Oil pastel on archival paper
14 x 20 inches
2023
This is an oil pastel painting of Punchbowl Falls, on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge. It was an experiment with a limited color palette, using only four colors (Blue, Purple, Green, and Orange). Oil pastels can be tricky to work with because they are fat and greasy, and the damn things never dry.
Punchbowl Falls is located 2 miles in from the Eagle Creek trailhead on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge. It was a favorite swimming hole for my family and friends for over 20 years. This area was ground zero for a massive forest fire started by a 15 year-old tossing firecrackers over the cliff in 2017. No people died in this fire, but it burned over 50,000 acres of forest (several miles along I-84), killed countless millions of animals, trapped 153 hikers, forced the evacuation of the town of Cascade Locks, forced the early release of over 600,000 salmon from a fish hatchery, destroyed over 250 homes and businesses, and resulted in the closure of the hiking trail for several years. The fire was not fully put out for a full year.
Returning to Punchbowl after this fire is a shock. Though ground vegetation is returning, the trees are blackened poles. Portions of the surrounding cliffs have collapsed into the gorge around the falls, presumably because the roots that held them together burned and died. This has permanently destroyed the swimming hole (filled with big boulders now) as well as the view of the falls from downstream, which is the vantage point for this painting.
Like everyone who knows this place, I feel anger towards the kids who are responsible, but the extremely dry conditions produced by climate change made the destructive power of this fire much more intense. We are collectively responsible for this loss.
This painting is an ode to the old Punchbowl from times gone by.
This is a photo of Punchbowl from above that I took mid-summer of 2025, 7 years after the fire died out. You can see the young regeneration happening as well as the burned trunks of the dead Douglas firs.