Dream... Believe... Blaze... (2020)
Obviously I, nor anyone knew what was coming round the 2020 corner over a year ago, but during the innocence of 2019 I was SO excited about the forthcoming 50th anniversary (April 2020) of the Apollo 13 Moon landing, that I decided to commemorate such profound universal human achievement with my own dream, and endeavour.
I’ve been creating art since I was a small kid and expanded that into the somewhat clichéd, but completely true, mind expanding journey through art college and on to a career in design, art direction, painting and creativity in general. I’ve worked with, and still work with some of the most talented, passionate, knowledgeable and sincere folk that exist, that continue despite seemingly insurmountable odds, because of their true belief in what they are doing, and most importantly, what they are doing is genuinely enhancing the lives of their readers. I see it before me and it is wonderful. It’s empathy on the most rewarding human level possible.
Sparked into a flame by some dear friends years ago, I developed a creative process which I call Phyre Etching. It’s not strictly fire, and it’s not strictly etching, but given I’m Irish, our love for dancing with words (and just dancing), it’ll do for me. I’m enthralled by Nature’s potential for fecund rebirth after seemingly devastating events such as forest fires, so I took on the moniker and named my website Phorestt Phyre, much to the ire of many a talented writer who I’m proud to know. The ‘correct’ spelling was of course bought up years ago in regards securing a website, but hey, I LOVE Hip Hop too, and spelling was never the priority there, the passion was.
Phyre Etching involves the scorching of a wooden surface, then with (incredibly) sharp carving knives (I highly recommend Flexcut tools), and a vast amount of hours, the image emerges from the burnt surface. That slow process seemed to be a just (if tokenistic) homage to the amount of years and tens of thousands of people who would have been involved in the Apollo programme. It also enabled me to listen to an enormous amount of music, and effectively gifted me regular meditation and flow state during an abrupt shift in all our lives.
Like the best laid plans of mice and Moon men, I didn’t hit the anniversary, as what I had started expanded and broadened in scope the more I worked on it. It became much more than about a single historical endeavour, it was about mine, and as the virus landed, everyone’s. It was about envisioning something, maybe something that had always been there, even before we walked the Earth, but in a new perspective, why don’t we walk on the Moon? Aiming for it, and together WE did it. It might have been an American flag that was driven into the grey clay, but it was Mankind that brought it there.
So Dream... Believe... Blaze... became my mission, and I just completed it over Christmas, well over a year after starting it. I’ve attached various images of process, some close up details and them residing together as their natural triptych (Three being of course, the Magic Number as spoken by the wise words of De La Soul). They’re each 1 metre square. They’re also the beginning of something I’m hoping to develop in regards the concept behind Dream... Believe... Blaze... as it’s clear we, I, EVERYONE could do with something to unite us, aim for and achieve, that we will still be celebrating 50 years later. There’s a tiny gold pin on the central Moon piece (pic below), that marks the landing spot in the Sea of Tranquility, it’s the smallest of detail, but also my favourite, it’s the golden seed of ideas, tenacity and unity.
3 x 100cm x 100cm scorched wood panels, pure gold leaf, acrylic ink.
