GHOST FOREST
Sarah Grew
FOREST GHOST
Sarah Grew
DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD
Black and Blue, Sarah Grew - Represents a chance to view the work of Sarah Grew. Grew’s art based in painting and photography, has also expanded into installation and environmental art.
Grew is also a consummate researcher, researching concepts that deepen the artwork she creates. For example, she has become a beekeeper, studied native plant habitats, and worked as an Artist-in-Residence for a recycling facility.
In the North Gallery, we see Grew’s Artist-in-Residence experience on a science research boat studying the effects of climate change on the plankton food web. Plankton Line-up speaks to the ecosystems changes in the world’s oceans. When Grew talks about this project you can hear her excitement as she describes the days spent on a research boat, looking, researching and understanding the effects of climate change on the oceans. She uses this experience in an extraordinary way and creates an art installation that makes you feel as if you are a part of the problem, as well as part of a possible solution.
In the South Gallery, we see the amazing installation, Ghost Forest. In this installation, Grew takes a look at the fire ravaged west coast forests of 2020. For many living in these areas, it was the sadness about the loss of the forests and the worry about the effects on our breathing that impacted us. Unlike most of us, Grew took it one step further and went to different areas of destroyed forests and scooped up ash, which she then transformed into photographs printed on glass. These photographs speak to the effects of the fires and their destructive nature. As we view this installation we witness an immersive work that lets us glide though the remnants of a burned-out forest. The installation with its complex hanging system mimics the forest and as your eyes travel up the lines, holding the photographs, to the ceiling of the gallery you experience a ghostly feeling of standing next to the trees.
In a statement about her work Grew states, “The core of my art practice grows from the desire to bridge knowledge of the past and the experience of our present as we push into the future.” In our current climate situation, it is the research and the making of art by artists like Grew that might help more people gain the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about the world we live in. And as a result, perhaps they will come to respect the earth and give it the care that it so desperately needs to survive.
I would like to thank the many colleagues that have been instrumental in presenting this exhibition; Sarah Grew for the opportunity of exhibiting her amazing work, Dr. Jason Winfree for recommending Sarah’s work to be exhibited, Dr. James Tuedio, Dean of College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, California State University, Stanislaus for his continued support of the arts and our yearly Social Justice Conference, our amazing Student Gallery Assistant installation crew of Vanessa Aguilera, Nairoby Mello, Christopher Rodriguez and Assistant Gallery Director Kory Twaddle for the dedicated hours of helping with the installation of the exhibition, Brad Peatross of the School of the Arts, California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design and Repro Graphics, California State University, Stanislaus for the printing this catalog, the Instructionally Related Activates Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue. Their support is greatly appreciated.
Dean De Cocker, Director, University Art Gallery
California State University, Stanislaus
Previous Page: Marching Snags, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Eagle Creek Fire, 2022
Sculpted by Fire (installation view), carbon print, carbon sourced from the Tubbs Fire. 2023
Self-portrait, carbon pirnt, carbon sourced from burned redwood tree. 2022
BIOGRAPHY
Sarah Grew is a photographer and painter based in the Pacific Northwest. Her work both expands into installation and environmental art, and contracts into collage and printmaking. Infused in ideas bridging natural science, philosophy, and art history, her art studies ideas of time, light, and climate change. To further develop these concepts, she has been an artist-in-residence for a philosophical collegium in Italy, become a beekeeper, studied native plant habitats, and been awarded a residency at a recycling facility in California. Actively working on environmental issues, she was recently awarded an artist residency on a science research boat studying the effects of climate change on the plankton food web and is currently working on several large photographic installations using 19th century printing processes. Grew has been awarded a Lane County Arts Council Grant and a Ford Family Foundation Artist Grant in addition to residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Playa, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Ucross Foundation. In 2022 she was the Jane Stevens King Artist in Residence at Lane Community College, in Eugene, Oregon, where she taught alternative photo process workshops and did community outreach around climate change.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their unwavering encouragement and support without which this project would not be as rich. I would also like to thank the following institutions for their financial and spiritual assistance: California State University, Stanislaus, particularly Jason Winfree, Chair of the Department of Philosophy, The Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) at the University of Oregon, Sangita Gopal, Director, The Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Lane Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, and the Jane Stevens King Remote Artist Residency at Lane Community College. Thank you all.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Every summer huge wildfires rage across the west coast of the U.S. burning an average of 7 million acres a year. The fires create their own weather patterns, it rains ash across the country and the sun is blotted out of the sky. My desire to create something out of the ruins led me to visit fire sites and collect black carbon soot. Carbon, the fundamental building block of life. Carbon, we use to date organic material on our planet. Carbon, the remains of a fire. I soon realized I could create carbon prints, transforming the charred wood into recorded images of the forests themselves. After extensive experimentation, I am now making prints from the ash of many wildfires. Carbon does not fade. Instead, in my hands, the burned remains of the trees become photographs. My process and its resulting prints, with their frilled edges and torn emulsion echo the way natural fire cycles can surmount devastation to provide nutrients to the soil, force a pinecone to disperse its seeds, or shape the landscape, in stark contrast to the extreme intensity and size of the fires that are now common. The photographs show us the beauty being lost to human negligence and the climate crisis.
Printed as lantern slides, the forest memory is held captive on sheets of glass accentuating both the fragility of life and our precarious position. When installed, the Ghost Forest moves photography off the wall and into the middle of the room. The photographs printed on glass hang from the ceiling on pairs of cables that suggest the outline of trees. Hung at various heights, the viewer is invited to move through this forest of glass and image, witnessing a range of natural elements; small understory flowers, waterfalls, dappled light in the trees, a burned branch that has travelled down river to the ocean, as well as the aftereffects of fire.
The work harnesses the remains of fire and transforms the devastation in ways that allow us to find lasting moments of beauty, hope and insight.
Waving at the Sky (installation view), carbon print, carbon sourced from the Tubbs fire. 2023. Photo Credit: Jonathan Bagby.
Little Manzanita (installation view), carbon print, carbon sourced from the Tubbs fire. 2022
One Way, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Holiday Farm fire, 2022.
Fire
• Since the year 2000, an annual average of 70,000 wildfires have burned 7.0 million acres each year. This is more than twice the average number of acres burned per year in the 1990’s when the annual average number of fires was 80,000. Although the number of fires has decreased, the fires themselves have doubled in intensity and size.
• Most wildfires are human-caused (89% of wildfires from 2018 to 2022).
• Lightning is the most common natural cause of wildfires. Lightning fires tend to be larger than human-caused fires and burn more acres. On average 53% of acres burned are from lightning fires.
• A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system.
Previous page: Ghost Forest installed at Lane Communtiy College. Photo credit: Jonathan Smith. Mariposa Lily, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Jones fire. 2021
• Pyrocumulous clouds are thunder clouds produced by the high heat of large forest fires.
• The Camp Fire that burned Paradise, California, moved at a speed of 83 miles per hour.
• Many species of trees are adapted to fire, not releasing their seeds without heat, having thick fire resistant bark that does not burn, growing mostly at the crown so a ground fire can only char the truck.
• Climate fires burn so hot the soil burns, the roots of ferns and trees are damaged, and the hubcaps of a burned car melt into pools of aluminum on the forest floor. The thick bark can no longer protect the tree.
• Native Americans shaped and encouraged certain plants with fire, maintaining oak savannah, and clearing underbrush.
• Live Oak is one of the most fire-resistant trees, it is also the tree species that absorbs the most CO2.
Burned Car, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Holiday Farm fire. 2022
Splintered Cedar (installation view), carbon print, carbon sourced from the Holiday Farm fire. 2022
Alder Cones, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Sweet Creek fire. 2022
Hollow Tree, carbon print, carbon sourced from burned redwood. 2022
Choke Cherry, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Holiday Farm fire. 2022
Oval Sky, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Eagle Creek fire. 2022
Ghost forest – a term applied to the sudden death of a forest. It can be applied to the aftereffect of a fire, or a forest death due to earthquake, or tsunami. Most commonly, ghost forests are created by fire and by climate change that causes sea level rise. As the sea rises, the salt water poisons the tree roots of coastal woodlands. Within my Ghost Forest there are many forests in addition to the burned ones. The Neskowin ghost forest was created when a tectonic shift caused land along the Oregon and Washington coast to suddenly go under water around 1700 CE. Parts of the trunks resurface at low tide, still upright in the sand. The underwater ghost forest in Clear Lake, Oregon, was caused when a volcanic eruption around 1200 CE, blocked the headwaters of the icy McKenzie River. The water is so clear and cold the tree trunks have been preserved for 800 years. They still rise, almost to the water surface.
Ghost Forest, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Tubbs fire. 2023
Neskowin
Underwater but Standing (installation view), carbon print, carbon sourced from the Tubbs fire. 2023. Photo Credit: Jonathan Bagby.
Lakeside Reflection, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Scott Lake fire. 2023
Carbon print is a photographic printing process invented in 1855 by Alphonse Louis Poitevin in France. The process is very archival, with an expected life of up to 10,000 years. In my work, I combine this early printing method with modern digital technology for image capture and negative creation. To make carbon prints, I go to fire sites and collect a small amount of charred material. I have found that different species of trees create different shades of black so I only collect material I can identify. I then grind the soot, mix it into a gelatin emulsion, and pour the solution out onto sheets of “tissue”. Once the carbon tissue is dry, I sensitize it and expose it using UV light. As part of the print development, the carbon-gelatin is transferred, underwater, from the initial tissue support to the final substrate.
Ttwo Ferns, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Holiday Farm fire. 2022
Douglas Fir Bark, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Beachie Creek fire. 2022
Live Oak at the Fire Line, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Tubbs fire. 2022
Climate Change
In 1856, within a year of the first carbon print, Eunice Foote, the American scientist, first measured that rising levels of CO2 would cause atmospheric temperatures to rise and conjectured that industrial emissions could do this on a global scale. Although presented at scientific conferences of the day, the credit for this discovery has generally been given to Irish physicist, John Tyndall, who measured the greenhouse gas effect three years later but whose gender made his experiments receive more attention until very recently. I think about how long issues of gender and climate change have been entwined and yet our actions never seem to catch up to our awareness.
Vista, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Beachie Creek fire. 2022
Cloud Snags and Snow, carbon print, carbon sourced from the Eagle Creek fire. 2023
Ghost Forest, installation at University of Oregon. 2023. Photo credit: Jonathan Bagby
SARAH GREW CV
EDUCATION
B.A. cum Laude, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
School of Visual Arts of New York, Program in Tangiers, Morocco
SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023 Black and Blue, California State University Stanislaus, Turlock, CA Haunted Ecologies, Center for the Study of Women in Society, LaVerne Krauss Gallery, Lawrence Hall, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR Out of the Ashes, Art at the Cave, Vancouver WA
2022 The Ghost Forest, Lane Community College, Eugene OR 2019 Erased Landscape Found Memory, Umpqua Valley Art Association, Roseburg, OR Collections, Memorial Union Art Gallery, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR Collage of Moments, Oregon Art Supply, Eugene, OR
2018 Round Table, Lauren Fisher Gallery, Eugene, OR
2017 Breath and Time, Lane Community College Art Gallery, Eugene, OR Photography as Drawing, O’Brien Photography Gallery, Eugene, OR 2016 Momenti e Spazio, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Hotel le Mura, Cittá di Castello, Italy
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Blue Sky 2023 Pacific Northwest Viewing Drawers, Blue Sky Oregon Center for Photographic Art, Portland, OR Analog Forever at Lightbox Photographic, Lightbox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR Imminent Existence: Critical Mass Top 50, Photographic center Northwest, Seattle, WA 19th Julia Margaret Cameron Award Exhibition, FotoNostrom, Barcelona, Spain
2022 The Overstory, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH Critical Mass Top 50, Photolucida, Portland OR Time, Analog Forever Magazine, Los Angeles, CA, online exhibition
Connection - Blue Sky Gallery Members Exhibition, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR, online exhibition LensCulture Critics’ Choice 2022, International Contemporary Photography Resource https://www.lensculture.com/sarah-13 The Love Show 10th Anniversary Celebration, Gray Loft Gallery, Oakland CA Photozone at Midtown, Midtown Arts Center, Eugene, OR 2021 Eugene Grid Project, Mahon Sweet Airport, Eugene, OR
Transitions 2021 Blue Sky Gallery Members Exhibition, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland OR 2020 Mayors Art Show 2020, multiple locations in Eugene, OR
Visualizing 2020: Blue Sky Gallery Members Exhibition, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland OR Intersections, Umpqua Valley Arts Center, Roseburg, OR Marine Food Webs: Drifters to Swimmers, National Science Foundation Invited Artist, Giustina Gallery, Corvallis, OR
2019 Blue Sky 2019 Pacific Northwest Viewing Drawers, (April 2019 – March 2020), Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR Uncovering the Unseen, Hoffman Gallery, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR Alternative Visions, Lightbox Photography Gallery, Astoria, OR
The Platinum Clothesline Show, O’Brien Photography Gallery, Eugene, OR Around Oregon, The Art Center, Corvallis, OR
Artworks Northwest 2019, Umpqua Valley Arts Association, Roseburg, OR
Five Selected Artists, Corridor Gallery, Umpqua Valley Arts Association, Roseburg, OR
Something Blue, Gray Loft Gallery, Oakland, CA
Eugene Grid Project Photography, InEugene Real Estate, Eugene, OR
2018 Libby Wadsworth/Sarah Grew Open Studio, Eugene, OR Focus 2018, b.j. spoke gallery, Huntington, NY
Cascadia, Carnegie Crossroads Art Center, Baker City, OR
2017 Residential College Alumni Exhibition, RC Art Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Views from Oregon: Sixteen Artists, Ucross Foundation Art Gallery, Ucross, WY
Sarah Grew/Libby Wadsworth Open Studio, Eugene, OR
Photozone, O’Brien Photography Gallery, Eugene, OR
2016 Photography Now!, Umqua Valley Art Association, Roseburg, OR
Art Now: Photography, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI
Same but Different, New York Center for Photographic Arts, New York, NY
2015 Luninous Light, Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR
Abstract Catalyst, Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, OR Tributary, Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, OR
2014 Sarah Grew/Libby Wadsworth open studio, Eugene, OR South Willamette Art Walk, Eugene, OR
2012 Best of Photography 2012, Photographer’s Forum, Santa Barbara, CA Wax, Brooklyn Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
The Love Show, Gray Loft Gallery, Oakland, CA
PUBLIC ART COMMISSIONS
2016 Our City – Then and Now, The Arthur, Portland, OR
2015 Reaction Paintings for La Fièvre, French translation of play by Wallace Shawn, published by Les Editions du Paquebot, France
2007 Coast Valley Cascade, Crescent Village Development, Arlie Company, Eugene, OR
RESIDENCIES and AWARDS
2022 Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Woodside CA
Critical Mass Top 50, Photolucida, Portland OR Lens Culture Critics Choice 2022, Selected by Jasper Bode, Ravestijn Gallery https://www.lensculture.com/sarah-13 19th Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Honorable Mention, Fostonostrom, Barcelona
2021 Jane Stevens King Residency at Lane Community College, Eugene, OR
2019 Artist-at-Sea Residency, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Sitka, OR
2018 Playa Artist Residency Program, Summer Lake, OR
The Ford Family Foundation Fellowship for Oregon Artists
2017 Joshua Tree National Park Artist in Residence Program, Twentynine Palms, CA
2016 Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Woodside, CA
The Ford Family Foundation Fellowship for Oregon Artists Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Artist in Residence, Cittá di Castello, Italy
Brush Creek Foundation, Artist in Residence, Saratoga, WY New York Center for Photographic Arts, Same but Different, jurors choice award
2013 Ucross Foundation Artist in Residence, Sheridan WY Ford Family Foundation Fellowship for Oregon Artists
2011 Playa Artist Residency Program, Summer Lake, OR
MEDIA/PRESS
Orion Magazine, Resiliency in the Ashes, with story by Omar El Akkad, Autumn 2023
One Twelve Projects, Poignant Portfolio No. 43: Sarah Grew https://onetwelvepublishing.com/blog/sarahgrew
On Seeing | Crabbe, Frye, Grew, and Goldband & Konar, Griffin Museum of Photography https://griffinmuseum.org/event/on-seeing-amber-crabbe-melinda-hurst-frye-sarah-grew-ellen-konar-stevegoldband/ Ghost Forest at Lane Community College https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5kvsasmAuo&t=6s The Hand Magazine, Issue #35, January 2022. https://www.thehandmagazine.space/issue-35-purchase-andartists-links/ Photographing Plankton Off Oregon, Blake Andrews, Eugene Weekly, https://www.eugeneweekly.com/2020/01/09/photographing-plankton-off-oregon/ January 9, 2020 Sea Science and Art, by Brett Yager, Newport News Times, https://newportnewstimes.com/article/seascience-and-art, July 30, 2019 On Photography: Paul Carter Interviews Photographer-Painter Sarah Grew, Eugene Scene https://www.eugenescene.org/on-photography-paul-carter-interviews-photographer-painter-sarah-grew/ Carnegie Art Center, Cascadia, exhibition Catalog 2018
Ford Family Ford Foundation, Views form Oregon: Sixteen Artists at the Ucross Foundation, exhibition catalog, 2017 Wallace Shawn, La Fievre, Les Editions du Paquebot, 2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, STANISLAUS
Dr. Susan E. Borrego, President
Dr. Richard Ogle, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs
Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
DEPARTMENT OF ART
Martin Azevedo, Associate Professor, Chair
Dean De Cocker, Professor
James Deitz, Lecturer
Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor
Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor
Dr. Alice Heeren, Assistant Professor
Chad Hunter, Lecturer
Dr. Carmen Robbin, Professor
Ellen Roehne, Lecturer
Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Associate Professor
Susan Stephenson, Associate Professor
Jake Weigel, Associate Professor
Mirabel Wigon, Assistant Professor
Alex Quinones Instructional Tech II
Matt Hayes, Equipment Technician II
UNIVERSITY ART GALLERIES
Dean De Cocker, Director
Kory Twaddle, Gallery Assistant
SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II
Sarah Grew - Ghost Forest
October 17–December15 2023 | University Art Gallery, California State University, Stanislaus
320 copies printed. Copyright © 2023 California State University, Stanislaus • ISBN 978-1-940753-81-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher. This exhibition and catalog have been funded by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.
