By Jon Chown
BONNY DOON — Five years ago, Alison Parham retired from her job as a teacher at Boulder Creek Elementary and thought she’d spend a lot more time in her barn creating art. Four days after retirement, the CZU Lightning Complex fires raged through the mountains and destroyed her home.
On Sunday, July 27, she opened her home on Empire Grade Road to the public as part of the DoonArt Open Studios Tour. Not only her own art, but that of three other artists were featured at the site.
“It’s nice to be home, and it’s nice to open our doors to everybody,” said Parham, with a big sigh.
Parham creates watercolor paintings, as well as garden sculptures out of cement. She had been painting for about 20 years when she wanted something for her garden and couldn’t find quite what she was looking for. Some Youtube videos led her to creating with cement.
“And actually the cement was the thing that made it through the fire,” she said.
Some of her work did somehow survive. She had set up a studio in her barn, which burned down. All of her molds were destroyed and most of her art. “I had to recreate everything from scratch,” she said.
But even that would have to wait for two years while she and her husband Chuck Parham rebuilt their home. Luckily, she said, the kids had moved out and both she and Chuck were retired. He had worked at Big Creek Lumber for 40 years and knew in the ins and outs of who to contact and how to get supplies for the rebuild. On July 30 they celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary, and three years of living in their house again.
April Zilber plays musical notes using her art.
One of the artists at the Parham home was April Zilber, who works with glass. She makes earrings, beautiful pictures of redwood trees by fusing glass and metal panels, and most recently started creating musical glass art.
“Squares make a note, and rectangles make two,” she said, lightly tapping the center of the glass squares with a dulcimer.
The glass would ring with a beautiful, true tone. Zilber tunes each piece of glass, adding material and then cutting it down, grinding and polishing until the tone is perfect.
“I call this empirical science, because I learn as I go, I’m taking notes, measuring the frequency … I was a trained scientist, so it’s kind of natural for me to do it like that,” she said.
The result both looks and sounds beautiful.
DoonArt Open Studios, Parham said, came about because artists in the mountains wanted to participate in the county’s larger Open Studios event, but it happens in October and the weather in the mountains is hard to predict. Twenty-five artists participated this year.
COVER PHOTO: Alison Parham stands in front of her art at her home on Empire Grade Road.