A community rises

By Gretchen Ammerman

Oregon Coast TODAY

When Danelle Jones and her wife, HelenFey Maze, were finally allowed to return to the ruins of their home, destroyed by the Echo Mountain Fire in September, they tried to focus on the few positives they could find.

“Our house was just an ash square on the ground,” Jones said. “But there were some beautiful natural moments that we experienced when we started walking around. There was a huge Sitka spruce that burned from the inside, and the way it fell and the beautiful colors the fire created were really striking.”

When they got even closer, they saw life already fighting to emerge. 

“The roots of the trees were still smoking but among them there were already little green shoots,” Jones said. “It was a terrible loss but there is already regrowth, and that made us feel comforted.”

Jones is hoping to carve off a small piece of the tree to include in the Chessman Gallery spring show, “From the Ashes,” currently being curated by gallery director Krista Eddy.

Eddy is creating the show as an avenue for hope and healing for the communities affected by the fire, where the objects on display are only part of the story. 

“I’m not sure if I can safely get a chunk off that tree, but I’m going to try.” Jones said. “There’s also an area that we haven’t been able to get to yet, but I can see a cast iron skillet there that’s melted in a really cool way, so I might submit that, too.”

The most impactful remnant the couple found is made of blown glass, created at the Lincoln City Glass Center, where Maze works as an office manager, and where the couple sheltered on their first night of evacuation.   

“We had this little glass bird in a planter pot,” Jones said. “It was one of the ones that glass artist Kelly Howard created for a bird show at the Chessman Gallery that we were both in, though that one wasn’t actually in the show. It was melted on one side, and it had cracks in it. You could see spots where the glass exploded, and places where the glass melted; it tells the story of the fire in a really interesting way.”

During her first night sheltering at the glass center, Jones created a work of art that is now included in a fundraiser she started to raise funds for fire victims who, on top of losing their homes, might not have insurance or other support to help them recover. 

Partnering with Howard and sand artist Odessa Ford, Jones created an online gallery of art created during or inspired by the fire. 

“That first night I started working on a drawing mostly just to distract myself from what was happening,” she said. “I pretty much finished it that night. It’s a portrait of Mother Nature, and at the time I was very in tune with the ferocity of the idea of how when we take something for granted, this is what can happen.”

When she stumbled on Odessa Ford’s work of large, temporary artistic creations made with rakes on the beach during low tide, the seed of an idea started to germinate.

“She creates these beautiful images that then completely disappear with the return of the high tide,” Jones said. “I liked the idea of connecting art physically to our beach, to the place where we are and we had this happen. We were all feeling this loss and I wanted to make something big and beautiful that we could share. I was definitely thinking about the theme of rising from the ashes at that moment.”

Jones commissioned a piece from Ford of a huge phoenix, which, once completed, could be photographed from above and sold as art prints.

“It turned out really beautiful,” Jones said. “There’s something compelling about the scale of it — it’s hard to capture in photos how physical and kinetic that work is, but I think we got pretty close.”

Also included in the fund-raiser’s online gallery are prints of Howard blown glass creations that incorporate ashes from the fire. The gallery includes both prints and stickers, most of which are being offered for only $25.

“We made $1,000 in the first week,” Jones said. “Considering how much time has passed, and how much else is going on, for people to still be giving attention to this is really kind. Our community has just done so much; it’s really moving.”

Created to help others, the project has also been therapeutic for the artists involved.

“At the heart of all of this is the fact that when something terrible happens, you want to direct your energy somewhere,” Jones said. “For Odessa, Kelly and me, art is what we do, and doing that piece really helped me start the healing.”

To see the artist's fundraiser, go to bit.ly/echofund.

Items for the “From the Ashes” show can be dropped off at the Cultural Center, or email Eddy at k.eddyalexander@gmail.com to make arrangements. Stories can also be pre-typed and dropped off or emailed in.

While the show is being curated, we will continue running stories in these pages. Please email gammerman@oregoncoasttoday.com if you are a survivor of the Echo Mountain Fire, and have a story around an object, or a story about rising from the ashes, that you would like to share.