Confronting Climate Change With Fire and Wax

The impact of climate change is often illustrated with charts, graphs and statistics. ��Ƶ Professor Stevie Woods brings a different perspective on human impact. With "Natural Consequences," a collection of 32 encaustic wax paintings, Woods presents an artistic view into one of the most fraught challenges of our time.

The exhibition, on display in October 2025 at the Kathrin Cawein Gallery of Art on the ��Ƶ Forest Grove Campus, uses encaustic wax to illustrate endangered species such as the African Bush, Forest Elephants, Oceanic Whitetip Sharks, Fender's Blue Butterflies and bees. Rendered in layers of beeswax that have been molded with flame, "Natural Consequences" invites observers to empathize with the animals with whom we share the world and think about their possible futures.

A silhouetted figure stands in front of six paintings depicting endangered or extinct birds hanging behind a velvet rope. A red sting runs from the velvet rope and connects to all but the rightmost painting. — Woods' six bird pieces — some of the last works completed for the collection — capture the fight of animal populations to survive in their natural environments. These pieces also signify the close of a yearlong project supported by the Elise Elliott Grant and by colleagues across campus.

Stevie Woods leans down next to a painted canvas that is lying flat on an easel.

A hand holds a lit blowtorch over the surface of a painted canvas that is laying flat on an easel.

Stevie Woods uses a heat gun on the painted surface of a canvas that is sitting upright on an easel.

People in an art gallery looking at paintings

A small crowd gathers in an art gallery to look at paintings behind a red velvet rope.

Artistic representations of bees etched into beeswax. — Woods, who has specialized in oil painting, found a renewed passion in encaustic painting. Using wax and heat to craft her pieces, Woods formed relationships with local beekeepers to provide materials for "Natural Consequences" and created her own blend of beeswax, tree resin and oil paints to render her subjects.

A depiction of a wildfire burning in yellow and red with black trees on the right side. A splotch of darker red is in the lower middle.

"The control that I have with oil paint is not available to you with a blowtorch and hot, molten beeswax. It just isn't available to you. And someone better than me can probably do it, but I realized I didn't want to. I think part of the magic of this project lies in the fact that I could not control it. And the media then becomes the message in a way."

– Stevie Woods

Two pancake griddles sit side by side on a table covered in open containers of hot melted wax, paintbrushes and hardened wax droplets. The griddles are surrounded by more paintbrushes, hardened wax and painted canvases. — The original inspiration for "Natural Consequences" came to Woods when her daughter and her college roommates wanted an encaustic piece that Woods had previously made. The piece had been destroyed in hot weather, and the roommates said it made them think about climate change.

A hand reaches down to press a chunk of hardened wax onto a hot griddle, melting it.

A hand brushes hot pink wax onto a blue canvas.

The tip of a blowtorch is held just above the surface of a blue painted canvas causing the colors to swirl from the heat.

"I love teaching art so much. Like, I love teaching art. And every day when I walk in to teach art I think, 'I don't want to teach like how I was taught.' Because I want to keep the magic. I don't want to kill their magic. What they love is so important to them as artists. They need to hold on to what they love, and that will come through in their art."

– Stevie Woods

A painting of an Oceanic Whitetip Shark with its fins cut out of the canvas and outlined in red.

A hand etches details into a depiction of a bison painted on a canvas.

Buffalo nickels pressed into the surface of a painted canvas.

Stevie Woods holds a blowtorch over a canvas that is laid flat on an easel.

A black rubber spoon holds a small pile of buffalo nickels covered with droplets of dried wax.

"I couldn't think of an animal that could better tell that story of like, 'We came here, everyone lived in harmony for thousands of years, eating bison, being around bison, and we showed up and wiped them all out.' The bison story is not just one of destruction, though. The bison are being brought back and reintroduced. So it is a story of hope."

– Stevie Woods

People in an art gallery looking at a work of encaustic wax art

"I don't feel like my show answered too many questions. Maybe it didn't answer how or give you a solution, but I hope that people felt for these animals. Because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to feel for the animals. Because I didn't have feelings towards the animals, and I wanted to create those feelings. And to be able to create a piece of art, I've always felt that I need to fall in love with it a little bit."

– Stevie Woods

At ��Ƶ, students are invited to engage in curious conversations around the critical issues facing our world. In Fall 2025, Stevie Woods' art exhibition paired with student and faculty research projects, book discussions, and a campus visit by acclaimed investigative journalist Jeff Goodell as students explored the issue of climate change.

������Ƶ

Confronting Climate Change With Fire and Wax

By

��Ƶ