Betye Saar
Interview by Christophe Cherix
The Los Angeles fires brought back to my mind a conversation with Betye Saar about some of the very first etchings she made at home, right out of college. These prints often show charred vegetation rendered in beautiful color overlays, making the burnt wilderness glow in extraordinary shades of ochre and orange. Betye explained at the time that the house she had moved to, in 1962, was located in a canyon that had been devastated by fires three years earlier. When I heard she was safe back home, after having been evacuated for a few days this January, I asked Betye if she would tell us more about these early etchings, which in my mind had always been more about healing and resilience than destruction.
—Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator, Drawings and Prints
In 1962, I moved to Laurel Canyon from the South Bay, which is by the ocean. That house was just a simple two or three-bedroom house. You couldn’t walk to the ocean, but from certain heights you could see the ocean. And my recollection of that home was like the weather that’s at the ocean: kind of foggy and hazy and drippy and rainy.
When we bought the other house in Los Angeles, it was in an area called Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon had been part of the Hollywood community, but there had been a terrible fire in 1959 that had destroyed many homes. Fortunately, the house that I lived in was a survivor. The houses next door to me on either side had also survived this fire. And because it was a mountainous area, my whole sensitivity about making art as related to the environment changed. I made many sketches of the remnants of the fire.
Across the street from me was a burnt-out shell of a garage that had a very interesting texture. So I would photograph several of my works against those walls. They had just begun to rebuild things. I was very influenced by the physical feeling of what Laurel Canyon was like after a fire. And many of my works show that influence. One of them is called The Wounded Wilderness, from 1962. It was made in my studio in Laurel Canyon and it was about the wilderness around me after the fire. It was wild then, but it had also been wild many, many years ago. And it had been wounded by the fire, so that’s why I made that selection of a title. Another work from the same year is Amid Hallucinatory Moons. I was also influenced by astronomy. And I liked the diagrams of the phases of the moon. So I had adapted that idea into this etching.
I’ve always been really lucky in adapting things that I find for my art-making. So I spent a lot of time going through these abandoned, vacant lots where there had been a structure or a house or a garage or some sort of building. I’d find burnt things or pieces of broken glass or other objects that I would incorporate into my assemblages and collages. Making art, making something positive out of a loss, is so important.
—Betye Saar, January 28, 2025, as told to Christophe Cherix through the kind assistance of Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh and Julie Roberts