View The Art

Michael Crill
Full of Animals
Digital painting

Adrienne Defendi
Canopy Constellations: Tracing the Sky-to-Brush-Pile Trail
24 cyanotype prints
This series of work is inspired by the collected mounds of debris -- otherwise known as brush or burn piles -- that populate the forest floor of Big Basin post-CZU Lightning Complex fire. I photographed the piles along the Redwood Loop Trail and Opal Creek, admiring them, their own unique beauty and architectural structure amassed by those who care so deeply for Big Basin, for its renewal, for its past and sustainable future. The piles reminded me of burial mounds, marking loss and remembrance and transformation: fallen and burnt botanical matter, gathered and swept together, to then be burned in fire prevention management. The series Canopy Constellations explores core imagery (the Mother Tree, the canopy, and brush piles) in variation and multiple layers of images to evoke the cyclical process of destruction and renewal. 

Inspired by the forester’s tool of the spherical crown densiometer (a tool that measures the tree canopy), these cyanotype images are printed in the round to recall the tool’s concave mirror with an etched grid pattern of twenty-four squares (hence, 24 prints in the portfolio).  The use of cyanotype (an early photographic process first used for scientific documentation as early as 1842) lends itself to the natural subject and the concepts of cyclical transformation: I coat Arches watercolor paper with the light sensitive cyanotype solution (ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide) and then place a large digital negative on top and expose it to sunlight to make a blue print; the prints are then toned in redwood bark to create a variety of brownish-red hues. As the tannic acid in the redwood bark helps protect the redwood tree from fire, insects, and fungi, so too the prints of Canopy Constellations celebrate the resilience and ever-transforming Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

Laura Fogg
New Growth
Interactive quilt
My assumption, upon visiting Big Basin for the first time after the fire, was that I would be witness to total devastation. Instead I found myself surrounded by health. Almost all of the burned trees are sprouting vigorous new branches. The park is alive with new growth.

The other aspect that surprised and inspired me was the sense of human opportunity laid open in the wake of the fire. Nothing in Big Basin is as it was, so now we get to ponder what we want for the future of this park. Even the basic understandings of who the park is for and how we want to enjoy it are now laid open for deep thought. Is there a way for a greater diversity of people to enjoy a lighter and more respectful presence in the park as it is reopened for use? How can a more inclusive “we” come together to start the discussion and create a new vision?

I hope visitors will select a branch that resonates with them and add it to the big tree trunk on my quilt. It will be a way for everyone to contribute to the discussion.

Linda Gass
We Come From a Long Lineage of Survivors
Two-layered map display
The artwork We Come from a Long Lineage of Survivors is a two-layer artwork about the devastation and resilience of the forest in Big Basin State Park. Using the visual language of maps and data about the vegetation burn severity resulting from the CZU Lightning Complex Fire in August 2020 and the regrowth based on satellite imagery from 2023, the artwork conveys how much of the park was severely burned and where the forest is regrowing, just 3 years after the fire. The artwork documents a point in time, very early in the multi-decade, and multi-century, regrowth of a forest ecosystem; these early observations look hopeful.

Andres Gonzales
Bending Streams 2023
Photo collage
This image is a photo collage taken from a single position in the park and stitched together to produce the unique layout. 

Patrick Hart
Cycles
Generative audiovisual composition
“Cycles” is a procedural music composition about appreciating a forest through all parts of its life cycle. 

The piece continually generates new compositions, one after another—each iteration of the piece derives from the same source material and compositional rules, but the generation incorporates enough environmental chance that no two renderings are the same (and some are in fact very different). Surprisingly, this algorithmic, “digital” feature represents the natural world quite closely. A forest that grows back after a fire is created from many of the same common inputs (species, weather, sun exposure, etc.) as the forest that came before it; however, it won’t grow back in exactly the same way. Recognizing these two aspects—the uniqueness of the moment in time, and the relationship to the same moment in other cycles—was helpful to me in appreciating fire as a natural part of a forest.

Melody Overstreet
Mystical Ground, Serotinous, Opal Waters
3 collagraph prints
These collagraph prints are meant to encapsulate a celestial landscape that is representative of Big Basin at large. Each art piece is printed using oil-based black ink, and warm white archival paper.

Mystical Ground is designed to speak to the burn scar of the Big Basin Mountain region, and also the hidden seed bank contained in the soil. Some of these seeds will vanish and burn due to the impact of the fire, some will continue to remain dormant, and others will receive exactly what they need in order to be able to germinate. 

Serotinous is designed to speak to the process of a seed germinating following fire. This print demonstrates that a universe is contained within a single seed.  

Opal Waters is a piece that describes the movement of the river and tributaries that run throughout Big Basin. 

Samantha Saldana
Bilingual Wayfinding
Interactive screenprint

Tina Sommers
Following Fire: Sketches of Resilience and Renewal
Mixed media on paper
The body of work I present for the Big Basin Art About is a collection of illustrations from my artist's sketchbook based on the transformation of Big Basin after the devastating 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire. The core of this collection comprises watercolor and ink sketches created on-site. These initial studies encapsulate the immediacy of my experience, from intimate botanical studies to expansive vistas, preserving the authentic connection forged in the heart of this resilient environment. Continuing to sketch back in my studio, the imagery and subject matter expanded to include broader themes of ecological exploration and themes of the human elements and social responsibility in the stewardship of this incredible place.

Donna Thomas
Reflections on the Rebirth of Big Basin
Handmade book with mixed media pages
After visiting the park with the other Art About artists, I realized that the most powerful text I could use for my artist’s book would be the personal experiences the artists who chose to collaborate with me had upon seeing the forest after the burn. I saw that the purpose of the project was to highlight this important time of transformation from a burned forest and destroyed park infrastructure to a healthy future of the park. In both poetry and prose, with watercolors painted on site in the park on paper handmade with plant fiber inclusions, the book is a visual historical record documenting the state of the forest at this specific point in the ecosystem’s timeline. Turning the pages of the book and pondering the artists’ writings takes time, just as when walking in nature it takes time to see and appreciate the surrounding beauty and complexity. 

Tucker Gorman
Redwood Portal
Wooden moon gate - UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Image is an example of what finished piece will look like when installed.