featured artists Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma Seattle, WA Amiko Matsuo is an artist and educator whose work focuses on transmigration, cultural exchange, and translation. Brad Monsma is a writer and educator tracing models of kinship and resilience and the author of "The Sespe Wild: Southern California’s Last Free River". His essays have appeared in High Country News, The Surfer’s Journal, Kyoto Journal, as well as various anthologies and academic journals. Together, they are co-translators of Art Place Japan (Princeton Architectural Press, 2015), a book by the founder of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, focused on community and environmental resilience. featured artwork Installation view of "Zuihitsu," temporary public art project, Seattle, WA, 2023 detail view of "Zuihitsu," temporary public art project, Seattle, WA, 2023 "Bat Cone Burn," pyrometric project final form: clay, terra sigillata, underglazes, 2014 "Bat Cone Burn" pyrometric project ritual firing "Pyrometric Whirl," Ink, ash, medium, Phos-Chek flame retardant on paper, 84in x 40in, 2017 "Pyrometric Landscape," ash, medium, Phos-Chek flame retardant on paper; 84in x 40in, 2017 "Pyrometric Landscape" side view responding to Fuel Loading Our Pyrometric project, a series of installations using ceramics, ash, and Phos-chek flame retardant, explores place, identity and materiality in fire-prone landscapes. We began the project in 2010 with site-specific clay bodies and glazes as a way to give materials voice in our collaborative research and creation. We limned historical and active maps of vegetative fuel loads in California’s fire-prone landscapes of forest and chaparral. With local firefighters we devised a ritual brush firing where the ceramic cones revealed the thermal shocks to objects and to emotions: the cones helped us see both flame and our responses more clearly. In 2016, the Pyrometric project expanded to include red Phos-chek, wound-like marks on paper. These expressed the ironies of fire suppression rhetoric while also suggesting the rage of a combustible and intolerant political landscape. The whole earth is fuel-loaded; there is nowhere apart and smoke drifts easily across borders hardened against people. Now that we are residents of Seattle, our work with fire, materiality and climate continues to be relevant. Amiko’s most recent installation offers a cooling space for reflection on climate, migrations, and community. Zuihitsu: Memories and Stories of Migration , under the International Pavilion at the Seattle Center, gathers over 200 fuurin ceramic bells threaded with stories of journeys and connections between students, family, and friends. As these stories catch the wind, the chimes ring with cooling sounds, calling us together to contemplate the changes to come. more from their perspective Resting at Sourdough Gap, enjoying some of the last clear air for weeks, southern Cascades burn scars in the distance. Inspiring Landscape: A hibaku persimmon sapling, grown from a seed from a tree that survived the Hiroshima blast. Fuurin drying underneath the sweetpeas and garlic. Chat back to exhibition Chat

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

AIF crew 2024 Erica Meryl Thomas Portland, OR Erica Meryl Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and labor organizer. Her work explores the ways we relate our personal histories to social, political, and natural histories. She uses the art making process to illuminate and celebrate visible and invisible labor, and visit with the darker sides of place. Her work is collaborative, site specific and often participatory, demanding flexibility of form: installations, printmaking, artist books, storytelling and dialogue, and other experiential forms among them. ​ Her recent practice has centered on the human relationship with wildfire and smoke, utilizing foraged charcoal from wildfire burn sites to produce handmade ink and printing images to tell stories of the landscapes. In 2023, she co-curated and was a participating artist in a group exhibition, Obscurity: life inside the smoke, (World Forestry Center in Portland, OR). Her printmaking and installation presented stories and images of incarcerated wildland firefighters printed with her foraged charcoal ink. The installation invited visitors to send messages to the incarcerated wildland firefighters, and concluded with a show in a minimum security prison where some of the firefighters are based.. In 2014 she received an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University where she is now a faculty member teaching interdisciplinary courses on art, design and social theory. She is the Co-Chair and Chair of Political Action for Portland State University’s adjunct faculty labor union (PSUFA-AFT local 3571), and uses her voice to create art and action in solidarity with interconnected political, social and environmental movements. TREX involvement More on her story in Fall 2024... but for now, Erica is looking forward to the physical experience of being near and working with fire, and all of the sensory elements (smell, touch, sounds, etc.) that go along with the work. She loves a physical challenge and prefers to learn through doing, so she is excited for the opportunity to be among a crew working together as a means of experiential research. Chat back to AIF residency 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 artist Martina Shenal Tucson, AZ Martina Shenal is a Professor of Art in the Photography, Video & Imaging area at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She earned her MFA from Arizona State University and BFA from Ohio State University. She has received grants and fellowships including a Faculty Collaboration Grant for her project Space + Place from the UA Confluence Center for Creative Inquiry; WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship; Visual Art Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission; Professional Development Grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts; and a Contemporary Forum Material Grant from the Phoenix Art Museum. Her works examine human interactions within the landscape–highlighting the ways humans alter, mediate, and represent it. Since 2019, she has focused her work on framing the rapidly changing climate and the accelerating pace and impact of rising seas, hurricanes, super typhoons, and wildfires. featured artwork "Slash Piles 07" archival pigment print, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 "Slash Piles 06" archival pigment print, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 "Slash Piles" archival pigment print, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 responding to Fuel Loading Over the course of the past decade, I've been engaged in fieldwork in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in central Oregon. In the fall of 2020, as a respite from the fires that had been burning for 7 weeks in the Santa Catalina mountains here in Tucson, I made my way to Oregon, crossing the border just as the numerous wildfires there began burning. The photographic work for the series 20/20 (notes on visibility) was produced over multiple weeks as smoke from fires burning in California, Oregon, and Washington accumulated in the high desert. The series traces a line from the central high desert westward to the coast, moving from the impacts of smoke to coastal fog. The images included here were made in late November 2022, when I began photographing large slash piles that were staged for upcoming prescribed burns near La Pine, Oregon. I was struck by the sheer size and scale of the accumulated material–it felt like I was entering a series of dwellings or villages. My research led me to read about current efforts to create healthy forest ecosystems by reducing fuel loads during the winter season and reverse the decades-long fire suppression strategies that, in combination with drought-related climate warming effects, beetle infestations and the proliferation of non-native vegetation growth, have left the forests vulnerable to intense wildfires. more from Martina's perspective The slash piles are concentrations of leftover materials associated with ongoing forest management to help maintain and restore healthy ecosystems while reducing hazardous fuels loading. La Pine, Oregon. Also from the series 20/20 (notes of visibility) Smith Rock State Park (collapsed crater), Terrebonne, Oregon. Images made in early September 2020 amid wildfires burning in the west, including CA, WA, MT, & OR Markers in area of ongoing thinning and tree removal, La Pine, Oregon Also from the series 20/20 (notes of visibility), Devil’s Chain (rhyodacite flow), Cascade Lakes Highway, Oregon The series 20/20 (notes on visibility) bears witness to the effects of 2,027 raging wildfires that were burning in the west while doing fieldwork in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in central Oregon. The title references the ability to see with perfect vision, but the chronology of images produced on this trip reflects just the opposite. The air quality in the high desert was deemed the most hazardous in the world at that time, as similar conditions were playing out across the West, fueled by a mega-drought, high temperatures, and strong winds. Chat back to exhibition Chat

Jennifer Ladino LAB CO-FOUNDER Professor, English Department University of Idaho jladino at uidaho.edu Erin James LAB CO-FOUNDER Professor, English Department University of Idaho ejames at uidaho.edu Teresa Cavazos Cohn LAB CO-FOUNDER Associate Professor, Department of Natural Resources & the Environment, University of New Hampshire; Climate Change Fellow, Harvard Divinity School teresa.cohn at unh.edu FELLOW IN RESIDENCE Environmental Humanities, University of Idaho, lhampton at uidaho.edu Leah Hampton's website Leah Hampton PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOW Doctoral Candidate , Environmental Science, University of Idaho Sasha Michelle White PROJECT AFFILIATE Regional Fire Specialist: Willamette Valley/North Cascades, OSU Extension Fire Program Kayla Bordelon GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT Doctoral Candidate, Environmental Science, University of Idaho Jack Kredell GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT Doctoral Candidate, College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho Phinehas Lampman Devin Becker PROJECT PARTNER Program Head Library, University of Idaho Devin Becker's website Ruby Fulton PROJECT PARTNER Composer and Musician Ruby Fulton's website Kristin Haltinner PROJECT PARTNER Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of the Academic Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion Jeffrey Hicke PROJECT PARTNER Professor of Geography, University of Idaho Stacy Isenbarger PROJECT PARTNER Mixed-media Artist Associate Professor of Art + Design , University of Idaho Stacy Isenbarger's website Benjamin James PROJECT PARTNER Clinical Assistant Professor, Film & TV studies, University of Idaho Leda Kobziar PROJECT PARTNER Associate Professor, Wildland Fire Science, Director, Master of Natural Resources Dilshani Sarathchandra PROJECT PARTNER Associate Professor of Sociology , University of Idaho Evan Williamson PROJECT PARTNER Digital Infrastructure Librarian, University of Idaho Evan Williamson's website RESEARCHER Creative Writer, Bellingham, WA North Bennett GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, Art + Design, University of Idaho Megan Davis website Megan Davis GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English / Natural Resources, University of Idaho Kelsey Evans GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English, University of Idaho Emily Holmes GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English, University of Idaho Daniel Lurie GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English, University of Idaho Isabel Marlens John Anderson AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor, Virtural Technology Lab Co-Manager, University of Idaho Bert Baumgaertner AFFILIATED MEMBER Associate Professor of Philosophy University of Idaho Kerri Clement AFFILIATED MEMBER Postdoctoral Fellow, History Department, University of Idaho Rob Ely AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistical Science, University of Idaho ​ Matthew Grindal AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Professor, Department of Culture, Society & Justice, University of Idaho Leontina Hormel AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor of Sociology University of Idaho Graham Hubbs AFFILIATED MEMBER Associate Professor of Philosophy, Chair of Politics and Philosophy, University of Idaho Ryan S. Lincoln AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University of Idaho Markie McBrayer AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Idaho Ryanne Pilgeram AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor of Sociology, University of Idaho Aleta Quinn AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Idaho David Roon AFFILIATED MEMBER Clinical Assistant Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, University of Idaho Scott Slovic AFFILIATED MEMBER University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities, University of Idaho Rochelle Smith AFFILIATED MEMBER Reference & Instruction Librarian, University of Idaho Alexandra Teague AFFILIATED MEMBER Associate Chair, Professor of English, Co-Director of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of Idaho Alexandra Teague's website Lee Vierling AFFILIATED MEMBER University Distinguished Professor, Director of the Environmental Science Program and Department Head, Natural Resources and Society, University of Idaho

featured artist Andreas Rutkauskas Kelowna, British Columbia Andreas Rutkauskas has been making photographs of landscapes for over twenty years, six of which have been dedicated to the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire. His past projects have focused on land that has been transformed through the implementation of a range of technologies, including surveillance along the Canada/U.S. border and cycles of industrialization and deindustrialization in Canada’s oil patch. He was the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment (2020), a research fellow with the Canadian Photography Institute (2018), and was a finalist for the Gabriele Basilico International Prize in Architecture and Landscape (2016). His work is held in private and public collections, including the Canadian War Museum, and the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery. Andreas currently teaches photography at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, on unceded Syilx territory. featured artwork McDougall Creek Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 40x50” 2023 Nk’Mip Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 30" x 40” 2023 Underdown Creek Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 40x30” 2023 McDougall Creek Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 40x50” 2023 responding to SIGHTLINES The Okanagan Valley, where I have resided since 2016, is an incredibly diverse ecoregion, including the forests typically associated with the PNW and valley bottoms of open Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir forest interspersed with shrub-steppe. My six years of research into fire began with a simple question: what does the aftermath of a wildfire look like? Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba and having resided in Montréal for twelve years, fire on the land was a new and fascinating phenomenon to me as an artist using photography. I continue to make new discoveries and to be fascinated by fire’s power to sculpt the land. Silent Witnesses marks a paradigm shift in my ongoing research into the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire. Whereas my earlier images of wildfire focused specifically on optimistic representations of renewal within fire-adapted ecosystems, my approach since May 2023 has relied on outdoor strobes and a digital medium format camera system to highlight individual trees or selected members of a community. My goal is to create contrast between what has been lost, what has changed and what is returning, and to produce these contrasts within a single frame. While working on this project in the Okanagan Valley, the city I currently call home went through a massive firestorm. My most recent images depict literal sightlines that have opened up in the wake of the McDougall Creek wildfire. A once scruffy Douglas fir and lodgepole pine ridge crest to the west of the city now provides abundant views and a striking example of how close this fire, which claimed nearly 200 homes, came to engulfing thousands more properties. more from Andreas' perspective On August 17, 2023 the McDougall Creek wildfire tore through communities along the Western shore of Okanagan Lake, including the City of West Kelowna. Andreas watched its progress from the other side of the lake. In the days following the firestorm, thick smoke clouded the valley. People were unable to assess the damage or determine an accurate fire perimeter and tourism was curtailed in the Central Okanagan. In 2003, the Okanagan Mountain Park fire burned over two hundred homes on the outskirts of the City of Kelowna. As the land continues to undergo transformation, Andreas documents the sightlines between this earlier fire and the 2023 firestorm. From thousands of exposures, Andreas narrowed down selections of his Silent Witnesses series to just under one hundred images. Postcard-sized test prints grow to a larger scale as he examines critical focus in preparation for the production of full-sized gallery prints. Andreas' work on view in his exhibition Éveil at the Musée regional de Rimouski, Québec. Oct. 6, 2023 – Feb. 4, 2024. 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

featured artist featured artist Kate Lund Silverton, ID Kate Lund is originally from the small town of Challis, located in Central Idaho. She received a BFA from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington and earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Montana. During her time as a student, Kate spent eight summers working as a wildland firefighter with the Forest Service. Through this job she spent a great deal of time immersed in the outdoors and traveling through obscure towns in the rural western United States. Today, Kate does not spend her summers on the fireline, but she still finds inspiration in the outdoors be it gardening, swimming, or hiking. Kate is currently an artist and teacher; she teaches high school and college level art classes at Wallace Jr/Sr High School. Kate exhibits her work locally and regionally. In 2018 she was part of a three person exhibition, Three Generations, at the SFCC Fine Art Gallery. In November of 2019, Kate held a solo exhibition at the Cawein Gallery at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. featured artwork in Ground Truths "Are You Sure We are Going the Right Way?" cattle marker and graphite on panel, 3ft x 4ft, 2016 "Downdraft" Installation View left: "Downdraft," graphite and cattle marker on paper, right: "Build Up," 2016 "Downdraft" 5ft x 23ft, graphite and cattle marker on paper "Downdraft" detail "Microburst" wire fencing, rip-stop nylon, flannel, deer fencing, tent poles, 9ft x 9ft x4ft, 2016 photo credit: Sarah Moore "Microburst" (detail) photo credit: Sarah Moore responding to Ground Truths I believe the general public has a romanticized idea of what wildland firefighters actually do, thinking that people (firefighters) can always overcome the challenges and complexities that fire brings. There are many instances that arise such as terrain, weather, and fuel loading that make it impossible to stop a fire even if it is with a helicopter or a retardant drop from the biggest air tanker there is. ​ My ground truth is that as a firefighter I often felt conflicted: conflicted about whether or not I could actually handle the job, conflicted about whether we were helping or harming the environment, conflicted about when to feel distressed, and conflicted about when to take a deep breath and enjoy the beauty of the landscape. The artworks in this exhibition share this internal and external turmoil. ​ The body of work featured in Ground Truths is rooted in appreciation for the quietude within the landscape interrupted by a sense of urgency and distress, discovered after spending eight summers as a wildland firefighter. I used firefighting to fuel my artistic practice by collecting images, objects, and sensations over the course of each summer in the landscape. The renderings, gestural drawings, and sculptural work are the result of allowing my studio process to mimic my analytical decision making and sensory observation as a wildland firefighter. In Microburst , I gathered the expired and cast-off tents and outdoor equipment of firefighting and created a form that is reminiscent of the way wind moves during a microburst weather event—short, sharp bursts of air strong enough to mow down 200 foot-tall trees in a matter of seconds. ​ In Downdraft , I used aggressive marks and a pink color-palette to create a psychological awareness of urgency in response to stimuli in the natural environment such as logs rolling down the hill at you and expanding smoke columns. These urgent movements in drawing are balanced with quietude created through rendering, which I relate to the time spent observing swaying trees and the formation of cumulonimbus clouds. featured artwork in Fuel Loading "Brush Fit," rip-stop nylon, wool, flannel, fleece, 2023 details of "Brush Fit" responding to Fuel Loading This body of work is based in an appreciation for the quietude within the landscape interrupted by a sense of urgency and distress. I discovered this awareness after spending eight summers as a wildland firefighter. As an artist, I used firefighting to fuel my practice by collecting images, objects, and sensations over the course of each summer in the landscape. The renderings, gestural drawings, and sculptural work are the result of allowing my studio process to mimic my analytical decision making and sensory observation as a wildland firefighter. Brush Fit was inspired by an experience I had while working on a small wildland fire on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. The fire was named the Delta fire, it was less than half an acre and I was the incident commander in charge of managing the crew and the fire itself. We completed the hand line around the fire the first day and needed to get water to the fire next. With remote, small fires, bladder bags are the typical way to get water into a fire. A bladder bag is essentially a backpack that holds water; when full it's about 50 pounds. The bladder bag is not exactly an exquisite design; it leaks and sloshes around on your back, on top of your fire pack. Luckily I had a crew with a positive attitude. We loaded up our gear, saws, fuel, and the bladder bags, and started on our hike. The hike wasn’t terribly long or steep, which should have made the trek doable. To our dismay, the area we were working was unforgiving in that is was completely overgrown with brush and downed trees. If you were watching us hike from above, you would have seen us all split ways in an effort to find easier paths, quickly discovering that there is no good way to get through the nasty thicket we were up against. I could feel the brushfit building inside of me when my pack and bladder bag kept getting caught on the low branches. A brushfit is when you succumb to the challenges of walking in an overgrown forest and throw a temper tantrum. 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? I caught my breath, and hoofed the rest of the way to fire to get the crew started for the day. In Brush Fit , I use wool, flannel and contemporary outdoor materials to signify a human relationship that is familiar with the natural world. This material references the gear that assists backpackers, hunters, and bikers alike in being outdoors. Initially, the materials are arranged in a neat, clean manner to reference the idealizations and expectations that are often projected onto the landscape. The sculpture progresses into a wrangled mass of shredded material in order to show the trepidation and frustration that sometimes accompany an interaction with nature. more from Kate's perspective This image illuminates some of the visual qualities in Kate’s work, particularly in Are You Sure We are Going the Right Way . Kate is the small figure in the center; her team was holding the line as the fire approached, but it overran their line, so they had to pull out and try again. Here is a rare photo of Kate in her fire gear. She is standing next to her husband; the two of them were on day 14 of a two week fire assignment in Wyoming. They met in 2009 while working together on the fire crew. This image is one of Kate’s favorite representing the landscape where she lives in Silverton, outside of Wallace, Idaho. It was taken a few summers ago, when Kate took an evening hike to one of her favorite lakes, which happens to be just a fifteen minute drive from her house. Spending summers on the fireline meant spending time in places where it was unusual to see water. We are lucky in the Pacific Northwest to be surrounded by bodies of water. Kate took this photo on Lake Pend Oreille in mid-August, Summer 2023. Kate also engages with the landscape by maintaining a backyard garden. She sees it as an extension of her studio practice and an important part of her daily life. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist Megan Hatch Portland, OR Megan Hatch is a queer, multidisciplinary artist living in Portland, OR. She uses art-making to explore the world around and inside of her, and also to share the stories of those journeys. She does this because she knows, deep down, that art is essential to our collective thriving: it’s how we’re going to find our way. ​ You can find more of her work here . featured artwork "the way isn't clear - and yet here we are" archival pigment print, 27in x 10in, 2022 "almost there - losing ground" archival pigment print, 10in x 27in, 2022 "leaning in - falling down" archival pigment print, 10in x 27in, 2022 responding to Ground Truths The earth is burning, and not in a Paris sort of way. We’re told to lean in, only to find ourselves constantly leaning down to pick up the pieces. Losing ground, falling down….We fall in, call in, reach out and sometimes shout with joy. We mend the cracks with the gold we have, and that we are, so we can carry water and each other. I started this work in 2020, which had the worst fire season in Oregon to date. That year also marked the beginning of the COVID pandemic, and George Floyd died at the hands of police. The experience of each of these tragedies was inextricably linked. So much felt broken. So much still does. In this series, the photographs are bound together by a thin golden line as if by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. They become a series of vessels to hold our hurt and our hope. There is healing to be found in holding multiple truths in our awareness at the same time, in acknowledging the fullness of the moment, and of each other. By doing so, we get to practice wholeness. There is no way to where we want to go without practice. This is my ground truth… The photographs in this series were made on land across the street from where I live in Portland, OR. Once a landfill, it is now an essential urban greenway for wildlife. It has been burned by wildfire twice in the past three years. more of Megan's perspective Ground truth 2: Watching the smoke roll across the land. This photo was taken during the 2020 Oregon fire season, which was one of the worst to date. Ground truth 1: Nearly all of the photos from the series "yes | and" were made on land that is home to Dharma Rain Zen Center . This area was originally a landfill. It is now an essential urban greenway for wildlife. Megan walks there almost every day. Ground truth 3: The land here gets parched every summer now. Brush fires can and do start easily. Living in an area of town with sparse tree cover exacerbates this, among many other detrimental impacts . This year Megan's family is adding several trees and shrubs along the street by their house. They are also amending the soil with biochar, which both increases soil health and sequesters carbon. Chat back to exhibition Chat

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

Human & Ecological Change in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness: A Collaborative Rephotography Project Teresa Cavazos Cohn ... ... A team of faculty and students, led by Dr. Teresa Cavazos Cohn (Natural Resources and Society), is using rephotography methods to examine social and ecological change in this wilderness setting. In addition to compiling historical-current photograph pairs, researchers will conduct semi-structured interviews with a variety of stakeholders in order to better understand interpretations of change, which may differ between cultural groups. ​ The Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness is an ideal location for repeat photography. First, many areas have been photographed by residents, outfitters, and recreationists over the past century and pre- and post- wilderness designation impacted use in ways that are visible on the landscape. Second, vegetation in some areas have dramatically changed due to an increase of forest fire as well as invasive species such as cheat grass (Bromus tectorum). We believe photo sets are both visually compelling (and of interest to the general public) as well as informative for broader discussions of change in the Frank Church-River of No Return. Photographs will be housed in the U of I digital photo archives. ​ This project is funded by the DeVlieg Foundation. Next