Brie Dodson

This is one of the few pieces I've ever painted that wasn't strictly representational. It depicts a dark and barren landscape, a disturbing one, with various unexplained elements kindling to flame.

I made this painting in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was, and is, beyond my comprehension to understand how lives can be consumed in an instant; or how last moments can be prolonged so terribly, as people chose to jump to their deaths, rather than succumb to the pressing flames. For my own part, I mourned the loss of a terrific "art pal" with whom I'd corresponded: Michael Noeth, a Navy illustrator. He was on the phone to his former art teacher in New York City, checking to make sure she was all right, when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon and the line went dead.

Michael once wrote, "My inspiration to be an artist? I don't think there was any. I really didn't choose to be an artist. I was drafted. It was as if God said, "What part of 'you are an artist' do you not understand?'" Another time, he advised: "You paint what you paint! Don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise... My landscapes are of places I have been. Burning oil wells in the Persian Gulf are not what most people would hang above their sofa. I have a file that is overflowing with rejection letters... What I am saying is this: You can spend your time pleasing everybody else, doing work that is not true to you (and it will show) – or stick to your guns."

Michael spoke the truth, and he is gone now. There is no bringing him back.

When I made this painting, I was thinking of the fire of transformation: a terrible light that destroys, yet purifies. Later I realized that the fire of the Spirit does not destroy. However painful, however much it may consume, it only cleanses. The painting depicts that annealing, purifying moment when the soul itself leaps to flame.

It's difficult to see in reproduction, but on close examination, the painting itself reveals a human figure at the base of the flame, with its hands clasped in prayer. I didn't intentionally paint that figure, but it's there. Now that time has passed, the painting reminds me of the presence of the Spirit throughout the most desolate of times: sometimes as a gentle flicker, other times an all-consuming fire.