Muddy1

Forest fires in 2011 and 2012 threatened my home and wreaked havoc on my mountain town of Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. Through the smoke and haze we watched helplessly, unable to do more than document the devastation from our back porch as the fires moved down the valley. Finally, after two weeks of much needed rain in the summer of 2013, green shoots of grass and undergrowth sprouted through the ash amid the charred remains of our precious trees. When this new growth blossomed into brilliant yellow wild flowers carpeting the whole burned mountainside, I was suffused with hope for the future of our home and community. To reflect the transition from devastation to new life I generated a silk screen from one of my photographs and printed it on pieced backgrounds reflecting the stages of renewal in my surroundings.