assemblages - the Relics series

One year ago, an event happened that set me on an entirely new creative path.

 

On July 20, 2025, a massive bolt of lightning hit our 200 year old barn. Within twenty minutes, the entire two story structure was engulfed in flames; within an hour, the building was burnt to the ground. Five local fire departments converged on our hill and managed to suppress the fire before it could spread to our nearby house. But the barn - including my studio - was a charred ruin. 

 

Over the next days and weeks as I grappled with the scale and ferocity of the destruction,  I found myself collecting remnants from the burn site: twisted bedsprings, a deformed typewriter, melted heaps of glass. For me, these objects held a strange and compelling charge, in the way they expressed both their past function and the nature of the fire that had transformed them. I began creating pieces that centered these charged remnants: the Relics series.

​

​

Large image at right:

Relic #1, found object on barn board

16 x 14.5 x 4 inches