1. New Texas wildfire exhibits bring art & education
Fire-inspired art
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3. MICHAEL W. DOUGLAS
Bastrop artist Peggy Jo Hilburn created this piece out of glass, reclaimed loblolly pine and pine cones. It's called A Sunday Afternoon and is one of many artwork commissioned
for the wildfire recovery.
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2012 1:15 am | Updated: 11:46 pm, Sat Oct 6, 2012.
By MICHAEL W. DOUGLAS/The Lufkin News
Texans now have the opportunity to see the beauty and awe of the 2011 wildfires that devastated Central Texas.
To mark the one-year anniversary of the Bastrop County Complex fire, which burned more than 33 thousand acres of timber from Sept.
4-Oct. 10, 2011, the Texas Forestry Museum on Saturday unveiled two exhibits that are designed to not only educate visitors on the damage
and necessity of wildfires, but also allow art collectors to purchase art work literally from the ashes of the wildfires.
When it comes to wildfires, Southern Californian Joy Feuer has life experience, since those damaging blazes are common where she’s from. In 2007, Feuer started a
non-profit organization called “ART from the ashes,” with a goal of helping wildfire victims in other parts of the nation recover and rebuild their lives.
“And you know the aftermath and what it does to the people in the community and the landscape and that feeling of emptiness,” she said Saturday at the Texas
Forestry Museum in Lufkin.
So the Texas project got its start last year while Feuer was doing an exhibition for Japan and its tsunami and recovery.
“And we were just watching everything happen in Texas, feeling really connected to what the people where going through — having gone
through it many times ourselves,” she said.
Because one of ART from the ashes board members was a Dallas native, Feuer felt compelled to do something for Texas.
“So, we’re sort of a dangerous group in a sense that once you put it out there,” she laughed, “we do it. So, I said, ‘Wow! We’d really like to
figure out a way to take our mission to Texas.’
She spoke her next commitment into existence.
“You know when you put it out into the universe and you do it,” she said. “The thing that I think is most beautiful is we don’t fly in with our
art capes.”
But within weeks she was in Bastrop. Her group was there so often she even had a host family to help her help the survivors.
“We really want to come and support the community, integrate with them, and do this relief work together,” she said. “So, It’s got to be done
with a lot of sensitivity, and a lot of engagement.”
ART from the ashes commissioned artists from around Texas to use remains from the fire and incorporate them into a reclaimed or new art
form. The arts donate their work to the foundation, which sells the art to the public.
When Texas Forestry Museum interim director Carol Riggs learned about the exhibit in Austin and Bastrop, she began a campaign to get the
organization to bring the exhibit to Lufkin and the Forestry Museum. The Lufkin stop is the group’s third exhibit for the year.
“We’ve had close to 70 artists donate from all over Texas — mainly from Central and East (Texas), but its pretty remarkable,” she said.
All of the proceeds from the pieces sold go directly to the Lost Pines Recovery Fund.
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4. More about Wildfires
ARTICLE: Agency drills members of media on who, what, when, where and why of wildfires
ARTICLE: USDA opens Wildfire Assistance sign-up to 48 additional counties despite program funding backlog
ARTICLE: Top stories of 2011: Extreme drought conditions spark string of dangerous wildfires
ARTICLE: U.S. Forest Service revises fire restrictions; local burn bans still in place
More about Bastrop
ARTICLE: EDITORIAL: Deep East Texans have the opportunity to help Bastrop area replant its burned trees
Fort Worth native Hayley Gillespie is one of the artists. Creativity is in her bloodline: Her mother, aunts and grandmother are all artists.
“I’ve also been an artist for a really long time, too.” she said. “And I’ve just been fascinated in the intersection of the sciences and the arts
— and how creativity cannot only advance the sciences but it’s really interesting for its own sake.”
That was part of the reason Gillespie is involved in the ART from the ashes project and why she came to Lufkin to help launch the art
exhibit.
After completing her doctorate in ecology at the University of Texas, her love of science and art became crystal clear when Gillespie learned
about the Bastrop wildfires.
“I was driving back to Austin from visiting my folks in Fort Worth, and saw that huge smoke plume. And just ... it was pretty devastating,
not knowing what to do,” she said. “And my outlet at that time was the blog. So I started. So, I went home and I wondered what I could find
in the art world. How has fire ecology been depicted? How was natural fire been depicted in the arts — since the beginning of time,
basically?”
It was a natural click that lead her to write about the experience in her blog biocreativity — which focuses on art, biology, creativity, science and nature — and knew
she had to do something to help.
“I’d written at the end of my blog post that ‘I wonder if we might be able to get these wonderful people to come to Texas and do what they
do here for victims of the Bastrop wildfires,’” she said.
As an ecologist who believes that “creativity can advance the sciences,” that is another reason Gillespie gave a mini-lecture at Saturday’s
launch of the wildfire exhibits: so she could enlighten people that wildfires are natural.
“From the science and art perspective, we really love to introduce people to new ways of thinking about science, “she said. “And the mission of Art.Science.Gallery.
(her new company, headquartered in Austin) is to engage the public in kind of a more fun way to get involved with the sciences. And the visual arts is a great,
engaging way to do that.”
The ART from the ashes exhibition is scheduled to be at the Texas Forestry Museum through Nov. 30.
Feuer said visitors can buy any of art on display at the museum or donate online at artfromtheashes.org to help support the restoration effort.
“Proceeds go to the Lost Pines Recovery team,” she said. “They do all of it. They’re in charge of a behemoth task of 33,000 acres of
restoration work, for everything from erosion control to reseeding and just basically managing the forest coming back.”
You can also see and buy art by Gillespie. She contributed to the collection by making a ceramic tea set for four, using ashes from Bastrop
County Complex Fire, and made reclaimed metal into a handle.
Michael W. Douglas’ email address is mdouglas@lufkindailynews.com.
© 2012 The Lufkin News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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