Mandy Lee

Ash Xylarium

Glass (soda-lime), glass (forest-glass adaptation), Engelmann spruce, ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, metal, wood, ash from Cameron Peak/East Troublesome wildfires, sand, slide drawers, plastic specimen boxes, Spruce Beetle

30" x 65" x 46"

2022

The Ash Xylarium explores the relationship of fire, memory, and the feedback loop of creation and loss in the north-central Colorado Rocky Mountain ecosystem. The project stems from the artist’s observations over the years, from childhood to revisiting in adulthood after moving away, and seeing landscapes transform due to more frequent and intense wildfire. Fire is a catalyzing medium of loss and creation—a feedback loop—and is explored here through past, the present, and future. A xylarium (or xylotheque) is a physical library of tree species that illustrate wood, bark, foliage or needles, and reproductive mechanisms (fruit, cones, seeds, or flowers). Cast glass “books” contain native tree species including evergreen varieties. Post-wildfire, some of these species are not regenerating as easily as they have in the past and there is some concern that they may not regenerate. As each book is made, a high-fidelity impression will remain along with the ash of the cast tree. In fire terminology, “secondary succession” refers to the post-fire resurgence of life. Representing “secondary succession”, the ash will be used as a flux to lower the melting temperature of local sand to create new glass. The glass recipe is adapted from a medieval glass recipe, forest glass, which contained two original components, sand and wood ash—the process itself being a feedback loop of creation and destruction. Bark beetles are responsible for the loss of millions of acres of trees from the mid-nineties through now. While bark beetles are a part of a healthy ecosystem, many factors such as drought, warmer winter temperatures have caused explosive population increases resulting in prolonged “boom cycles” leading to dead trees and tinder for fire. Thank you to the many who have been part of this project in some way. This list will admittedly fail in acknowledging all those to whom helped me in some leading up to this work or during the process… Many thanks to: thesis advisors (Jocelyne Prince, Rachel Berwick, and Denise Markonish), Hotnights casting team (Syamini Breathwaite, Ashley Harris, Ariel Aravot, Donghang Yang, Tracy Zhang, Jiemin Park, Jocelyne and Rachel), Doug Borkman, Andrew Storck, Lauren Glenn, Eliza Potenza, Dr. Sharon Hood, Shona Kitchen and the rest of the Techlands crew, Hyundai x RISD Research Collaborative, RISD NatureLab—(Ben Gagliardi, Georgia Rhodes, and Felipe Leonardo Santos Shibuya), and Mark Rukamathu.