Tag: disaster

Keith Edmier
Fireweed
2002–2003
Vinyl over steel armature with attached vacuum-formed plastic leaves, cast urethane buds, cast dental acrylic petals, vinyl monofilament stamens and pistils; painted with lacquer and acrylic paint; dusted with volcanic ash from Mt. St. Helens, Washington, 1980.
Two sculpture parts: each 72 x 15 inches

FIREWEED

To create Fireweed, the artist dissected, cast, painted and reassembled plants he collected in the High Sierras. The flower petals are cast in dental acrylic. The sculpture was dusted with volcanic ash from Mt. St. Helens in Washington. Fireweed is an exceptionally colorful plant and grows from the sub-Arctic down to the Rocky Mountains and across the upper Midwest and down the Appalachians to Georgia. Each element of the sculpture represents a different stage of the plants reproductive development – one is female and one is male. The fireweed is one of the first plants to emerge after the landscape is incinerated by fire or volcanic eruption. This sculpture represents a body of work that “functions as a phoenix of sorts, a meditation on death and regeneration, sexuality, and the process of casting, itself.” (Edmier, 2003)