Myrtle Tree Arts Journal

History is part of us even when we are unaware of it. I’d been living in and hiking around the Foothills for years without knowing much about the complex factors that shaped the history of this heavily forested area. I set out to learn more about what has brought us to the perilous wildfire conditions of the present moment. With the Caldor Fire of 2021 taking out more than 200 homes and 250,000 acres, and the increase of mega-fires across California generally, wildfire brings a strong connection to grief around the disruption of family life, the loss of generations of trees, damage to soil and wildlife, and release of masses of carbon. What historical forces might be relevant to understand where we are now? The forest holds a history that can explain our current state. Last fall I had a conversation with Tony Valdez, an energetic rock climber and passionate storyteller who worked for 37 years with the US Forest Service. Tony lent me his copy of the book by Timothy Egan, The Big Burn ....

A recent classroom-based workshop on Prescribed Burning was my first immersion into learning about fire behavior and concepts rooted in science, law, and practice on the ground. Beneficial Disturbance. Heat Management. F.R.I. for Fire Return Interval. Learning about burning and its connections to culture and biodiversity was a first step toward overcoming my own negative perceptions about fire.  The course was led by experts Chris Paulus and Cordi Craig of Placer County, and coordinated by Kestrel Grevatt and the American River Conservancy, and emphasized the benefits of careful, legal burning. We were introduced to fuels and forest types, fire and wind behavior, state statutes and personal liabilities, Indigenous cultural burning and native plant adaptation. The experience was surprisingly rich.   “The forest has memory,” announced Chris, a well-spoken and commanding retired CAL FIRE Battalion Captain. “The forest has to be allowed to remember itself.” I’m going to borr...

Here in the Foothills of Northern California, the potential for wildfire is likely the most imminent and dangerous risk we experience on an ongoing basis. In El Dorado County, the Caldor Fire of 2021 left a massive footprint ecologically and socially, and like other wildfires, including last fall’s Mosquito Fire, it will continue to impact the land and people here. Numerous efforts in the county are addressing wildfire recovery and protection, and aligned with those efforts, I had an idea for public art to be woven into the fabric of awareness, care, support, and resilience, in the face of increasing wildfire and climate-related risks in the region. Walking and driving in areas of the Caldor burn scar can bring up swells of grief, shock, and sorrow, and a sense of unique beauty. I’ve marked spots on a map on my phone where the burn scar shows powerful views of change: in Sly Park and Happy Valley, over the crest of Mormon Emigrant Trail, at the bridge at Silver Fork, up the road to Wri...

The writer Robert McFarlane brilliantly expresses reflections about walking in The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind. While walking, we get to know a place, but more deeply, we are shaped and changed by the landscape. Walking gives me a magical entry into place. I feel that I join with archetypal beings whose feet, hooves, boots, and paws have worn away the same ground. A walk in nature can generate a map of profound emotion, which I can experience as awe, love, grief. Like a ghost, I pass through a world of feelings and try to access the traces of other ghosts that have traveled the trail before me.  Creating the Fire/Land piece is an “art walk” to explore feelings like love and grief about landscape.  I walk to contemplate my connection to place in the face of my climate grief. I’m grieving with the forest as a biological creature that can only hold so much. It can only bounce back so far. The new USDA Forest Service report on Californi...

A tree is a solid and constant being, free of human weaknesses like discontent and striving. So wrote John Muir, the environmental philosopher and early advocate for land preservation, about the symbolic nature of the tree. Yet, in another way, a tree might have discontent about ecological disruption in the forest, for the tree is not an isolated being but part of an interconnected network on which life everywhere depends.   That’s where the art piece FIRE/LAND starts, by asking lyrically how a tree actually feels. Not only poetically inspiring, this idea speaks to me of species survival through adaptation and migration. Does a tree move and adapt? Do humans change in ways that make a difference to a tree? A tree moves through its seeds. Species that can adapt and move successfully can reduce their risk of mortality and become survivors.  A long time ago, my dad taught me to grow vegetables and take care of a garden. That influenced my path in life ever since. The plant seed ...

FIRE/LAND: Knowing the Territory is an exploration using music, media, art, and performance. As a public arts experience, FIRE/LAND : Knowing the Territory is a forest journey and exploration of national and local history, diverse cultural perspectives, and scientific efforts, to deepen art appreciation and inspire community engagement around ongoing wildfire experiences.  The project is an opportunity to bring together a broad spectrum of residents to examine, reflect through the lens of art on a very real threat, its attendant anxieties, and many factors that have brought us to these current conditions. As a personal creative journey, the piece is being birthed through my own learning process with people I meet, including from those from the US Forest Service, CAL FIRE and other agencies, to wildfire survivors, scientists, land stewards, Indigenous culture keepers and other artists. The idea for the new piece, FIRE/LAND, is rooted in personal and collective trauma experienc...