{"id":3341,"date":"2026-09-15T19:28:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T19:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/from-pit-91-to-the-cosmos-james-griffiths-dark-medium\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T19:28:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T19:28:34","slug":"from-pit-91-to-the-cosmos-james-griffiths-dark-medium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/from-pit-91-to-the-cosmos-james-griffiths-dark-medium\/","title":{"rendered":"From Pit 91 to the Cosmos: James Griffith\u0019s Dark Medium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Altadena-based artist <strong>James Griffith<\/strong> welcomes visitors to his studio\u0014located in a refurbished 1920s firehouse diagonally across from the restored Bunny Museum\u0019s gleaming silver lagomorph\u0014with a disarming line: \u001cHi, I just started putting a galaxy in the armpit of a penguin.\u001d For the past decade, he has painted with material gathered from the La Brea Tar Pits\u0019 Pit 91, transforming the city\u0019s black ooze into wildlife portraits and astral vistas.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Los Angeles\u0019 primordial medium<\/h2>\n<p>Los Angeles is symbolized by the La Brea Tar Pits, whose bubbling black substance is in fact natural asphalt\u0014crude petroleum and methane seeping up from the <strong>6th Street fault<\/strong> of the vast <strong>Salt Lake Oil Field<\/strong>. The site\u0019s iconic tableau of three Imperial or Columbian Mammoths\u0014drowning mama, stoic papa, and trumpeting infant\u0014was realized in 1967 when sculptor <strong>Howard Ball<\/strong> towed the first fiberglass mammoth (13 feet tall, 25 feet long) from his studio in <strong>Walteria, Torrance<\/strong> to <strong>Hancock Park<\/strong> behind a chugging 1958 Volkswagen Bug, before a crane lowered the family onto iron platforms. Adjacent, the <strong>George C. Page Museum<\/strong> is closed for renovation until 2028.<\/p>\n<p>Griffith\u0019s link to the pits is direct. \u001cA friend of mine who teaches elementary school gave me the idea,\u001d he recalls. With the help of <strong>Emily Lindsey<\/strong>, curator and excavation site director for the <strong>Samuel Oschin Center for Global Ice Age Research at La Brea Tar Pits<\/strong>, he learned that excavations pull up gallon after gallon of asphalt, \u001cstacked in buckets, stored floor to ceiling,\u001d and that he was welcome to take it. Although not a gloomy presence, he has called his technique \u001cpainting with death.\u001d<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Method, subjects, and a volatile beauty<\/h2>\n<p>Griffith\u0019s kinetic paintings feature owls he calls \u001cThe Observers,\u001d along with ravens, rabbits, deer, bears, butterflies, big cats, coyotes, frogs, and trippy starscapes\u0014often merging a familiar creature with a blazing orbit or planetary aura. \u001cWhen I\u0019m working on these everyday creatures,\u001d he says, \u001cI still have a sense of almost disbelieving\u0014that we are all on this tiny speck of a spinning rock\u0014that\u0019s rotating itself while it circles around a giant, dying star.\u001d Of the sun, which he calls \u001cviolent and exquisite,\u001d he adds: \u001cI paint the brightest thing we know, using the darkest material I have. I love bringing a glimmer of life from a hole in the ground.\u001d<\/p>\n<p>Working outdoors on a cement floor, he pours and thins the Pit 91 material on aluminum or reinforced canvas with \u001csolvents, Zippo lighter fluid, linseed oil\u001d\u0014\u001cthe best one is gasoline\u001d\u0014before sealing with Dammar varnish. Water helps shape a \u001cswirly topography,\u001d \u001cletting the tar run wild\u001d like a \u001cBrutalist Rorschach blot.\u001d Curing can take days, after which he turns to power tools, including a belt sander; \u001cA #11 Exacto knife is my go-to,\u001d he says. Inspirations include <em>Galileo<\/em>\u0019s drawings and wood engravings from <em>Darwin<\/em>\u0019s era, while precise scraping\u0014\u001clike scrimshaw\u001d\u0014maps every hair and meteor trail. He has incorporated conifer pollen from Christmas Tree Lane and human cremains, noting, \u001cI did incorporate a little of my Dad\u0019s ashes\u001d and that both parents\u0019 ashes now rest in a compost heap at home.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>The Observer &#8211; Owl<\/em>, 2023, Tar on Aluminum Panel, 24 x 18 inches<\/li>\n<li><em>Pair of Ravens &#8211; Fellow Travelers<\/em>, 2022, tar on panel, 20 x 16 in.<\/li>\n<li><em>Fellow Travelers &#8211; Raven with Tool<\/em>, 2021, 20 x 16 in.<\/li>\n<li><em>Small Painting of Infinity 10<\/em> and <em>12<\/em>, Tar on Panel, 7 x 16 inches<\/li>\n<li><em>Origin Story, The Sun and the Gravity of Radiance<\/em>, Tar on canvas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Fire, community, and an open question<\/h2>\n<p>Griffith met his wife <strong>Susanna Dadd<\/strong>, designer and founder of <strong>Real Gardens<\/strong>, at <strong>Art Center in Pasadena<\/strong>. After moving from Highland Park to Altadena in 1999, they spent four years building a terraced amphitheater from reclaimed construction-site waste; today, the backyard <strong>Folly Bowl<\/strong> hosts free, live summer concerts on a whimsical schedule. Though his studio and home were spared by the Eaton Canyon fire, approximately 30 paintings purchased by friends were lost; he responded by gifting small versions of the works. \u001cThere will be no retrospective for me,\u001d he says, later adding a \u001cweird optimism\u001d from his Christian Scientist upbringing: \u001ceverything is always disappearing and evaporating anyway.\u001d<\/p>\n<p>\u001cConversation is the right word,\u001d he says. \u001cMy work continually asks the same question, \u0018Where are we?\u0019 I just hope that experiencing these images leads to more compassion.\u001d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>V\u00eda <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artandcakela.com\/post\/the-exquisite-violence-of-james-griffith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artandcakela.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Altadena-based artist James Griffith paints wildlife and starscapes with asphalt from the La Brea Tar Pits\u2019 Pit 91, a volatile medium he calls \u201cpainting with death.\u201d His process, influences, and community life\u2014from the Folly Bowl to a post-fire regrouping\u2014unfold through quotes, methodical detail, and select works.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happening-now"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}