A woman whose art is inspired by disasters is creating a piece memorializing the Maine forest fire of 1947 at the Art Gallery on the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine.
Michelle Forsyth, who is 37 and teaches at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., has been working six days a week on the display, which opened last week and continues through April 8.
Forsyth arrived at the university on Jan. 10 and will stay through Friday, March 20, when her work is completed. It’s expected to consume 400 hours of labor.
“I document disaster sites,” Forsyth said recently. “I’m interested in historical events.”
Most of her work is in connection to disasters that occurred before she was born, but she did witness one herself. From a rooftop in New Jersey, she saw one of the planes crash into the twin towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
For this art creation in Gorham, she snapped a photo of scenery in Waterboro where the fire cut through on its way to the sea. Forsyth is hand-making shapes of flowers and trees cut from paper and she hangs them individually on a grid canopy constructed of fishing line.
Carolyn Eyler, director of gallery exhibitions and programs, praised Forsyth’s work as unique and said it will be a “visual delight” when finished. “Visiting artists always bring a freshness and a high standard,” Eyler said.
The gallery is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 1-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Eyler said admission is free and the exhibit is open to tours.
Forsyth said a book, “Wild Fire Loosed: The Week Maine Burned,” by Joyce Butler, inspired her art. Creating it is like a form of meditation about what happened, she said.
She visited Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, where the fire met the Atlantic Ocean. “People with wet blankets on their heads went into the water to survive,” she said.
Forsyth said people compared noise of the fire to a freight train “coming through the woods” and the fire looked like twinkling orange lights in the darkness.
“I’m creating those twinkling bits. I’m putting sequins in there,” she said.
When her project, which she described as a memorial piece, is completed, it will have 11,000 shapes attached to the 18-foot square grid. “It’s like a big fishing net,” she said.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” she said.
Just as the forest blaze destroyed everything in its path, her creation will be scrapped following the exhibit with the exception of a small remnant to be framed.
Seven university students are helping her with the project.
Forsyth has also created art about the explosion of a cargo ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1917. Her work has been displayed in Canada and Lisbon, Portugal, besides the United States.
When she first arrived in Maine she bought cross-country skis. “I love the cold,” she said about the Maine winter. “I take Sundays off to ski.”
A native of British Columbia, Forsyth grew up on an isolated island with 200 people and took a ferryboat to school. She is married to Kevin Haas.
She enjoys Maine sunrises and sunsets and says she likes the location of the University of Southern Maine.
“I feel super connected here,” she said.
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