Pete Kephart burns his art.

　　藝術家Pete Kephart 喜歡燒他的作品。

　　My mom always said, ‘Don’t play with fire,’ and “I never learned.”

　　媽媽說，別玩火。但，我從來沒學會這一點。

　　For the past 12 years at his home in the mountains of West Virginia, Kephart has been a fire painter,using fire, water, earth, wind and paint to create abstract designs on paper.

　　Kephart的家就在West Virginia山脈上，他作為一名火焰畫家已經十二年了。他用火，水，土壤，風和涂料，在紙上創造一些抽象作品。

　　He begins by building a huge bonfire. As it burns down to sizzling cinders, he begins fire painting on paper using water.

　　首先，他堆起一個巨大的篝火。當篝火燒成炙熱的灰燼時，他開始用水在紙上作畫。

　　If I paint a circle on a sheet of paper with just water, and I set it on fire, I’ll get a white circle on a brown sheet of paper.

　　在紙上畫出一個圓，然后點燃它。隨后我們會看到棕色的紙片上有一個白色的圓。

　　The paper is made from cotton, which is stronger and burns more slowly than paper made of wood pulp. The places where I’m not applying any water, or water-based materials, will begin to burn very, very quickly, while at the same time, all the water or much of the water will still be present in the surface of the paper, and that causes the amazing contrast.

　　與其他普通的木漿紙片不同，他所用的紙片由棉花制成，因此更耐用抗燒。火焰會很快燃燒那些沒有用水或者以水為基料涂抹過的地方。但是，全部或是大部分的水還是會留在紙片表面，這就是奇妙的反差原理。

　　It is supposed to look like a sunset or sunrise with clouds over water.

　　只用水涂抹過的畫作展現給我們大海之上伴著云朵的日出日落。

　　Kephart is pouring dried earth pigment onto this paper and letting the wind help create the design. The interaction of the elements that I’ve applied to the paper’s surface and the fire itself create entirely new effects.

　　Kephart 將干土性顏料散落在紙上，隨后讓微風參與創作。我在這張紙上使用的材料之間發生了反應，再加上火焰的參與，它們又創造除了一個全新的效果。

　　But the timing is crucial. And each paper needs to be removed within 30 seconds.

　　時間把控至關重要。每張紙都要在三十秒之內被取走。

　　One second can make a huge difference between a fantastic, beautiful painting, and something that just burns to nothing, and becomes ash.

　　一秒種的差距是巨大的，神奇、美麗的畫作與一團灰燼只在這一秒之差。

　　Kephart says as far as he knows he is the only artist using this technique. Every painting is a surprise.

　　Kephart說，他是他所知道的唯一一個在使用這種技藝的藝術家。每一副畫作都是一個驚喜。

　　He discovered the method by accident as he was getting rid of some used art paper, says Kephart in his studioThe raindrops fell on a sheet of paper, so when I set the paper on fire, the raindrops preserved these white, bright spots on this brown sheet of paper that had burned.

　　這個技藝是他燒一張用過的藝術畫作時偶然發現的。Kephart在他的工作室說：“畫紙上滴落了一些雨滴，所以當我點燃它后，雨滴在棕色畫紙上變成了白色的亮點。”

　　He works on what he calls his unfinished paintings by drawing on them using pastels.

　　他正在用用過的蠟筆填充他所稱之為未完成的畫作。

　　Some of them turn into nature scenes.

　　其中一些作品展示的是自然景觀。

　　I am seeing a sun with a mountain ridge in the distance, and a river or stream coming down through the center.

　　我看到的是遠處山脈伴著太陽，還有一條河流或小溪從圖畫中間流過來。

　　Here at the Zenith Gallery in Washington, his creation sells from $1,000 to $7,500.

　　這些火焰畫作在華盛頓的Zenith Gallery 出售價格在1，000美金或7，500美金。

　　Kephart’s striking paintings show that destruction can be beautiful.

　　這些令人震驚的畫作告訴我們，毀滅也是美麗的。