The Camp Fire — Calling the Phoenix Through the Standing

The ambers rose slowly towards the deep dark sky light. As Nanita prepared the sky potion to help illustrate their story, Papito used a stick to stir the camp fire. Petro and Arne sat still staring at the unusual thing they called fire. They had read about it in a man book but didn't understand how something so multi-layered and beautiful could be so deadly. Alona, however, was sitting on pins and needles. She had always half listened to the folk lore as she daydreamed about what it must have been like in the ancient years. She too wanted to touch the fire and see what would happen. She imagined using the power of the fire to call a phoenix to join the friends and heal all these people in her world — people she never understood had the same type of past. Nanita and Papito started to wave their hands over the fire, and the smoke started to part and weave in and out between itself. The fire became very faint and then it illuminated. They sat in the middle of the pyramids. And as they all looked into the middle of the smoke, everyone knew it was time for the three-family ancestry spell. The camp fire is the ritual. The fire is not deadly — it is beautiful, multi-layered, alive. And through the stirring of the fire, through the parting of the smoke, through the sitting in the middle of the pyramids, the family ancestry is called. The three families become one. Through the fire, through the smoke, through the standing before what glows and burns and illuminates, the transformation begins. Alona wanted to use the power of the fire to call a phoenix to join the friends and heal all the people in her world — people she never understood had the same type of past. This is the artist's vision. The fire is the bridge between the people who have the same past but who have never understood it. Through the fire, through the standing before it, the phoenix is called, and the people are healed. Not by the fire. By the standing. This is what the gallery does. The artworks are the fire. The visitor stands before them. And through the standing, through the watching how they move, through the choosing what draws them, the phoenix of their becoming is called — and the visitor is healed. Not by the artwork. By the standing.