Florence Alfano McEwin "Fire Summer - Sage"

You’re looking at Fire Summer – Sage; I’m artist Florence Alfano McEwin of Wyoming.  This piece ,began during the stress of smoke engulfing my home and studio in the summer of 2023. It’s my response to climate crisis. 

Western climate change -evidenced by extended higher temperatures accelerating drought, bringing beetle damage ,ravaging pine stands and then becoming fire fuel. Every  summer  immense acreage incinerates at multiple locations- in state and out, sending weeks of thick yellow haze and toxic odors onto high-altitude lands.  At my home above 7000’, a cow standing at property line in the sage some 30-50 feet away ,was barely visible.  Herds had eye infections and severe nose bleeds. 

Sage integral to the west, combusts explosively-which  I’ve witnessed firsthand. 

My work, using sage to make a raised or collagraph print ,calls on two traditions the Japanese practice of printing rocks, capturing the spirit of the rock and  references 19th century English botanist Anna Atkins who catalogued specimens through an early photographic print process of cyanotype 

Sage is almost as unforgiving to print as a rock, and it’s spirit as strong. Here, sage- the emblem of the West , is presented in four monoprints and each print is a variation within a vertical scroll.  The  print develops in multiple runs through the press as it changes color each time. 

For me, these collagraphs celebrate Sage, the native flora indigenous to my immediate surroundings and now at risk.