Reflection

When researching for this project, I learned of the connections from climate change to the severity and frequency of forest fires. I was then reminded of my own experiences with wildfires, specifically those in Southern California. I have always heard about fires burning around where we lived, but no fire had truly affected me personally until the Silverado Fires, which burned over 13,000 acres of land. My family, along with thousands of others, were forced to evacuate our homes. The moment I captured in my piece represents the fear and chaos I experienced that day. The cluttered objects painted in the trunk of the car represent the things my family and I prioritized packing, such as water bottles, stuffed animals, and anything that cannot be replaced. Among those irreplaceable possessions, polaroid photos are floating through the air in the foreground, and the foremost pictures are burning in flames. For me, these photos represented a part of who I am as a person, and painting them burning symbolizes my, and everyone else’s, lost sentimental objects in fires. In the background, I painted cars packed together in tight traffic, which is similar to what I and many others experienced when evacuating our neighborhood. Finally, I painted the sky bright orange with trees closing in on the road to mimic the claustrophobic, surreal feeling from that day. Overall, my piece is a representation of the amount of chaos that just one aspect of climate change can cause.