Creating beauty from natural disaster - a community effort
For two consecutive years, members of Watershed have been selected to partake in the Art in the Park for Wildfire Protection and Recovery project - a very meaningful partnership for our school with Boulder’s Chautauqua Park and the Cal-Wood Education Center.
In 2020, the Cal-Wood wildfire devastated over 600 acres of Ponderosa Pine forest. In the aftermath, the team at the Cal-Wood Education Center collected the unburned wood from the charred tree trunks and repurposed it into "canvases" for local artists. These transformed pieces have become stunning wooden benches and birdhouses, showcasing the diverse creativity of Colorado artists. For the past three years, their work has been displayed around Chautauqua as part of a fundraising effort for wildfire recovery and prevention.
Chosen from over 200 submissions, this mosaic birdhouse, created collaboratively by students in Watershed’s Upcycled Mosaics class, was proudly displayed in September 2023, amongst that of 26 other local artists for Chautauqua’s Art in the Park for Wildfire Protection and Recovery initiative - proof that beauty and strength in community can emerge from the scars of a natural disaster. Featuring the Colorado columbine flower, the piece is entitled “Shadow from the Starlight”. Students exclusively used recycled and donated materials to craft a work of art that represents the beauty and resilience of Colorado.
