From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community

ABSTRACT

In this essay the author recalls the process of organizing and interpreting an exhibition of art and language made in response to a catastrophic fire that devastated California’s Sonoma and Napa counties in late 2017. The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art invited a group of artists and writers to be part of its small exhibition planning team to help establish the exhibition’s focus, compile the checklist of artworks and writing, compose the interpretive labels, and participate as presenters in the public programs. What follows is a reflection on the process that resulted in unique approaches to organizing, presenting, and interpretation as the artists, writers, and museum staff collaborated to engage the audience directly through first-person stories, with the intention of honoring their shared experience and healing their community.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpretive labels
• first-person stories
• shared experiences
• museum
• community collaboration
• exhibition planning
• fire
• love

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Dunkle, Iris Jamahl. “Artists Speak of the Elements,” Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018. West, Fire, Archives: Poems, The Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University, 2021.

2 Limón, Ada. Excerpt from the poem, “After the Fire,” Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018. From The Carrying by Ada Limón (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Ada Limón. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions. milkweed.org. In July 2022, Limón, a Sonoma native, was named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States.

3 Coletti, Ed. Excerpt from the poem, “When Random Sharks Attack,” Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018. Firestorm, Round Barn Press, 2018.

4 Khosla, Maya. Excerpt from the poem, “Now You Can Set Down Your Fears,” Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018. All the Fires of Wind and Light, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2019. Khosla is a wildlife biologist and writer, and she combines these two disciplines in her projects devoted to restoring the wild after wildfire. She was the Poet Laureate of Sonoma County from 2018 to 2020.

5 Dunkle, Iris Jamahl. “Directions Home after the Firestorms, 2017,” Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018. West, Fire, Archives: Poems, The Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University, 2021. In November 2022, five years post fire, Dunkle read this poem to a Sonoma audience. She cautioned that the poem could be a painful trigger, which it was, as evidenced by the breath catching, body language, and shifting in chairs.

6 Hastings, Katherine. “What We Packed at 3 a.m.,” The Cove, The Fire Issue, Issue No. 1, April 2018; Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community. Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018.

7 Meininger, Fran Braga. “Lessons Learned in the Face of a Wildfire,” 10/11/2017, Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018.

8 Woods, Valerie. Excerpt from her writer bio, Words on Fire, A Collection of Writings from the Exhibition From Fire, Love Rises: Stories Shared from the Artist Community, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Margie Maynard

Margie Maynard (she/her) is currently deputy director, engagement and exhibitions at Sonoma Valley Museum of Art (SVMA). In 2017, she was serving as SVMA’s director of education and engagement. As the one staffer who grew up in Sonoma Valley, she was asked to co-organize the museum’s response to the fire, an assignment about which she thought long and hard before accepting, due to her fears of “getting it wrong,” “making impossible choices,” and potentially, for all her efforts not to, retraumatizing her community. Maynard has had a long and surprisingly adventurous career in museum interpretation, which includes evacuating from not one, but two California wildfires, making art with Keith Haring, accelerating a freshly assembled art car up the 405 freeway, and obtaining access to the closely guarded source of genuine Muppet fleece. It has been a privilege for her to work at the Phoenix Art Museum, Laguna Art Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, and Museum of Pop Culture (Seattle), prior to returning to Sonoma in 2010.