Moving Petaluma art show marks anniversary of fires

The first thing one notices when stepping through the doors of the Petaluma Arts Center is that, in the exhibition currently on display, there is a whole lot of orange.

And yellow. And red.

The colors of fire.

But after a few seconds, other impressions rise up: the cool greens and blues of nature, the grays of a healing rain, the shiny wetness of blackened metal, the gentle sweetness of strong, resilient, carved-and-sculpted faces - survivors’ faces, touched deeply by grief, but firm with resolve and determination.

“Renewal Through Art,” subtitled “The Sonoma Wildfires Exhibition,” is a new art show presented by the Petaluma Arts Center. Curated by Carole Barlas, the deeply moving exhibit is made up of paintings, sculptures and photographs created by Sonoma County artists, many of whose lives were forever altered by the events of the wildfires of last October.

“This exhibition is a reverent reflection on the fires of 2017 and a celebration of the revitalizing power of art,” proclaims a statement near the front door. “These fascinating pieces demonstrate the capacity of art to bring forth the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of catastrophe.”

According to Barlas, the inspiration for the show came from her realization that many friends - those who’d lost their homes in the fires, along with those who were emotionally affected through witnessing the sorrow of friends and family - were responding to their loss by doing what they’d always done: creating art to grapple with their sadness and anger and grieve, to put into physical form some sense of resolve to make a new life out of the ashes of the wildfires.

“I started out by calling friends from around the county, artists who lost everything,” Barlas says. “And I spent about a month visiting them in their new studios - a lot of them temporary studios - and I saw some of the amazing work they were doing.”

Many were making their art out of things they’d retrieved from the rubble of their houses. And in some cases – including a few paintings now on display at the Arts Center - they’ve mixed the actual ashes of their homes into the paint, to literally create something out of the remains of their former lives.

Barlas points to a pair of mixed-media works by Edmund Grant, and two photographic pieces by Kristi Rene.

“They lost everything, too,” Barlas says. “He told me that they had a storage area at their house - I don’t know if it was a basement or what - but he had quite a number of paintings there, that he had put away, intending to sell them when he retired. He lost it all.”

There is, she says, a story like that for every piece of art now on display. She initially considered posting those stories along with the artwork, but found that it posed a distraction from the raw simplicity of the pieces themselves. Instead, those stories have now been collected into binders available for perusal around the exhibit hall.

“Art can heal, and you can renew things through art,” says Barlas. “That’s why we named the show ‘Renewal through Art,’ but it’s not just in creating the art that you sometimes find a little bit of healing. You can find it through experiencing the art that others have created through their own grieving and healing process.”