September 15th | The Magnitude of the Problem: Wildfire in Beloved Places

Join us via Zoom on Thursday, September 15th, 4 - 5 p.m. for a virtual presentation with Suze Woolf, artist, and Lorena Williams, author and former wildland firefighter, as they discuss their work featured in the Wildling’s current exhibition, Fire & Ice: Our Changing Landscape, and wildfire in general.

*Fire & Ice: Our Changing Landscape*, Installation view, 2022.

Suze Woolf has been painting burned-over landscapes and large individual portraits of burned trees from all over the West for the last 14 years. Woolf’s fabric installation, “The Magnitude of the Problem,” on view at the Wildling is a version of the largest one yet, at 21 1/2 feet.

Wildfire fighters call fire-carved standing snags “totems.” These totems—each ridge and fissure a landscape unto itself—have become an apt metaphor for the climate crisis. In a sad and symbolic irony, Lorena’s essay—which evokes the threat to the famous Mariposa grove of giant sequoias last year—was once again a reality in the Washburn fire less than two months ago.

Suggested donation: $5.00

Click here to view a recording of this past event

The suggested donation for this virtual event is $5.00, click here to donate what you wish. To register to attend this event, click here to sign up on Zoom. This event will be recorded.

Please email info@wildlingmuseum.org or call (805) 686-8315 with any questions.

About the Speakers

Suze Woolf

Suze Woolf’s work is about human relationships to nature. A painter, she explores a range of media from watercolor to paper-casting, from artist books to pyrography and installation—sometimes all together. Her background ranges from fine art to interface design, with a lengthy spell in computer graphics. She has exhibited throughout Washington State, much of the western U.S. as well the East Coast. Her work is in regional public collections as well as many private ones. She has received awards from arts organizations, universities and colleges; residencies in Zion, Glacier, Capitol Reef and North Cascades National Parks and the Grand Canyon Trust; and art colonies such as the Banff Centre, the Vermont Studio Center, Willowtail Springs, Jentel, Playa, Centrum and Mineral School.

Lorena Williams

Lorena Williams is a writer, educator, wildland firefighter, and traveler. She has worked seasonally off and on as a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service since 2001. After earning her MFA in Creative Writing in 2011, she taught English, creative writing, composition, and ESL at Chatham University and Duquesne University, both in Pittsburgh, PA until 2016. Williams now works as the Partnership Coordinator for the San Juan National Forest in Durango, CO, and still gets her boots dirty on the fireline occasionally.

This program is offered in conjunction with the Wildling Museum’s current exhibition, Fire & Ice: Our Changing Landscape, the Wildling’s contribution to the Environmental Alliance of Santa Barbara County Museums. Formed in 2020, the Alliance is a collective of 12 museums, a zoo, and a botanic garden across Santa Barbara county that seeks to combine their impact to raise awareness about environmental issues through focused exhibitions, media campaigns, and educational programming.

The Alliance’s inaugural project—Impact: Climate Change and the Urgency of Now (April-September 2022)—invites visitors to all participating institutions to delve deeper into the complex and vexing challenge that is climate change.

Learn more about the group’s many offerings at www.sbmuseumsalliance.org.