AMNA NAWAZ: There's no lack
of images and powerful video
when it comes to the disasters

like wildfires or
melting glaciers.

But a pair of artists are
using those images in new ways,
part of their mission to warn

people about what's
happening too frequently
to familiar landscapes.

Miles O'Brien has this different
look at the power of fire and
ice for our segment on the

Leading Edge.

MILES O'BRIEN: In a small shack
in the Palm Springs Desert and
a sunlit studio on a Brooklyn

corner, two artists are
aiming their talent at
an existential crisis.

JEFF FROST, Artist:
Sometimes, people accuse
me of being an alarmist.

And I say, that's exactly right.

It is time to sound the alarm.

Any sensible adult who's
responsible in any way would be
sounding the alarm right now.

MILES O'BRIEN: For Jeff Frost,
the subject is wildfire.

The medium is
time-lapse video art.

His film is "California on
Fire," an intense, horrifying
creation about destruction.

JEFF FROST: I had looked
at this wildfire situation
and I thought, well,
here is a present-day

effect of climate change.

People tend to not react to
things unless they're actually
happening to them right then.

And I was thinking, well,
this is happening right now.

It's definitely not a film that
pulls any punches whatsoever.

In fact, it's
full-on aggressive.

MILES O'BRIEN: For Zaria
Forman, the mission is the same.

ZARIA FORMAN, Artist: Art has
this very special ability to
tap into people's emotions, and

people take action and
make decisions based
on their emotions more
than anything else.

MILES O'BRIEN: Her medium is
pastels, and her subject is
ice, vanishing ice, also a

story of destruction, on a
different time scale, and
from a different perspective.

ZARIA FORMAN: I choose
specifically to show the beauty
of these places at the forefront

of climate change, as
opposed to the devastation
that's happening,
because I want people to

be inspired, to be moved to want
to protect and preserve them.

MILES O'BRIEN: Jeff Frost
began his artistic journey
here, inside abandoned
houses in California's

Salton Sea.

As he embellished them
with paint, he captured
time-lapse images, art
that is as much about

the process as the object.

JEFF FROST: On the way to one,
I accidentally ran into my
first wildfire out -- right out

here by the wind farms.

My artist brain just
kind of exploded, and
I stopped immediately
and time-lapsed it all

night.

I just was looking at it,
thinking, I have never
seen anything like this.

And it was wildly exciting.

I want to do more.

MILES O'BRIEN: Zaria
Forman's love of distant,
fragile places is inherited.

Her mother, Rena Bass
Forman, was a fine art
landscape photographer,
obsessed with exploring

and photographing the most
remote places on the planet.

In 2007, they traveled
together to Greenland.

For Zaria, the ice
offered inspiration, and
yet also intimidation.

ZARIA FORMAN: I was terrified
to draw ice, and I omitted
it from all of my drawings.

It's hard.

It doesn't lend itself
to very crisp, hard
lines, specific details.

And especially white is one of
the hardest colors to work with.

It doesn't blend well
with other colors.

So, I just didn't think I
was going to be capable of
it, to be totally honest.

MILES O'BRIEN: But it
was impossible to ignore
this artistic sin of
omission, so she eventually

embraced the challenge.

ZARIA FORMAN: And it was this
big, kind of scary step, but
I made my first drawing when

I got home, and it
didn't turn out so bad.

And I have been
doing it ever since.

MILES O'BRIEN: Jeff Frost became
equally obsessed with wildfires.

He started responding
to the big ones.

JEFF FROST: The very first
time I went to a fire, it was
just massive level of anxiety

and heightened alert.

But, once I got used to it, it
became more contemplative, and
it became more strategized.

I would take this photo that
was incredibly aesthetically
beautiful, but then I would

feel guilty because I was happy
about making a good picture.

And I think a lot
of photojournalists
probably go through this.

And, eventually, I
compartmentalized
and strategized.

And so, in a lot of ways, the
strategy is to pull people in
with that aesthetic beauty,

but then they're seeing
something that's got a lot more
depth than just the surface.

MILES O'BRIEN: His is constantly
playing with the clock,
speeding it up, slowing it down,

lingering on a frame.

JEFF FROST: If you
change chronologies away
from real time, what
our experience of time

is as humans, it can give you
the overview effect, which is
the same kind of thing that

you get if you were to look
at space photos from the
International Space Station.

It sort of expands your
mind into this wider view.

We really need that, because I
don't think, in the evolution
of our species, anything

has ever developed to
give us a global instinct.

MILES O'BRIEN: Zaria Forman
has her own tale of overview.

ZARIA FORMAN: So, one day, I
opened this e-mail that was in
my inbox that read, "Dear Zaria,

we would love for you
to come fly with us over
Antarctica, love NASA."

(LAUGHTER)

ZARIA FORMAN: And
I was like, what?

MILES O'BRIEN: It was the crew
of NASA's IceBridge, which flies
low-altitude sensing missions

over both polar regions.

She's flown with them several
times, a new perspective
on a familiar subject.

ZARIA FORMAN: I'm used to
seeing it at the very end stage,
either the face of a glacier

where the icebergs are calving
off, or the icebergs that
have already broken off and

are on their deathbed,
essentially, until they melt
completely in the ocean.

So, it was really interesting
to get to get to fly over the
ice cap, over the ice sheet,

and really see where
all of that ice came
from, and understand
how it travels and how

it moves.

MILES O'BRIEN: It is the
focus of her work right now.

ZARIA FORMAN: I want to be
true to the landscape that
existed at that point in time.

I want the viewer to have
as much of a recreation of
an experience that I had.

I want it to be real.

MILES O'BRIEN: The landscape
depicted in "California
on Fire" is grim.

It ripples with tension,
made palpable with a
throbbing soundtrack
composed and performed

by Jeff Frost himself.

JEFF FROST: The most feedback
from the firefighters themselves
I have got is, this really makes

you feel like you're in
the middle of a fire.

And you see the things that
normally civilians wouldn't see.

This probably gets as close
as you're going to get.

I have had a number of people
thank me for essentially
making something beautiful and

something productive and
artistic out of this horror
that they experienced.

There are moments in this
where horror is beauty.

MILES O'BRIEN: For Zaria Forman,
the horror lies in the beauty
that is vanishing, melting,

even as she freezes it on paper.

ZARIA FORMAN: I think it's
important to have like come at
it at all different angles, you

know?

Like, we need news.

We need the stories.

We need the data
from the scientists.

But then I think we also
need beautiful images,
whatever we can possibly
do to change policy.

I mean, we're moving
in the right direction,
just not fast enough.

JEFF FROST: I can't really
go into it saying like, I'm
going to change the world.

I'm saying like, look, it would
be great if this was a catalyst.

I think everybody has
to do their thing.

I just feel like more like
I'm doing my part, you do your
part too, and you and you and

you and everybody else.

And they're all important.

MILES O'BRIEN: Two artists
making fine art of fire and
ice, beautiful, terrifying work,

created to evoke and provoke.

For the "PBS NewsHour,"
I'm Miles O'Brien in Palm
Springs and Brooklyn.