FIRE INSIDE...
Fire Inside revealed...
The arson attack on the 10 foot statue left a charred edifice of Liberty. So the next summer, Timeless and crew returned to the "playa" with the charred Liberty, but also a 30' Statue of Liberty! They placed the former next to the later, for a retirement ceremony dowsed her with oil and lit her up.
The fire cracked, dancers twirled and the night wore on but the sculpture did not consume, leaving a hardly changed statue by morning, laying alongside her massive stump pedestal — which was not the size of a laundry basket! The fire had gone past the burn pan, down into the cracks of the stump and burned it up from the inside out!!
And that's how the mysterious desert showed the Burners Fire Inside...
Fire Inside is an art form that began with an arson attack at Burning Man, 2007 on a carved, 10 foot Statue of Liberty, the artist’s display trailer scaffolding and tools of his trade. That episode would inspire an entire collection of massive Liberty-themed sculptures and a new way of burning — a spellbinding ritual ceremony of fire and water.
In the ensuing dozen years, life-long sculptor Matthew Welter would become known as “Timeless” in the progressive global community, a self-styled double agent at the famous, “woke” Burning Man events In Nevada, where burning art reigns.
In response to the arson attack, Timeless would bring new Liberty-themed sculptures every summer for the following 12 years. Timeless showed the curious, global community centered on fire art a transformative new way to burn art. Soon he was burning his solid wooden carvings from the inside out along-side the Temple there; coveted placement reserved for only the finest art … the famous Temple constructed differently each year only to be burned to the ground again… These new monuments were all about the extreme antiquity and divine promise of Liberty and they are the first from that community to survive their own burn and go on to be shared publicly in “default”.
Fire Inside is not unlike the Temple burn...deep, dreamy, introspective, mesmerizing. With standard burns you have a free-for-all of cheering, trumpeting, cart-wheeling, foot stomping, but with Fire Inside expect watery eyes, bended knees, soaring hearts, unexpected insights and welcome hugs.
Unlike the conventional burns, which go up in minutes before ending in collapse, Fire Inside often burns all night, allowing time to contemplate and proximity so close that show participants proudly assist with water and their very breath, cooling and driving the flames under the firemeister’s direction. The fire is extinguished before any collapse and the delicate textures are later hardened, to produce lasting monuments for display in public spaces everywhere.
Fire Inside produces something greater than artworks. Fire Inside is an ancient rite revealing itself. Fire Inside has the power to transform a statue into a Talisman, to guide and guard, each one imbued with energetic essence.
Art appraisers and curators call such artworks “playa artifacts'' in reference to the dry, barren lakebed which hosts the famous events. The sculptures in this collection are now museum pieces, poised to embark on installations into ever higher venues. Together the collection is called Liberty (R)evolution and the cause is forever marked with empty, charred holes, caverns and tunnels to symbolize something in every human — a fire inside called freedom.
Message in a bottle...
Using digital imaging, 3D printing and modern casting techniques, art collectors everywhere can now have any piece in this collection replicated in any size, small to huge, in weatherable faux wood or cast in real bronze. The artist, a life-long poet has even penned a short rhyme for each that may be engraved into the surface, to explain Liberty to tomorrow’s children.
Sorry news to statue topplers...
Background (Commission wood carvings):
Contact the artist: Matthew “Timeless” Welter
email:fireinsideart@gmail.com / Tel: (775) 230-1718
Location and mailing: 19163 Scotts Flat rd. Nevada City, CA 95959