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Amy Scofield

Burning Daylight

Mixed media/video

"Often after I finish a work, I find a meaning that reinforces my own philosophy or thoughts on conservation. For this piece, bulldozers showed up while I was working, on a pile of dirt that had been there for years, trying to thwart my effort. That felt metaphoric in the moment, that there is no to time to waste. Forests and towns were being decimated by wildfire while the government was dismembering the EPA.

Dumpsterfire..

When I thought of filling cracked earth with matches, I’d imagined they would flare like lightning, but instead they were slow and persistent. The fire traveled from stick to stick, forming circuits then finally a united blaze, resembling a waving flag.

Fake news spreads like….

But the day after, when I came back to see the burned remnants I saw another message in the ashes. The little charred match heads leaned in toward one another, seeming bewildered as if they’d just resumed consciousness after a bombing. They seemed unified, the blue sky looked hopeful and a few days later sprouts were poking their heads out too."

– Amy Scofield

About the artist

Amy Scofield

I was raised in a family that valued science, nature and imagination – fundamentals that I rely on as an artist. I took art classes in University but am basically self-taught so every project is a form of inventing for me.

In recent years I’ve been invited to create numerous large-scale outdoor installations in Texas, Colorado and France, each using recycled or repurposed elements that graphically express our tenuous relationship to our environment. Salvaged bike tubes, Mylar strips, decommissioned city water pipe, and fallen trees are some of the components I incorporate into striking, incongruous forms.

In smaller works, I employ other unconventional materials and digital photography to examine ideas of balance, harmony, and perfection.

Although I’ve been in Texas since 1987, I think of myself as a mountain girl who thrives in the heat and strives for clarity and connection in all I do.
Image of artist