Joy Fire
Reclaimed Stories
Mystery Ranch Artist In Residence, 2019, 2020, 2021
Joy Fire is a Southern California-based blacksmith, sculptor and conceptual artist, whose work explores craft, ritual and storytelling. She was first invited to be an artist in residence at the ranch in Spring 2019, where she began exploring the landscape as a component of her Reclaimed Stories project. This series transforms broken, thrown out chairs into wood and metal sculptures tied conceptually to characters in classic children’s adventure books. The Mojave landscape has informed this project and carried it to its next stage of development: connecting these objects and their related characters to locations, and recording them using toy cameras.
For the work, Wendy’s Chair, Fire chose to scout locations on the shores of nearby Lake Mohave, connecting it to the island of Neverland in the story of Peter Pan. Fire and crew transported Wendy’s Chair by boat and experimented with two toy cameras, a Holga and a Diana for the shoot.
Joy Fire has become a regular visitor to the ranch and the East Mojave landscape has inspired a number of sculptural installations and performances. More at joyfireblacksmith.com
Reclaimed Stories, from left: Alice’s Chair (Alice in Wonderland) , Rillian’s Chair (The Chronicles of Narnia), Wendy’s Chair, (Peter Pan) and Hurin’s Chair (The Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings)
Wendy’s Chair #18, 120 film, Diana Camera
Wendy’s Chair #3, 120 film, Holga camera