On Fire

by Jonathan Griffin, Paper Monument (Editor)

Artists studios have been burning down for centuries. In Paper Monument s newest publication, On Fire, author Jonathan Griffin asked ten contemporary artists how they recovered after their studios went up in flames. Talking to them, he gained surprising insights into their working methods, their relationship to their chosen profession, and their reasons for making art.On Fire is at once an oral history of the phenomenon of the studio fire a catastrophic but potentially transformative event in the lives of a surprising number of artists and a behind-the-scenes look at daily life in the artist s studio. As Griffin writes in his introduction, For each of these artists there was an instant when time spun on its axles, when they realized that the tiny refuge of safety and freedom that they had won for themselves was gone. It would take months and years, resources and resolve to claim it back. But in the process, something unexpected and valuable career-altering, in many cases was revealed to them about the stakes and the possible rewards of their lives as artists. On Fire includes writing on Matthew Chambers, Anthony Pearson, Christian Cummings, Catherine Howe, Erik Van Lieshout, JP Munro, William J. O Brien, Kate Ruggeri, John Riepenhoff, and Brendan Fowler.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

98 pages, Paperback

Published February 12, 2016

Reviews

[Ezra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d read an interesting article earlier this year by writer and artist Damien Davis, “When Artists Lose Their Archives” , which sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole in which I eventually, somehow, stumbled upon the title of this book in which the author interviews ten artists, all of whom had lost the majority of their life’s work - if not the entirety of it - in studio, storage, or home fires. I initially ordered it as an Interlibrary Loan through my library and found it so interesting a read that I pretty quickly ordered my own copy for my personal library. Provides an interesting look into how people react differently given such tragedy - some feel as if a weight has been lifted off their shoulders, some never recover; some incorporate the fire into their future works, some find themselves more inspired than they were previously or going in a new direction.

A great work of nonfiction and one of my favorite reads so far this year!