699- "Ashes to Ashes” The Phoenix Rising Series

I’ve been photographing, drawing, and painting images from the burn scarred strip of land left in the wake of the Almeda fire. I find the images compelling and yet have struggled with how to convey the emotions they create. "Ashes to Ashes” is based on a burned out building I have a 40 year history of going in. It housed a business I regular purchased from for many of those years, then transformed into a different one that sold things I wished I could buy. It stands gaunt, emptied of all but the black scorching marks left by the flames. It is a standing contemporary ruin equal to the ones I saw in Europe in the 60’s left by WW2, and the ones I saw in Greece in the 90’s remnants of past cultures.