导读:艺术家Pete Kephart 喜欢烧他的作品。他用那些令人震惊的画作告诉我们，毁灭也是美丽的。
Pete Kephart burns his art.
艺术家Pete Kephart 喜欢烧他的作品。
My mom always said, ‘Don’t play with fire,’ and “I never learned.”
妈妈说，别玩火。但，我从来没学会这一点。
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山脉上，他作为一名火焰画家已经十二年了。他用火，水，土壤，风和涂料，在纸上创造一些抽象作品。
He begins by building a huge bonfire. As it burns down to sizzling cinders, he begins fire painting on paper using water.
首先，他堆起一个巨大的篝火。当篝火烧成炙热的灰烬时，他开始用水在纸上作画。
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.
在纸上画出一个圆，然后点燃它。随后我们会看到棕色的纸片上有一个白色的圆。
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.
与其他普通的木浆纸片不同，他所用的纸片由棉花制成，因此更耐用抗烧。火焰会很快燃烧那些没有用水或者以水为基料涂抹过的地方。但是，全部或是大部分的水还是会留在纸片表面，这就是奇妙的反差原理。
It is supposed to look like a sunset or sunrise with clouds over water.
只用水涂抹过的画作展现给我们大海之上伴着云朵的日出日落。
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 将干土性颜料散落在纸上，随后让微风参与创作。我在这张纸上使用的材料之间发生了反应，再加上火焰的参与，它们又创造除了一个全新的效果。
But the timing is crucial. And each paper needs to be removed within 30 seconds.
时间把控至关重要。每张纸都要在三十秒之内被取走。
One second can make a huge difference between a fantastic, beautiful painting, and something that just burns to nothing, and becomes ash.
一秒种的差距是巨大的，神奇、美丽的画作与一团灰烬只在这一秒之差。
Kephart says as far as he knows he is the only artist using this technique. Every painting is a surprise.
Kephart说，他是他所知道的唯一一个在使用这种技艺的艺术家。每一副画作都是一个惊喜。
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.
这个技艺是他烧一张用过的艺术画作时偶然发现的。Kephart在他的工作室说：“画纸上滴落了一些雨滴，所以当我点燃它后，雨滴在棕色画纸上变成了白色的亮点。”
He works on what he calls his unfinished paintings by drawing on them using pastels.
他正在用用过的蜡笔填充他所称之为未完成的画作。
Some of them turn into nature scenes.
其中一些作品展示的是自然景观。
I am seeing a sun with a mountain ridge in the distance, and a river or stream coming down through the center.
我看到的是远处山脉伴着太阳，还有一条河流或小溪从图画中间流过来。
Here at the Zenith Gallery in Washington, his creation sells from $1,000 to $7,500.
这些火焰画作在华盛顿的Zenith Gallery 出售价格在1，000美金或7，500美金。
Kephart’s striking paintings show that destruction can be beautiful.
这些令人震惊的画作告诉我们，毁灭也是美丽的。
