Fire safety and art creation at MAC – Lake County Record-Bee

Scott Paraday displays his large ceramic artwork during the Middletown event. (Frederic Lahey for the Record-Bee)

MIDDLETOWN – On Friday, July 19, the Middletown Art Center (MAC) hosted “Good Fire Good Earth,” a talk featuring Scott Parady of the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project. MAC Director Lisa Kaplan pointed out that the EcoArts Sculpture Trail in Trailside Park was destroyed by the Valley Fire in 2015. After removing approximately 40,000 hazardous tree debris from the area, the National Endowment for the Arts provided a grant in 2019 to restore the sculpture trail.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic made the completion of the project impossible. The new EcoArts Sculpture Walk RECIPROCITY will open on August 10th from 6pm to 8pm. Parady has completed a new large-scale ceramic piece “Great Basin” for RECIPROCITY, which will be installed in the EcoArts Sculpture Walk.

Parady was influenced by Earthwork artists while studying for his MFA at Penn State, particularly Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1971). Smithson was inspired to create his 1,500-foot-tall spiral by the native people of the Great Salt Lake area, who believed the lake was a whirlpool connected to the Pacific Ocean. Smithson felt his work was created in a place “where the ancient past meets the distant future.”

Fire itself provides that connection for Parady. While the destructive impact of wildfires in Lake County is well known, Native Americans used fire to maintain forests before the arrival of Europeans. It is controlled fire that brings his ceramic work to life and keeps fuel levels low on his 80 acres in Loch Lomond. Parady uses a drip burner to process up to two acres a day in the park-like setting of the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology project, where he conducts his own controlled fires on forest floor largely spared by the Valley Fire.

The project’s three large kilns require the full attention of the eight or so resident artists. They fire their ceramics during 11-day marathons, fueled by dozens of fathoms of wood produced by Parady’s forestry, transforming the threat of wildfire into a productive resource. Thinning the forest as part of a regenerative management of the land literally fuels the creativity of the art and ecology project. Parady points out that the level of particles generated by the kilns is negligible because the extreme temperatures (1100 to 1400 degrees) ensure nearly smoke-free production. To increase the sustainability of the complex, he recently installed 52 solar panels.

Parady teaches sculpture and ceramics at Sacramento State and teaches his students about ecology as well as aesthetics and craft. Students make ceramic pots and collars to protect native plants and seedlings during his prescribed fires. They rake pine needles from designated plants and cover them with protective earthenware while the fire reduces the amount of fuel and removes unwanted plants.

The practices of Parady and the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project illustrate that consciously engaging with the object of our fears can be a source of creativity and a source of regeneration.

Parady’s “Great Basin” can be viewed at Trailside Park when the EcoArts Sculpture Walk RECIPROCITY opens on August 10. RECIPROCITY is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, through the Upstate California Creative Corps program, with additional support from the County of Lake Public Services Department and District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon.

The Middletown Art Center is a nonprofit in Lake County dedicated to promoting public engagement with the arts, arts education, and arts appreciation. Through exhibitions, performances, workshops, and community events, the Art Center provides a platform for diverse voices and perspectives and strives to create an inclusive and accessible space for all.