1 00:00:02,033 --> 00:00:04,833 AMNA NAWAZ: There's no lack of images and powerful video when it comes to the disasters 2 00:00:04,833 --> 00:00:07,466 like wildfires or melting glaciers. 3 00:00:07,466 --> 00:00:11,833 But a pair of artists are using those images in new ways, part of their mission to warn 4 00:00:11,833 --> 00:00:16,233 people about what's happening too frequently to familiar landscapes. 5 00:00:16,233 --> 00:00:21,200 Miles O'Brien has this different look at the power of fire and ice for our segment on the 6 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:23,266 Leading Edge. 7 00:00:23,266 --> 00:00:27,466 MILES O'BRIEN: In a small shack in the Palm Springs Desert and a sunlit studio on a Brooklyn 8 00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:34,700 corner, two artists are aiming their talent at an existential crisis. 9 00:00:36,333 --> 00:00:39,266 JEFF FROST, Artist: Sometimes, people accuse me of being an alarmist. 10 00:00:39,266 --> 00:00:41,100 And I say, that's exactly right. 11 00:00:41,100 --> 00:00:43,100 It is time to sound the alarm. 12 00:00:43,100 --> 00:00:47,700 Any sensible adult who's responsible in any way would be sounding the alarm right now. 13 00:00:47,700 --> 00:00:52,166 MILES O'BRIEN: For Jeff Frost, the subject is wildfire. 14 00:00:52,166 --> 00:00:56,566 The medium is time-lapse video art. 15 00:00:56,566 --> 00:01:01,533 His film is "California on Fire," an intense, horrifying creation about destruction. 16 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:08,366 JEFF FROST: I had looked at this wildfire situation and I thought, well, here is a present-day 17 00:01:10,300 --> 00:01:12,400 effect of climate change. 18 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:17,400 People tend to not react to things unless they're actually happening to them right then. 19 00:01:18,833 --> 00:01:20,700 And I was thinking, well, this is happening right now. 20 00:01:20,700 --> 00:01:24,233 It's definitely not a film that pulls any punches whatsoever. 21 00:01:24,233 --> 00:01:26,666 In fact, it's full-on aggressive. 22 00:01:26,666 --> 00:01:31,033 MILES O'BRIEN: For Zaria Forman, the mission is the same. 23 00:01:31,033 --> 00:01:36,033 ZARIA FORMAN, Artist: Art has this very special ability to tap into people's emotions, and 24 00:01:38,100 --> 00:01:42,100 people take action and make decisions based on their emotions more than anything else. 25 00:01:44,166 --> 00:01:47,366 MILES O'BRIEN: Her medium is pastels, and her subject is ice, vanishing ice, also a 26 00:01:51,066 --> 00:01:56,033 story of destruction, on a different time scale, and from a different perspective. 27 00:01:57,966 --> 00:02:00,900 ZARIA FORMAN: I choose specifically to show the beauty of these places at the forefront 28 00:02:00,900 --> 00:02:05,666 of climate change, as opposed to the devastation that's happening, because I want people to 29 00:02:05,666 --> 00:02:09,633 be inspired, to be moved to want to protect and preserve them. 30 00:02:09,633 --> 00:02:14,633 MILES O'BRIEN: Jeff Frost began his artistic journey here, inside abandoned houses in California's 31 00:02:16,766 --> 00:02:19,166 Salton Sea. 32 00:02:19,166 --> 00:02:24,166 As he embellished them with paint, he captured time-lapse images, art that is as much about 33 00:02:25,033 --> 00:02:27,266 the process as the object. 34 00:02:27,266 --> 00:02:32,266 JEFF FROST: On the way to one, I accidentally ran into my first wildfire out -- right out 35 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,166 here by the wind farms. 36 00:02:35,166 --> 00:02:39,200 My artist brain just kind of exploded, and I stopped immediately and time-lapsed it all 37 00:02:39,666 --> 00:02:41,700 night. 38 00:02:41,700 --> 00:02:44,266 I just was looking at it, thinking, I have never seen anything like this. 39 00:02:44,266 --> 00:02:46,133 And it was wildly exciting. 40 00:02:46,133 --> 00:02:48,133 I want to do more. 41 00:02:48,133 --> 00:02:52,366 MILES O'BRIEN: Zaria Forman's love of distant, fragile places is inherited. 42 00:02:54,466 --> 00:02:59,133 Her mother, Rena Bass Forman, was a fine art landscape photographer, obsessed with exploring 43 00:03:00,866 --> 00:03:04,966 and photographing the most remote places on the planet. 44 00:03:04,966 --> 00:03:09,966 In 2007, they traveled together to Greenland. 45 00:03:11,500 --> 00:03:14,933 For Zaria, the ice offered inspiration, and yet also intimidation. 46 00:03:14,933 --> 00:03:19,933 ZARIA FORMAN: I was terrified to draw ice, and I omitted it from all of my drawings. 47 00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:24,233 It's hard. 48 00:03:24,233 --> 00:03:28,500 It doesn't lend itself to very crisp, hard lines, specific details. 49 00:03:28,500 --> 00:03:30,866 And especially white is one of the hardest colors to work with. 50 00:03:30,866 --> 00:03:33,000 It doesn't blend well with other colors. 51 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,100 So, I just didn't think I was going to be capable of it, to be totally honest. 52 00:03:36,100 --> 00:03:41,100 MILES O'BRIEN: But it was impossible to ignore this artistic sin of omission, so she eventually 53 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:44,666 embraced the challenge. 54 00:03:44,666 --> 00:03:49,366 ZARIA FORMAN: And it was this big, kind of scary step, but I made my first drawing when 55 00:03:50,466 --> 00:03:51,700 I got home, and it didn't turn out so bad. 56 00:03:51,700 --> 00:03:53,533 And I have been doing it ever since. 57 00:03:53,533 --> 00:03:58,500 MILES O'BRIEN: Jeff Frost became equally obsessed with wildfires. 58 00:03:59,633 --> 00:04:01,766 He started responding to the big ones. 59 00:04:01,766 --> 00:04:05,900 JEFF FROST: The very first time I went to a fire, it was just massive level of anxiety 60 00:04:06,633 --> 00:04:08,733 and heightened alert. 61 00:04:08,733 --> 00:04:12,466 But, once I got used to it, it became more contemplative, and it became more strategized. 62 00:04:14,533 --> 00:04:18,766 I would take this photo that was incredibly aesthetically beautiful, but then I would 63 00:04:18,766 --> 00:04:22,200 feel guilty because I was happy about making a good picture. 64 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:24,700 And I think a lot of photojournalists probably go through this. 65 00:04:24,700 --> 00:04:28,633 And, eventually, I compartmentalized and strategized. 66 00:04:28,633 --> 00:04:32,966 And so, in a lot of ways, the strategy is to pull people in with that aesthetic beauty, 67 00:04:32,966 --> 00:04:36,966 but then they're seeing something that's got a lot more depth than just the surface. 68 00:04:36,966 --> 00:04:41,966 MILES O'BRIEN: His is constantly playing with the clock, speeding it up, slowing it down, 69 00:04:43,900 --> 00:04:45,900 lingering on a frame. 70 00:04:45,900 --> 00:04:50,266 JEFF FROST: If you change chronologies away from real time, what our experience of time 71 00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:55,233 is as humans, it can give you the overview effect, which is the same kind of thing that 72 00:04:55,233 --> 00:04:59,566 you get if you were to look at space photos from the International Space Station. 73 00:04:59,566 --> 00:05:03,066 It sort of expands your mind into this wider view. 74 00:05:03,066 --> 00:05:07,266 We really need that, because I don't think, in the evolution of our species, anything 75 00:05:07,266 --> 00:05:10,166 has ever developed to give us a global instinct. 76 00:05:10,166 --> 00:05:14,700 MILES O'BRIEN: Zaria Forman has her own tale of overview. 77 00:05:14,700 --> 00:05:19,700 ZARIA FORMAN: So, one day, I opened this e-mail that was in my inbox that read, "Dear Zaria, 78 00:05:21,333 --> 00:05:24,800 we would love for you to come fly with us over Antarctica, love NASA." 79 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:26,066 (LAUGHTER) 80 00:05:26,066 --> 00:05:29,133 ZARIA FORMAN: And I was like, what? 81 00:05:29,133 --> 00:05:34,133 MILES O'BRIEN: It was the crew of NASA's IceBridge, which flies low-altitude sensing missions 82 00:05:35,233 --> 00:05:38,100 over both polar regions. 83 00:05:38,100 --> 00:05:43,100 She's flown with them several times, a new perspective on a familiar subject. 84 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:47,100 ZARIA FORMAN: I'm used to seeing it at the very end stage, either the face of a glacier 85 00:05:47,100 --> 00:05:51,433 where the icebergs are calving off, or the icebergs that have already broken off and 86 00:05:51,433 --> 00:05:54,600 are on their deathbed, essentially, until they melt completely in the ocean. 87 00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:58,633 So, it was really interesting to get to get to fly over the ice cap, over the ice sheet, 88 00:05:58,633 --> 00:06:03,000 and really see where all of that ice came from, and understand how it travels and how 89 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:04,466 it moves. 90 00:06:04,466 --> 00:06:06,466 MILES O'BRIEN: It is the focus of her work right now. 91 00:06:06,466 --> 00:06:10,466 ZARIA FORMAN: I want to be true to the landscape that existed at that point in time. 92 00:06:10,466 --> 00:06:15,133 I want the viewer to have as much of a recreation of an experience that I had. 93 00:06:15,133 --> 00:06:17,033 I want it to be real. 94 00:06:17,033 --> 00:06:21,633 MILES O'BRIEN: The landscape depicted in "California on Fire" is grim. 95 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:27,233 It ripples with tension, made palpable with a throbbing soundtrack composed and performed 96 00:06:28,900 --> 00:06:31,000 by Jeff Frost himself. 97 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,000 JEFF FROST: The most feedback from the firefighters themselves I have got is, this really makes 98 00:06:37,433 --> 00:06:39,533 you feel like you're in the middle of a fire. 99 00:06:39,533 --> 00:06:44,133 And you see the things that normally civilians wouldn't see. 100 00:06:44,133 --> 00:06:47,733 This probably gets as close as you're going to get. 101 00:06:47,733 --> 00:06:52,733 I have had a number of people thank me for essentially making something beautiful and 102 00:06:54,633 --> 00:06:58,633 something productive and artistic out of this horror that they experienced. 103 00:06:58,633 --> 00:07:02,400 There are moments in this where horror is beauty. 104 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:07,400 MILES O'BRIEN: For Zaria Forman, the horror lies in the beauty that is vanishing, melting, 105 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:12,400 even as she freezes it on paper. 106 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:16,066 ZARIA FORMAN: I think it's important to have like come at it at all different angles, you 107 00:07:16,066 --> 00:07:17,066 know? 108 00:07:17,066 --> 00:07:18,066 Like, we need news. 109 00:07:18,066 --> 00:07:19,266 We need the stories. 110 00:07:19,266 --> 00:07:21,366 We need the data from the scientists. 111 00:07:21,366 --> 00:07:25,300 But then I think we also need beautiful images, whatever we can possibly do to change policy. 112 00:07:26,866 --> 00:07:28,933 I mean, we're moving in the right direction, just not fast enough. 113 00:07:28,933 --> 00:07:33,600 JEFF FROST: I can't really go into it saying like, I'm going to change the world. 114 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,933 I'm saying like, look, it would be great if this was a catalyst. 115 00:07:35,933 --> 00:07:38,800 I think everybody has to do their thing. 116 00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:43,066 I just feel like more like I'm doing my part, you do your part too, and you and you and 117 00:07:43,066 --> 00:07:45,066 you and everybody else. 118 00:07:45,066 --> 00:07:47,033 And they're all important. 119 00:07:47,033 --> 00:07:51,233 MILES O'BRIEN: Two artists making fine art of fire and ice, beautiful, terrifying work, 120 00:07:55,566 --> 00:08:00,600 created to evoke and provoke. 121 00:08:02,566 --> 00:08:06,633 For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Palm Springs and Brooklyn.