Bear Witness

I worked on this mosaic, while numerous wildfires raged here in Colorado. Surrounding wildfires burned thousands of acres of forest in mountains to the East, West an North of the San Luis Valley where I live. My bear is s a metaphor showing the reality and the danger of forest fires which the Mountain West faces every summer. 

Here the wildlife lives in a fragile landscape and has to find its way out when it is faced with the flames and the smoke of their habitat burning away. My Bear is their representative. It is walking though the burning landscape, being the much needed voice of its wild friends. 

Naturally many people are are also being displaced and loosing everything. There is nothing light about the issue of thousands of acres of land burning without containment. I hope that my recent work sheds some light on an issue many people don’t understand. Here in the West you really have to practice fire safety when the fire danger is high. We don’t get much rain and the danger to us all is very real. In the hot summers, we have to be cautious and hope for rain, low wind and send strength to the brave firefighters when the flames ignite.