Scintillae

Cast glass, Embers from the 2018 Woolsey Fire, 3.5” x 1.5”, 2020

Scintillae is an eco-psychological arts-based research project and light sculpture installation. The Latin scintilla translates to “spark” and expresses itself as a bright flash of fire. Scintillae imply winged luminosities blazing in the darkness, simulating the unpredictable flight paths that glowing wind-borne embers traverse during a wildfire.

The 2018 Woolsey Fire burned 96,949 acres between November 8th and November 21st. More than 21,000 acres of the 23,595 National Park Service acres in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (roughly 88%) were destroyed by the wildfire. We know from overwhelming scientific data that global warming is due to exponential increases in carbon dioxide caused by humans burning fossil fuels. The research gathered from my intimate experience with the Woolsey Fire and throughout the development of this transdisciplinary project, is ultimately an ongoing inquiry into our relationship with nature. As such, this body of glass sculpture work is directly informed by the mythopoetic and archetypal experience of the death-rebirth cycle and my personal encounters with death and transcendence. The death of a loved one in 2016 followed by the Woolsey Fire of 2018 were catalysts for the philosophical, psychological, ecological, and material explorations in Scintillae.

The color chemistry of the glass embers correlates with staggering and fantastical imagery documented throughout my firsthand encounter with the Woolsey Fire. These photographs, which serve as additional sources of inspiration and directly informed the color composition and material exploration of each piece, are displayed alongside each individual ember, or scintilla. 

Through an alchemical and eco-critical lens, Scintillae reveals how the literal luminosity of the Woolsey Fire serves as a mirror into the darkness of a world driven by extreme separation from nature and all life forms. This has lead to visible fragmentation in our collective psyche and culture, and materializes as disintegration in events like climate change. This light sculpture series acknowledges the darkness of the unconscious as central to embracing the paradoxical depths of the human experience and the unseen forces beyond our control, and emphasizes the role it plays in illuminating our individual and collective instincts, motivations, and actions as it pertains to the climate crisis.

The Southern California wildfires are symbolic of the revelatory “heat of awareness” that Medieval alchemists were confronted with during the calcinatio, or fire operation, in the alchemical process of transmuting raw substances into precious matter. Each scintilla, or ember, ripens into individual “sparks” of consciousness connected to the illumination of darkness itself.

Scintillae urges viewers to remember the interconnectedness of all things, and to begin to repair and reimagine a world where personal survival is not prioritized over collective survival, where we are simultaneously tending to our individual lives while also taking care of others and the natural world around us.

Black Body Radiation

ember cast in glass, 3.5” x 1.5”, 2020

When you heat something up, it glows. Like stars, the temperature of a fire determines its colors. Black Body Radiation is a nod to Planck’s law of black-body radiation, and serves as an inquiry into the temperature of color and considers the relationship between wildfire (the temperature of the burn) and stars (stellar classification). This scintilla spans from black (3140°F–4940°F) to blue (18,000°F), and its color chemistry is informed by this personal photograph of a charred and warped royal blue recycle bin in Point Dume, Malibu, taken on November 18, 2018, ten days after the Woolsey Fire ignited.

Lunar Ghost

ember cast in glass, 3.5” x 1.5”, 2020

Ghosts reflect our timeless fascination with (and fear of) death. In mythology and folklore, the elemental spirit of Will-o’-the-wisp is an atmospheric light that traverses marshes and cemeteries associated with the souls of the dead. Lunar Ghost questions the significance of the physical body and is a metaphysical inquiry into the mystery of death and what happens after we die. The luminous cosmic matter in Lunar Ghost is reminiscent of something from the past, an existence that once was, a translucent milky moon-like memory of an old vessel.

The color chemistry of Lunar Ghost is informed by a personal photograph of thick, opaque smoke billows captured in Point Dume, Malibu on November 9, 2018 just prior to evacuating my home the morning that the Woolsey Fire ignited.

Magnum Opus

ember cast in glass, 3.5” x 1.5”, 2020

Magnum opus, or “the great work,” is an alchemical term that refers to the process of transmuting base metals into gold. Magnum opus is also a metaphor used in analytical psychology to discern the challenging stages of personal development on the path to consciousness and psychological totality. This process is known as individuation, or the process of becoming whole.

In the ancient art of alchemy, the magnum opus is comprised of four stages represented by a progression of colors: nigredo (“the blackening”), albedo (“the whitening”), citrinitas (“the yellowing”), and rubedo (“the reddening”). Magnum Opus embodies the complete material and psychological cycles of death-rebirth, individuation, and ultimately transformation.

The color chemistry of Magnum Opus is inspired by a personal photograph taken on November 18, 2018 immediately following the Woolsey Fire, and features unaltered signage amidst a scorched backdrop of my neighborhood in Point Dume.

Fire Followers

ember cast in glass, 3.5” x 1.5”, 2020

From burn to bloom: the tie between knowing death, and knowing what it is to be fully alive. “Fire followers” is a term for a group of plants whose existence relies on the heat, smoke, and scorched soil of wildfire. They lie dormant for years below ground until the heat of a blaze acts as a catalyst to crack open the hard coating of their seeds, and they sprout. Fire Followers encapsulates our interconnectedness with the natural world while referencing the death-rebirth cycle of all things, and simultaneously functions as a critique of death and dying culture in America. This particular scintilla and its color chemistry was inspired by the color eruption carpeting the Santa Monica Mountains and the vibrant birthing of fire followers I witnessed in my own backyard and documented in February/March of 2019, just months after the Woolsey Fire ignited. Electric lime greens, neon canary yellows, marshmallow whites…all rising from charred black earth.

Sol Niger

ember cast in glass, 3.5” x 1.5”, 2020

Darkness within darkness: the gateway to all understanding. – Lao Tzu

Sol niger is the alchemical “black sun” and the first operation in alchemy known as the nigredo, or “the blackening.” It refers to the transformative potential of illumination that the black sun offers in the initiatory descent into darkness when facing our shadows, our suffering, and that which lies hidden within the realm of the unconscious. The wisdom that the sol niger matrix provides is in knowing that if we can honor and face the darkness of the unknown, the unconscious, the fears, the depression, the pain and the challenges, instead of denying, rejecting, or avoiding them, we gain access to another kind of enlightenment and illumination that is transformative in nature. Sol Niger refers to the light of darkness itself.

The color chemistry of the Sol Niger ember is inspired by a personal photograph taken at 8:30am on the Pacific Coast Highway adjacent to Leo Carrillo State Beach on November 9, 2018 during my evacuation from Point Dume the morning of the Woolsey Fire.