HILLS
ON FIRE
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
— Joni Mitchell
These timeless Joni Mitchell lyrics inspired our exterior design for the renowned Hollywood showroom, Blackman Cruz.
Hills on Fire depicts scorched native plants, a horizon aglow with flame, and air thick with yellow-grey smoke. Sticky monkey flowers in reflective gold add glints of light to the wall and hints at their irreplaceable value.
To transform this 112 foot wall, we began with veils of color and texture to create an ancient-feeling and weathered-looking abstract painting. Over the color washes, we painted sheer California fuschia, graphic valley oak and live oak leaves, and black sage and toyon.
While we created this design, the 1st, 3rd and 4th largest wildfires were burning in California. We were locked inside on account of Covid and inescapable smoke, overlapping environmental catastrophes.
We sought to capture a mix of beauty and fear - both a celebration of LA's native nature and a warning of our fragility in this new era of runaway wildfires.
