvas, 30in x 40in This painting was inspired by the song “Brighter Haze,” written by Enid’s friend, the singer songwriter Kristin Chambers. Chambers wrote it while watching the color of the sky change during a forest fire. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist Katie Kehoe Tallahassee, FL Katie Kehoe is a multidisciplinary artist who creates survival architecture, objects and wearables which are used in performances and site-specific installations. Her work is designed to engage the public to reflect on changing climate and sustainability and has been presented across the US and Canada, including The Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, DC), The Contemporary Museum (Baltimore, MD), Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockland, ME), RedLine Contemporary (Denver, CO), Emerge Art Fair (Washington, DC), Arlington Arts Center’s Inaugural Regional Biennial (Arlington, VA), SummerWorks Festival – LiveArt Series (Toronto, ON) . She has had solo shows at VisArts (Rockville, MD) and Type Books Gallery (Toronto, CAN) and is a member of the Atlantika Collective and Cultivate Projects artist collectives. As an artist, Katie values cross-disciplinary collaboration and recently worked with Dr. Jagadish Shukla, one of the nation’s leading climate scientists, to create Breaching Waterways with Provisions Research Center for Arts and Social Change for CALL/Walks. Katie was raised in Cape Breton, Canada, completed an MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, and is currently based in Tallahassee, Florida, where she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Florida State University. featured artwork "Wildfire Shelters for Small Animals" 35.66754°N, 105.43550°W, Santa Fe National Forest, NM, photographic documentation of site-specific installation, 2023 responding to SIGHTLINES Climate change and extreme weather have been the subject of my work since 2016 and for the past two years, I’ve been specifically addressing the increased instances and intensity of wildfires resulting from climate change. During an artist residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, I created a series of wildfire shelters inspired by New Mexico’s largest recorded wildfire: the 2022 Calf Canyon and Hermit's Peak fires merged to burn over 340,000 acres east of Santa Fe. After creating the shelters, I installed them in areas where the fire burned and documented them with digital photography. I think of the wildfire shelters I create as “survival architecture”: they have the appearance of providing protection from flame, heat, and smoke exposure, but are sculptural objects intended to be symbolic and engage the viewer to consider the implications of climate change. Are we approaching a time when it will be necessary to carry these sorts of lifesaving devices around with us from day to day? more from Katie's perspective Katie in Santa Fe National Forest, 35.65350N, 105.42818 W, when carrying out a temporary site-specific installation featuring three portable wildfire shelters she created. To locate installation sites, Katie drove in and out of dirt roads leading in and through Santa Fe National Forest where the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak wildfire burned a year before. This map documents the area burned when the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires merged to become the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history. My feet on the ground in Santa Fe National Forest. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist aj miccio Springfield, OR aj miccio is a multidisciplinary artist and storyteller. His work explores the connections between science, design, technology, and environment. He graduated from Colorado State University with a BFA in drawing and graphic design and more recently earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon in journalism. featured artwork "Davis Burn Scar," ink on bristol, 11in x 14in, 2023 responding to Fuel Loading My featured drawing is based on the 2003 Davis burn scar in the Deschutes National Forest. Sketches were made on location, where the burn scar has regrown with shrubs and small trees. Some large trees still stand like skeletons above the new foliage. The final drawing was made under the smoke of the Bedrock and Lookout fires in the summer of 2023. more from aj's perspective 2023-09-07. South of the Three Sisters Peaks, charred trees stand above 20-year growth in the Davis Burn Scar. Chat back to exhibition Chat

photo credit: Lisa East featured artist Lisa Cristinzo Toronto, Canada Lisa Cristinzo is a queer painter and installation artist and a first-generation Canadian settler living in T’karonto on Turtle Island. Cristinzo’s large-scale painting installations traverse natural history, climate hazards, materialism, and magic. She holds a BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design University and an MFA from York University, where she received a graduate scholarship and a Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council grant for her research into fire and climate change. Along with being an artist, she has spent over a decade managing arts programs and community cultural hubs, including Artscape Gibraltar Point, an artist residency and event space on Mnisiing/Toronto Island. featured artwork "Fraternal Fire," acrylic on wood panel, 77in x 60in, 2023 "How to write a painting," acrylic on wood panel, 36in x 48in, 2022 "Marked Trail," acrylic on linen, 60in x 82in, 2023 "Birch Bark is like Snake Skin," acrylic on wood panel, 36in x 48in, 2021 responding to Fuel Loading The basis of my research is the concept of materialism, as well as the lustrous objects I consider when painting. I use fire and its process as a metaphor, an illustration of environmental impact and a response to materialism. Through fire, I have drawn links between my own illness (cancer diagnosis) and the imbalances of the planet. I had developed a habit of excessive accumulation, a theme that presented itself in my work, my art practice, my health, and my relationships. This cyclical theme is what I call “the build up, the burn and the burn out.” This problem is not unique to me; I extend this behavior to our entire species, a species with the capacity to harness excessive amounts of materials from a fragile earth. Our obsession with possessions has caused a warming planet, 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. The subject matter for my current body of work came to me while staying in a stone cabin. I started each morning by collecting kindling and lighting a fire in the wood stove, and soon came to see the pieces of wood, newspaper, burnable objects, and ash as triangular compositions suitable for painting. As a result, the fireplace became a still life within a frame. I began to postpone the fire each morning to sketch the arrangement prior to burning. Building a fire became a means of building a painting. My paintings rarely actually show fire, instead the focus is on the potential for fire, a hidden energy moving through a landscape looking for points of friction. Friction, oxygen and fuel transform fire from a potential to a reaction. In the painting Birch Bark is like Snakeskin , all the unscorched materials in the world gather on top of one last stump to drink water from its center. There is gentleness in the gathering, though, because the desire to drink from what is left could cause it, too, to endure fire. more from Lisa's perspective Plein air painting at Halls Island Artist Residency located on an off-grid island in Haliburton, Ontario, CANADA where Lisa painted Fraternal Fire amongst the red and white pines. Large collection of Lisa's daily matchbook paintings, often done in the woods or in reference to them. Fraternal Fire in progress: Lisa sweeping paint with a large paint brush back and forth en plein air during the Halls Island Artist Residency. Studio shot work in progress for Marked Trail . photo credit: Lisa East Chat back to exhibition Chat

Part of the larger Stories of Fire Atlas Project , Where There Is Smoke is a crowd-sourced digital map that documents experiences of wildfire smoke in the Pacific Northwest and further afield. Once built, the map will serve as a spatial and temporal nexus of images and stories connecting the smoke in the air to the historical, social and ecological conditions and pre-conditions of fire on the ground. Through the inclusion of many voices, Where There is Smoke will highlight how changing climate and increasing wildfire are impacting communities across seasons and topographies and cooperatively build a greater understanding of how fire and fire management intersect with environmental justice. Help build the map. Contribute your Smoke Story. This project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s “Just Futures ” Initiative . COMING SOON explore the Where There is Smoke... website! This map is part of The Confluence Lab’s Pacific Northwest Stories of Fire Atlas Project. Next

Our Changing Climate Finding Common Ground through Climate Fiction Jennifer Ladino, Kayla Bordelon & Idaho Community Members funded by the Idaho Humanities Council Opportunity Grant 2019-2022 Modeled on the successful "Let's Talk About It" series, Jennifer Ladino (English and Environmental Science, University of Idaho) and Environmental Science PhD Kayla Bordelon hosted conversations about climate change in four Idaho communities: Coeur d’Alene, McCall, Grangeville, and Lewiston. Ladino and Bordelon, both former National Park Service rangers, drew on NPS audience engagement strategies to invite discussion and encourage participants to share personal stories. They used Barbara Kingsolver’s climate change novel Flight Behavior as a gateway to identifying common ground and common concerns about climate change, and to start dismantling communication barriers that may impede progress on environmental problems in rural communities. Next

featured artist Laura Ahola-Young Pocatello, ID Laura Ahola-Young received her MFA from San Jose State University and her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She currently resides in Pocatello, Idaho where she is an Associate Professor of Art at Idaho State University. Originally from the Iron Range and Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Northern Minnesota, Laura is influenced by landscape, winters, ice and resilience. She is currently developing work that incorporates scientific research, plant physiology, critical plant studies, geology and personal narrative. featured artwork "Mapping Oxygen" mixed-media on board,18in x 18in, 2021 Two Pines Down (after the Fire) graphite, ink and watercolor on paper, 20in x 16in, 2023 "Found Object 2, Cut, Burned" ink and watercolor on board, 22in x 22in, 2023 "Found Object 1, Cut, Burned" ink and watercolor on board, 22in x 22in, 2023 "Lichenization 2 and the Marking of Fire" mixed-media on paper, 18in x 12in, 2023 responding to Ground Truths These works are inspired by a collection of photos from fire landscapes I encounter. Initially, my goal in taking these photos was to identify the first plant life after the fire, and while this investigation continues as part of my practice, these pieces departed from those intentions as I became interested in how humans have marked the land before fire and the skeletal remains of trees acting as maps of time, oxygen and carbon. As an artist I attempt to provide evidence of the intricacies of regeneration, of life in the forest. The findings on the ground after a fire reveal the marks of fire itself: lichen, mycology, growth, decay and the complex relationship between human actions and vegetal life. I understand the need for a forest to regenerate itself through fire—yet fear, destruction and abundance of the wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are a new experience that terrifies and humbles me. I hope that my work situates my past with my present in a way that represents the forest—and all that is vegetal—in a reverent and ethical depiction of life. more from Laura's perspective Gibson Jack Trail: Laura's favorite hike in Pocatello, part of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest a view of Pocatello, Idaho where Laura lives: Pocatello, a high desert and a sage steppe landscape is in the Southeast corner of Idaho an example of Laura's source imagery: a photo from her collection of visiting and documenting forest fire sites 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

Ground Truths showcases creative works that experiment with this practice of knowing, engaging on-the-ground perspectives and firsthand experiences of wildfire’s presence (or threat of presence) in the Pacific Northwest. Stories of Fire On line Exhibition Ser ies Part I: If a map is to be used for navigation, it functions only insofar as its relationship to the ground is true. Any map that represents the land from above inherently prioritizes certain features, distorting or omitting others. Scale, resolution and framing, along with what is labeled and what is left out, color the viewer’s relationship with a particular territory and the spatial representations of a map imply particular ways of knowing. Ground truthing is a cartographic practice which seeks to establish the veracity of any given map: how does an embedded experience differ from the abstracted perspective represented by the map? GROUND TRUTHS showcases creative works that experiment with this practice of knowing, engaging on-the-ground perspectives and firsthand experiences of wildfire’s presence (or threat of presence) in the Pacific Northwest. It catalogs the various ways artists are orienting themselves to their changing communities, and how they are thinking through the materials, textures, and living beings of their local landscapes to understand wildfire’s new place in their lives. Through these works, we experience fire as a wild force and a management tool, a lively presence and a haunting specter. We see it through the eyes of children and adults, and stretch into the worldviews of other species, too. As both agent and inspiration, wildfire rips across the landscape, but just as often it finds tinder in the artists’ imaginations. Here, then, we have assembled a map deep and twisted, one that honors the rich sensory, intellectual, and instinctual experiences of wildfire even as it reckons with wildfire’s undeniable material reality. This work is presented in collaboration by: “Seeking truth involves boots on the ground while looking for clues in the clouds.” David Paul Bayles And made possible by the generous support of: Megan Hatch almost there - losing ground archival pigment print, 10in x 27in, 2022 Jean Arnold Malden 3: Remnants acrylic on canvas, 20in x 22in, 2020 Meredith Ojala ALL I SEE IS RED oil on canvas 18in x 24in, 2018 Margo Geddes Standing Dead Silver Gelatin Print, 10in x 10in, 2022 Margo Geddes left: Heart Boulder right: Black Ground Silver Gelatin Prints, 10in x 10in, 2022 "To live in the Pacific Northwest these days is to live with the pervasiveness of fire in its many guises–with the smoke that signals fire, over there; with the flames that signal fire, right now; and with the charred landscapes that si gnal fire, back then. Fire is present here, even when it is not." Erin James read more on how the ubiquity of fire is explored in Ground Truths. Laura Ahola-Young Found Object 1, Cut, Burned ink and watercolor on board, 22in x 22in, 2023 Laura Ahola-Young Found Object 2, Cut, Burned ink and watercolor on board, 22in x 22in, 2023 Siri Stensberg From the Smoke, For the Birds video and audio. 2020 Julie Mortimer Crow Memories watercolor, 12in x 16in Asante Riverwind Waldo Wilderness and Mountain Bluebird acrylic on canvas, 8in x 10in Mary Vanek Smith Sky on Fire oil on canvas, 11in x 14in Justin Webb Skeletons of Soda Fire 2 silver gelatin print using Ilford glossy RC paper, 5in x 7in, 2021 Justin Webb Skeletons of Soda Fire 1 silver gelatin print using Ilford glossy RC paper, 5in x 7in, 2021 Kate Lund Are You Sure We are Going the Right Way? cattle marker and graphite on panel, 3ft x 4ft, 2016 David Paul Bayles & Frederick J. Swanson from Typologies: Charred Abstractions series Laura Ahola-Young Mapping Oxygen mixed-media on board, 18in x 18in, 2021 Kate Lund Downdraft installation view & detail, cattle marker & graphite on paper, 5ft x 23ft, 2016 Enid Smith Becker Witness acrylic on canvas, 30in x 48in, 2018 Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes (FIPL): Overlook Field School various projects from five week workshop, 2021 "Being in the thick of things –or gra ppl ing wi th fire from within, as opposed to witnessing it from afar– is essential to understanding not only what fire is tod ay, but what it means to the various commu nities that live with it in our region." Erin James read more about Ground Truths artists with "boots on the ground ." Maggie Keefe West of Cabin RX watercolor Alice Keefe collage Maggie Keefe Upper Hatter RX watercolor Laura Ahola-Young Two Pines Down (after the Fire) graphite, Ink and watercolor on paper, 20in x 16in, 2023 David Paul Bayles & & Frederick J. Swanson Typology Series: Canopy Triptych David Paul Bayles & & Frederick J. Swanson Typology Series: Charred Abstraction Triptych David Paul Bayles & & Frederick J. Swanson Chronosequence Series: Photopoint FFR 2 views from Finn Rock Bridge looking down the McKenzie River to prow of an island with jam of wood floated into place before fire, 2020-23 David Paul Bayles & & Frederick J. Swanson Chronosequence Series: Photopoint FFR 17 views looking up the McKenzie River valley in a mixed hardwood and conifer forest on a terrace high above the river, 2020-22 Oregon Episcopal School & Sophia Hatzikos Lift, Coil, Zip retired wildfire hoses from Redmond, OR fire cache, steel, zip ties, 2022 Lift, Coil, Zip in progress, spring 2022 Laura Ahola-Young Lichenization 2 and the Marking of Fire mixed-media on paper, 18in x 12in, 2023 "Our region is full of wounds, of ruined shells in the forest that testify to fires that are too hot and too big. But these “wounds” are also openings... " Erin James read more about openings offered through Ground Truths artists. Sasha Michelle White The Containment (FIRST AID KIT FOR THE FIRE-PRONE) 2020-2021. Tinctures of Arnica, Balsam Root, Tall Oregon Grape and Yarrow. Silk, wool and cotton dyed with Blackberry, Ceanothus, St Johns Wort, Tall Oregon Grape, and Yarrow. Charcoal Powder. Burn Salve. Protocol poems and photographs. Megan Hatch almost there - losing ground archival pigment print, 10in x 27in, 2022 Jean Arnold Malden 8: Shreds ink and gouache on paper, 11in x 14in, 2022 Kate Lund Microburst wire fencing, rip-stop nylon, flannel, deer fencing, tent poles, 9ft x 9ft x 4ft, 2016 Megan Hatch the way isn't clear - and yet here we are archival pigment print, 27in x 10in, 2022 Jean Arnold Malden 1: After the Inferno acrylic on canvas, 20in x 26in, 2020 Jean Arnold Malden 5: Phase Change gouache on paper, 12in x 14in, 2022 Jean Arnold Malden 2: Gutted acrylic on canvas, 20in x 26in, 2022 Liz Toohey-Wiese Billboard installed outside of Vernon, BC from August 2020 - March 2021 further considerations "Ubiquitous Fire" A key theme of the art that features in the Ground Truths collection is the ubiquity of fire. To live in the Pacific Northwest these days is to live with the pervasiveness of fire in its many guises–with the smoke that signals fire, over there; with the flames that signal fire, right now; and with the charred landscapes that signal fire, back then. Fire is present here, even when it is not. As Meredith Ojala notes in her response to the call for submissions, her oil on canvas Seeing Red is one painting in a set “made at the time when wildfires felt all-encompassing, when the world felt like it was on fire.” Her experience of driving through and living in fires in Southern Idaho, Eastern Oregon, and Washington in the summer of 2018 was so sweeping that it defined the daily rhythms of her life. She fell asleep looking out at wildfire from her windows and was woken up by the sounds of water-bombers. Even her dreams turned red. She notes that wildfires took over many of her paintings, even when she “had no plans to incorporate them.” The ubiquity of fire looms large in the wild abstractness of Ojala’s painting: we are unsure if we are looking at flames, or wildfire scars, or red dreams. The image is both beautiful and terrifying. It, like fire, appears multiplicitous–expansive and unbound to any one meaning or experience. Indeed, the very everywhereness of fire in our region is one way of conceptualizing the diversity of vantage points and materials with which the Ground Truths artists come at the subject. Margo Geddes’ work, too, grapples with the all-presence of wildfire. She notes that “fire season has become ubiquitous during the summer months in Montana,” and her photographs are one way of processing the “swiftly changing” landscape as it moves through fire’s various phases. Geddes’ prints illustrate fire’s mercurial nature as well as the rich range of emotions that fire can produce. The starkness of Standing Dead evokes familiar narratives of fire’s capacious destructiveness–its ability to rip through a landscape, leaving only wounds behind. But the patient observer will notice life among the ruins; what initially appears as a luscious shadow of a tree in the photograph’s bottom right corner encourages the eye to recalibrate and open itself up to the trees that live and thrive amongst the char. This emotional movement, from that of scars to that of regeneration, repeats in her photo of the Heart Boulder. While driving through the Bitterroot National Forest, Geddes spotted granitic boulders previously hidden amongst forest foliage but now exposed by fire’s wake. By capturing this moment of legibility, before the boulders are hidden again by fireweed, Geddes’ work illuminates yet another version of fire–one of reveal, regeneration, and renewal. Ojala’s and Geddes’ descriptions of their artistic process suggests that one way to grapple with the ubiquity of fire is to drive through it, literally. This act of experiencing fire on the move, or moving with fire across space and time, is even more apparent in Siri Stensberg’s From the Smoke, For the Birds . Filmed while driving through a dust and smoke storm in Eastern Washington in early fall, 2020, Stensberg’s piece is a visual and auditory echo of the “Fable of Tomorrow” that opens Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring . The video, which at first appears peaceful, quickly becomes filled with what is missing: no birds perch on the telephone lines, and the reason for their absence becomes clear as audio of a voicemail from Stensberg’s grandmother tells us about birds dying of smoke inhalation after fleeing a fire. Stensberg explains that the video and layered vocals create space for viewers to “mourn the wildlife and ecosystems lost in forest fires of the Pacific Northwest.” Her piece also asks us to linger on the various ways, both immediately perceptible and not, that fire lingers in our lives. Two additional pieces similarly turn to the non-human to illuminate fire’s ubiquity. Julie Mortimer’s Crow Memories brings to life the ghostly presence that defines Stensberg’s video, demanding that we shift our perspective from human to bird to experience wildfire and its effects. The misty air that dominates public imaginations of the Pacific Northwest is present on the edges of Mortimer’s watercolor. But this moisture gives way to dirty smoke in the painting’s center, such that the titular crow must turn its head to breathe. Stensberg’s video asks us to live in a world in which the birds have fled, or died. Mortimer’s work, on the other hand, tasks us with inhabiting a moment of captivity during which the crow attempts–and perhaps fails–to find the air to escape. The crow, a powerful cultural symbol of both death and the future, is here caught between the two in a landscape that similarly hovers between one version of itself and another. If Mortimer’s crow is trapped in the moment of, Asante Riverwind’s bluebird thrives in the time after. Mountain Bluebird and Waldo Wilderness is inspired by Riverwind’s experience of the 1996 Wheeler Point Fire in Eastern and Central Oregon, which he himself fought to save structures and forest for five brutal days. Like the crow, Riverwind struggled to breathe the smoke and see through the air that enveloped him. But as a longtime resident of the area trained as a USFS sawyer and firefighter, he remained to experience the aftermath of the fire. As he explains, the bluebird is a “resilient species well adapted to fire ecology,” and his particular bluebird, thriving brightly amongst the snags and debris, reminds us that “life is truly resilient, as are we all.” His painting visually declares that blue skies, like bluebirds, are also part of the fire cycles of our region. Finally, Mary Vanek Smith’s painting provides us with yet another perspective of fire and its ubiquity–this time a highly emotional one. Sky on Fire takes, as its subject matter, the presence of active fire. But rather than menace or destruction, Smith’s oil painting evokes beauty and tranquility. Its brilliant orange imagery and symmetry foster a sense of calm, and the foregrounded fence suggests a certain safety from the wildness of Ojala’s red dreams. Indeed, the painting could easily be one of a stunning Western sunrise; as Smith explains, the painting’s “beautiful natural display” stands in for “hundreds of thousands of acres of forest being burned.” The painting thus cleverly captures the cognitive, emotional, and affective dissonance of finding beauty in terror, and locating a new tomorrow in the fires of today. Ubiquitous Fire Meredith Ojala ALL I SEE IS RED Margo Geddes Standing Dead Boots GTruth "Boots on the Ground" Boots on the ground: in many ways this is a clichéd phrase that, with its evocation of military action, brings to mind images of war, soldiers, defense, and attack. As such, it fits a popular narrative of fire in the twenty-first-century Pacific Northwest as an adversary that we must defeat–an evil presence escaping out of the woods that demands active fighting. The complete story of fire in our region is, of course, much more complicated: modern wildfire is both too hot and too fast, seeded as it is by decades of the fuel loading that has resulted from federal- and state-supported suppression policies, and a necessary part of the lifecycle of many of the region’s ecosystems. Having boots on the ground in our contemporary firescape is thus also much more complicated than the military connotations of the phrase suggest. As many of the contributions to Ground Truths attest, being in the thick of things–or grappling with fire from within, as opposed to witnessing it from afar–is essential to understanding not only what fire is today, but what it means to the various communities that live with it in our region. Kate Lund’s contributions to Ground Truths began when she was in fire: while studying as an art student, Lund spent eight summers working as a wildland firefighter with the United States Forest Service (USFS). As she explains, she used firefighting to “fuel” her artistic practice, collecting “images, objects, and sensations over the course of each summer in the landscape.” That collection is on vivid display in Are You Sure We are Going the Right Way , Downdraft and Microburst –gestural renderings and sculptures that not only evoke her experiences of fire operations but carry within them remnants of the urgency and distress of being in the field. Microburst, for example, makes use of expired and cast-off tents and outdoor firefighting equipment to conjure the way that wind moves during a fire. Fencing, nylon, and tent poles hang together to situate the viewer within the actual wildfire’s wind–“short, sharp bursts of air strong enough to mow down 200 foot-tall trees in a matter of seconds.” The work of David Paul Bayles and Frederick J. Swanson similarly originates in situ. A western Oregon photographer and a retired Research Geologist with the USFS’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, respectively, Bayles and Swanson have made dozens of site visits over two and a half years to the landscape blackened by the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire to better understand wildfire and its effects on our region. As they eloquently explain, “seeking truth involves boots on the ground while looking for clues in the clouds,” as “that’s what trees do.” Bayles and Swanson use a variety of scientific and artistic methodologies to try on a tree’s perspective, working together to combine the photographer’s eye for form and color with the scientists’ focus on biological and physical processes. Their meditative treeness, or quiet on-the-groundness, is clear in the two styles of photographic work that feature in their Ground Truths contributions: Typologies (groups of images of single subjects) and Chronosequences (photographs that track change over time). “Truth may be lodged in the tread of our boots,” they note–a sentiment made visual in the rootedness with which we must observe the treetops in their Typologies: Canopy series and its observations of the forest’s resilience. The Keefe family shows us the intergenerational ramifications of fire field work. As their artist’s statement explains, the Keefes “study fire from a variety of disciplines and perspectives”: Rob as Director of the University of Idaho Experimental Forest (UIEF), Maggie as a watercolor painter, and their nine-year-old daughter Alice as a collager. Maggie’s paintings pull directly from Rob’s work in the UIEF, capturing the results of prescribed burns that prepare the site for regeneration and low-intensity fires that burn the understory to reduce grass and shrub fuels. The prescriptive titles of Upper Hatter Rx and West of Cabin Rx signal the tone and intent of these paintings; the Keefes explain that “prescribed fire is one of our most effective tools for reducing wildfire in the Pacific Northwest,” and these paintings “show the use of good fire in forests on the Palouse Range.” We see this “goodness easily in the latter painting, which depicts a fire manager walking calmly amongst a stand of healthy trees and signals the harmonious relationship of the prescribed burn and landscape via the fuzzy border between flame and grass. Alice also captures the “goodness” of prescribed burns in her collage–a bright and cheerful work that illustrates what this fire means “to her soul” as she remembers “seeing the flames for myself disappear as they burn down the pile.” Her collage, evoking the safe and the domestic in its doily base, offers us the same challenge as her mother’s paintings: what if we understood fire to be not “wild” and destructive, but peaceful and familiar? Finally, work from two field schools once again highlights the power of being boots on the ground. Members of the Overlook Field School , funded by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes, spent five weeks in the summer of 2021 visiting post-fire sites in the Willamette National Forest, most of which had burned within the past thirty years. Their focus was on “recovery,” which they explain as “analogous to resilience, restoration, and regeneration . . . a return to a previous state–perhaps a new normal.” The temporary landscape installations recorded in their Recovery booklet track not only these forest explorations but also the exceptional conditions of their field work, including the record heat wave of their first day of field school and the wildfires that dominated the final design stage. Their work is thus triply-site-specific, in that it studies wildfire in place, takes inspiration from the environment in which it is produced, and demands that exhibit visitors, too, inhabit this specific location. Similarly, the collaboration between Sophia Hatzikos and the students of the Oregon Episcopal School enrolled in the I.M.P.A.C.T. (innovate/make/act/collaborate/tinker) course activates situated public art to generate new knowledge about climate change and the wildland firefighting industry. Inspired by site visits to the Lake Oswego Gallery without Walls, particularly the nearby tall trees and the next door firehouse, the students repurposed fire hoses originally used in wildfire suppression during 2020 and 2021, now destined for the landfill, to create Lift, Coil, Zip . The three hose towers, which cleverly summon visual and formal connections to tree rings and silver birches, intertangle contemporary forests in the Pacific Northwest and the fire suppression efforts that have created and maintained them. They ask: how much does our experience of the region’s forests rely upon the wildfire-fighting industry and its policies of suppression? Where does hose end and tree begin? And what might the landscape look like in the absence of either? Oregon Episcopal School Lift, Coil, Zip in progress Bayles & Swanson Chronosequences Series: Photopoint FFR 2 wound openings "The Wound is an Opening" Enid Smith Becker Witness When I look at Enid Smith-Becker’s Witness , I initially see a scene of devastation. Columns of red interrupt an otherwise peaceful scene in the forest, burning upwards as they lay waste to the trees and understory. The stark vertical lines of flames literally chop the image up into before and after, or, rather, what once was/is and what will be. But, the longer that I look at this painting, the more diplopic, or double-sighted, it becomes. A second scene emerges, in which the columns of fire are not incinerating trees, but held within them. This interpretation foregrounds the idea of serotiny, a term associated with cone-bearing trees such as many species of pine, spruce, and sequoia that depend upon a blast of heat to trigger the release of their seeds. The longer that I look at Witness, the more clearly that I see two fires: one angry and devastating and another the first step in regeneration. I also see two sets of trees, respectively: one in the moment of collapse and another brimming with energy, potential, and life. The double-nature of Witness brings to life for me a line in the poem that accompanies Sasha Michelle White’s The Containment : “the wound is an opening.” The wound in the poem refers to delivery mechanisms in and of the body by which we can receive treatment and begin to heal. But it also strikes me as a powerful prescription for understanding the fire-prone and -affected landscapes of the twenty-first-century Pacific Northwest, or appreciating the two sets of trees that we see in Witness. Our region is full of wounds, of ruined shells in the forest that testify to fires that are too hot and too big. But these “wounds” are also openings of various kinds. Some of these openings are literal, in that many plants in our region need fire to open up to survive and thrive. Still other openings are figurative, in that they assert alternative burning practices and fire regimes that understand and use fire as a tool of life rather than one of only violence and annihilation. (Hence, also, the refrain that runs through White’s poem: “whose lands are you on?” ) Her work encourages us to think of not only the burn, but also the salve that follows. Several contributors to Ground Truths emphasize the violence of today’s wildfires and the wounds they cause. See, for example, Justin Webb’s photographs of the aftermath of the 2015 Soda Fire. The two trees that dominate Skeletons of Soda Fire 1 and 2 remain, six years after the event, as evidence of what we have lost. As Webb writes in his contributor’s note, his photographs are inspired by the experience of “seeing a landscape that I grew up exploring stripped of its already limited plant life.” The stark black and whiteness of Webb’s arboreal photos revise Ansel Adams’ iconic images of National Parks for the Pyrocene era. Webb swaps Adams’ wild and abundant sublime for the sublime of what is now absent and the wrecks that remain. See, too, the trees that similarly haunt the backgrounds of Jean Arnold’s paintings of what is left in Malden, Washington. In September 2020, the Babb Road Fire burned 15,000 acres and over two hundred buildings–including 67 homes–in a few hours. The five paintings in Arnold’s Malden series foreground this domestic devastation, documenting the exposed interiors of shattered houses with brutal clarity. Yet is the background that haunts me most in these images. Behind each set of ruins stands a set of trees that signals just how far the loss stretches. The trees in Malden 8: Shreds and Malden 5: Phase Change , in particular, remind me that it is not only our homes that are disappearing, but the homes (and lives) of countless other species with which we share this region. The ghost of what once also lingers in Liz Toohey-Wise’s striking Billboard , which anticipated the White Rock Lake Fire in 2022. Be quick, the billboard says to us with its tongue in its cheek; see this landscape while you can, as it won’t be here long. Other contributions to Ground Truths function at a different scale of time or engage alternative cultural practices to help us see wounds as the first step in healing and, often, a necessary phase in life. This perspective is perhaps loudest in the powders, salves, and tinctures of White’s The Containment –part of her larger project FIRST-AID KIT FOR THE FIRE-PRONE . Featuring medicines and dyes she made from fire-adapted plants of the southern Willamette Valley and The Nature Conservancy’s Sycan Marsh Preserve such as arnica, snowbrush ceanothus, and St John’s wort, White’s kit draws our attention how we might use plants that thrive with the recurring disturbance of fire to treat the illnesses and injuries that fire can cause. As she explains, her kit emphasizes “fire, tending, and healing,” particularly those central to Indigenous fire regimes that are not based solely on suppression, to present us a ground truth that “promotes a pro-active, cross-cultural attending to our fire-prone landscapes.” Justin Webb Skeletons of Soda Fire 2 Jean Arnold Malden 8: Shreds Megan Hatch almost there - losing ground The work of Megan Hatch is similarly interested in healing and renewal. A queer, multidisciplinary artist from Portland, Hatch began her project in the summer of 2020 and took inspiration from the interconnections between George Floyd’s murder, the COVID-19 pandemic, and what was, at the time, Oregon’s worst-ever wildfire season. Her photographs potently insist that we grapple with what is broken and how we might mend it, and each diptych tasks us with viewing, simultaneously, images of death and images of life. A thin golden line inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, by which broken pottery is mended with gold, yokes together each pair of images. Hatch explains that kintsugi vessels “hold our hurt and our hope,” and, similarly, her images tell us that “there is healing to be found in holding multiple truths in our awareness at the same time.” I see this hurt and hope strongly almost there – losing ground, which binds together an enticing forest path with stark snags. Which came first, the photographs ask: the life or the death? Can we truly have one without the other? And what binds them together? Several years ago, when I started to study literary representations of fire, I had a conversation with a fire ecologist friend about the evolution of fire regimes in my current home state of Idaho. She told me that prior to 1900, fires annually burned at least two million acres in the state. These fires had a different texture to the big, hot fires that we see today, she explained; the historical fires burned mostly lower elevation forests and rangelands, were smaller and more numerous, and largely were ignited by lightning or indigenous fire practices. I was surprised to learn that post-Big Burn federal suppression policies have produced a fire deficit–my friend told me that we actually need more fire in our region, just fire of a different kind. She was very clear on this issue: no fire is not the answer, and we must learn to see fire not as bad but part of the land’s personality. Laura Aloha-Young’s work and artistic process crisply captures the swirl of emotions that followed this conversation. Attempting to “provide evidence of the intricacies of regeneration, of life in the forest,” her pieces begin with photos that she takes of fire landscapes that “reveal the marks of fire itself: lichen, mycology, growth, decay.” I clearly see the tension between growth and decay in her work and the ways that it mixes media and species to grapple with the emotional complexity of fire. Much like Becker-Smith’s Witness , I initially see a scene of devastation when I look at Two Pines Down (after the fire) --the dark colors and jagged lines return me to the melancholy of Webb’s skeletons, and the hazy shapes that surround the lines heighten the ghostliness of the image. But when I look again, I see that these hazy shapes are alive. They are not ghosts of what we have lost, but fungal and vegetal assemblages in the process of emergence. The image is thus one of simultaneous wound and opening, past and future. Its depiction of post-fire blossoming–and the revelation of this meaning as late-maturing, like serotiny–reminds us that our relationship with fire must be complicated and double-sighted. It also promises that in our search of the material evidence that remains after the flames burn out, and the layers of meaning that we find there, we may access a new ground truth of acceptance, regrowth, and fortitude. further considerations contributed by Confluence Lab member Erin James, April 2023. Laura Ahola-Young Two Pines Down (after the Fire) Next

The Confluence Lab engages in creative interdisciplinary research projects that bring together scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences, together with community members, to engage in environmental issues impacting rural communities. Celebrating the Artists-in-Fire Crew project spotlight: The Confluence Lab’s inaugural Artists-In-Fire (AIF) residency is supporting artists and writers from the Pacific Northwest and adjacent regions as boots-on-the-ground participants in prescribed fire. Over the course of 2024, they will travel individually to participate in a Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX ) or other immersive, prescribed fire experience. Returning home, AIF artists and writers will reflect upon their experiences through their creative practices and share those reflections with their home communities. read more AIF Sam Chadwick with other participants of WTREX at the Niobrara Valley Preserve in Nebraska in April 2024. Note listen to AIF resident Adam Huggins' experience via the Future Ecologies podcast Artist-in-Fire Spolight: Jennifer Yu Artist-in-Fire Spolight: Kylie Mohr Our central premise is that the tools of the humanities and arts—especially those related to storytelling, representation, emotions, and communication—are important complements to scientific knowledge and can help develop novel approaches to environmental issues. We use the creativity generated through interdisciplinary and community-based approaches to partner with diverse communities on pragmatic projects that work toward more just, sustainable, and equitable futures, focusing especially on issues such as public land use, wildland fire and fire management, and the causes and effects of climate change. our primary goal thanks to our research partners & affliates: College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences College of Natural Resources College of Art & Architecture Read More About Our History lab stories & news Sightlines "Just Futures" Sightlines "When the Smoke Clears" Sightlines "The Future is Patchy" read more

AIF crew 2024 Kylie Mohr Missoula, MT Kylie Mohr is an award-winning freelance journalist and High Country News correspondent based in Missoula, Montana. Many of her stories focus on the intersection of science, policy and people in the wildfire space. She's covered everything from how fire impacts evolution to the experience of two hikers trapped by a wildfire. Mohr also writes about conservation, lands, water, wildlife, recreation and climate change in the West. Her editorial bylines include National Geographic, The Atlantic, E&E News/POLITICO, Hakai Magazine, Deseret Magazine, CBS News, Vox, NPR, CNN and more. Mohr earned her bachelor's degree from Georgetown University and a master's degree from the University of Montana. When she's not clacking away behind a keyboard, you can find her deep in the backcountry on skis, backpacking through wildflowers, or trail running with her pup, Nuna. TREX involvement More on her story in Fall 2024... but for now, Kylie is very much looking forward to experiencing fire with her own two hands and feet. She writes, talks and thinks about fire often as a journalist covering wildfire, but fire as a force (and a force for good!) still remains abstract to her in some ways. She's excited to experience the preparation and execution of a prescribed fire viscerally, from up close, and be able to translate that experience into future reporting projects. She hope her readers will be able to tell the difference! Chat back to AIF residency Chat

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