Witnessing, the current exhibit at Middletown Art Center (MAC) is a visual tale of devastation, resilience, and ongoing recovery. With anniversaries of the 2015 and 2016 fires, devastation from the Sulphur Fire and pervasive regional fires and a week of evacuation alert in South County make the show all the more poignant. Witnessing, on view through October 22 at MAC, is highly relevant and recommended.
The exhibition speaks to the trauma of those impacted by wildfires in Lake County and to the journey of overcoming personal struggle and healing.
There is power in both making and in viewing art. Art gives form and voice to feelings and insights. We identify with and are moved by expressions of the human experience through image, line, shape, color, texture, and materials.
Local artist and founder of EcoArts of Lake County, Karen Turcotte, reminds locals that “Destruction takes no thought at all. Creation however, is from the heart, the mind, the hand and the soul.” Words to live by. This is exactly what the artists have done.
Sage Abella, creator of Fire Godd and the Phoenix, a 3-by-3 acrylic on canvas painting done two years post-fire, draws us into the chaos and colors of the fire. Rendered in a primitive, ‘magical realism’ style, the artist utilizes complementary warm and cool colors to speak of the two opposite yet somehow reciprocal presences of the Fire Godd and the Phoenix, fire and water, dry and wet. Abella shares her personal journey with the Valley Fire, from emergence on Cobb Mountain, to witnessing wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, deer, and other creatures’ flight from fire and ascent to the heavens. She evacuated four times in the last two years as her home is located between Jerusalem Grade and Lower Lake. While unscathed by fire, the landscape that surrounds her home certainly has changed.
Fire Angel #2 is a moving piece by Ben vanSteenburgh III, and one of two acrylic and ink Fire Angels on view. It offers us a benign and winged young angel alone in her reverie, sitting with her knees gathered up to her chest as an unchecked blaze consumes a faraway landscape across a lake calm as glass. It is only the lake, however, that reflects the emotionless furor of the unchecked blaze. The composition, primarily rendered in tints and shades of orange and yellow, seems to emit light and heat. Somehow, it is oddly comforting, perhaps a nod to ‘impermanence.’
Marcus Maria Jung’s Dance of Creation, Destruction and Rebirth is actually made from the devastation of the wildfires, rather than about them. Using fire-ravaged Manzanita, the artist has created a veritable dance between three charred trunk sections, swaying in gentle relationship to one another. Jung has lovingly smoothed the bark in such a way as to invite touch, and he has brought about a rebirth of the fire-forged Manzanita by transforming it into sculpture.
There are many other poignant pieces in this exhibit. Ceramicist Melanie Liotta’s impressive mosaic Survivor depicts a rooster crowing the break of a new day. It is comprised of shards of pottery retrieved from the Valley Fire. Also, not to be missed is Alana Clearlake’s Dreaming of Hope — a masterful and stunningly colorful hand-made felt painting of a landscape on fire with elements of regrowth and water. Several works made by artists during Resilience classes are also featured in the show.
The Witnessing exhibition is on view at Middletown Art Center until October 22. MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Rt. 29 and open Thursday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit MAC online at Middletownartcenter.org or call 707-809-8118 for more information.
