The Conversation and Foxfire Oak

My two latest pieces were inspired by encounters with animals in places that are special to me. The pair of crows featured in The Conversation are regulars on our back fence. The flaming red moon, Mars and smoke (why the moon is that color) are also rooted in reality. Smoke was billowing from the Valley Fire to the southeast of us near Alpine, California. It isn’t intended to be a depressing piece, but to encourage thought about climate change and where we choose to build long-term dwellings and businesses. As with all art, it’s also o.k. in my opinion to simply enjoy the imagery and decide what, if anything, it means to you.

Foxfire Oak celebrates both another recent Catalina Island fox sighting (I adore them) and a shapely, old island scrub oak at Wrigley Botanical Garden in Avalon, California. I combined personal experience and folklore in this mixed media painting that’s primarily watercolor with a bit of soft pastel added toward its completion to punch up the cold flames in the tree hollows and the fox’s eyes. Despite being quite different in both the techniques used and the outcome, it’s a bit of an homage to my favorite piece of visual art, New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, made by Utagawa Hiroshige. I was fortunate enough to see an original woodblock print of it at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you’re interested in owning either of these originals, please send me a message here. Prints may be purchased through Pixels.com by clicking on the images of the paintings below.

Thanks for supporting living artists.

—Robin Street-Morris

Robin Street-Morris. The Conversation. 2020. Transparent watercolor and powdered soft pastel on 300lb cold press paper. 14" x 20" (36 x 51cm).

Robin Street-Morris. Foxfire Oak. 2020. Transparent watercolor and soft pastel on 140lb hot press paper. 13" x 19" (33 x 48cm).

Climate fires

It’d be pretty easy to get overly emotional here about the fires that are consuming places I’ve seen and love and more I’ve wanted to visit but hadn’t gotten to yet before they burned. Being who I am, for better or for worse, my sadness and tears quickly turned to fury. It’s frustrating to read chaparral, a unique and vanishing habitat, being referred to simply as "fuel.”  There's nothing like the scent of it and coastal sage scrub.  In one inhale after a heavy fog or rain it can make me feel as though things are going to be alright even though the writing on the wall is clear that this is not the case.  Anthropogenic (man-made) climate change has sped up the frequency of catastrophic wind-blown fires which are most often begun by human carelessness, including not putting money into the most basic of infrastructure in order to appease shareholders.  Invasive grasses and other weeds will continue to take the places of our native plants adapted to fire before they can regrow leading to more frequent fires—again, most often started by us.  Building large developments in San Diego's East County and other inland areas of California is a recipe for more disasters.

If you’d like to help (having a better understanding of this place regardless of where you live does), please take a moment to learn more about our chaparral at the California Chaparral Institute's website .

Cleveland National Forest buckwheat.

Buzzard's Roost Lookout in Big Sur.

Cleveland National Forest looking toward Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

San Bernardino National Forest manzanitas.

Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve.

Old growth chaparral featuring magnificent Nuttall's scrub oak (Quercus dumosa) in Del Mar Mesa Preserve.

My latest mixed media painting is titled “Fire in the Wind.” It was completed before the beginning of the Valley Fire in San Diego’s East County. No crystal ball was required.