Spring Burn

This minimal installation, created during an artist residency at the Lawrence Art Center in Lawrence Kansas, and composed of simply stacked and scorched straw bales, has its genesis in my childhood. In the early spring, before the grass sprang to life, my family would burn the banks of the drainage ditches surrounding the fields. These charred lines of earth, with their inky black texture stood in stark contrast to the vibrant chartreuse of the emerging growth. The land would smell of scorched earth until the next rain and would cleanse the landscape and initiate the growth of the next season. This installation celebrates the agrarian community surrounding Lawrence, the annual ritual of burning and the reemergence of plants in the spring.