Local comic touches on fire preparedness, shared experiences
By Marie-Elena Schembri, marie@calaverasenterprise.com
Jax DuBois is 14 and loves swimming, camping, making mixtapes, and hanging at the Mokelumne River with best friend Kelly Kate from West Point.
The main character in a new comic series by Amador County artist Liz Grandsaert, Jax is a typical Pioneer teen who lives on a farm with their mom, Marie DuBois, who constantly dishes out chores and cries of, “Be careful!” even though Jax is fully aware of the dangers that loom: risk of wildfire, dead and dangerous trees, or frigid water that can lead to drowning and hypothermia. When Jax and Kelly Kate sneak out to hang with the city kids, they instinctively act to protect their home, warning the visitors of the dangers of their illegal bonfire and fireworks. Together with Buster, a scruffy yet resourceful local of an unknown age who can be found hanging at the O.K. Corral or tackling projects around the farm, the trio send the city kids packing, with a hefty fine from the sheriff.
The city kids aren’t all bad though, as Jax finds out, when some of them stand up to tough guy Chad for disrespecting Jax and Kelly Kate’s home.
“The heroes are rural and in the first story arc, the city kids come to town and they learn about respecting rural areas and that it is people’s home, and I think that that’s something that everybody can relate to around here,” Grandsaert said. Grandsaert hopes the underlying message here sinks in — that locals and visitors from out of the area can work together.
“It doesn’t have to be like, ‘Nobody come up here; no development,’” said Grandsaert.
Last year, Grandsaert met this type of animosity from some locals when an Amador County supervisor, Brian Oneto, took issue with the farm-based art residency program, the Pony Farm, that Grandsaert runs in Pioneer. The Pony Farm is partially funded by Amador Arts Council, a fact that was bemoaned by Oneto at the May 24, 2022, board meeting where some Arts Council funding was up for approval. Oneto and others took offense to the artwork made by visiting artists at the farm, sparking a contentious debate within the community.
“A woman from town held up a picture of a trans artist and a female Black artist and said, ‘You can’t tell me these people are from Amador,’” Grandsaert said, explaining the sort of xenophobic behavior she hopes the comic will subvert. “It’s so sad because that is not the general population of Amador,” said the artist, who is herself queer and an ally to those who might at first glance seem out of place in a small, rural county.
“I started speaking up and just saying: ‘No, that’s not going to work for us. Not only is that not true, but you cannot say that,’” Grandsaert said.
It’s important to the mission of the Pony Farm to bring new arts and cultural experiences to the area.
“I like bringing new experiences up here to show (locals) that not all change is bad. I’m not saying that we have to open the doors to just anyone and everyone, but it is totally possible to grow our community,” said Grandsaert.
Grandsaert, who was raised in Mountain View, didn’t grow up in the area, but spent summers in college traveling through the Gold Country and cleaning houses with her best friend. She has lived in many other places, including New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York and Germany, and bought her farm in Pioneer in 2016.
When the Caldor Fire broke out in 2021, consuming over 200,000 acres across El Dorado, Alpine and Amador counties, it was Grandsaert’s first time evacuating the farm. For a month, she watched from a distance at a friend’s home in Los Angeles as the forest surrounding her home and business burned.
“It was so hard to be going through all that and nobody knew what the hell I was talking about,” said Grandsaert, whose city friends hadn’t even heard of the fire.
That brush with catastrophic wildfire stayed with the artist, who made a large oil painting called “So Close, So Far, So Big” about the experience.
The vibrant painting, which Grandsaert describes as “pseudo surreal,” depicts a woman looking out over fields, garden hose in hand with water dripping, while above the hills on the horizon, a plume of smoke fills an orange sky dotted by helicopters and dragonflies.
“It was the only painting in my whole life that I’ve ever done where I don’t have to explain anything. People just walk up and they understand it head to toe,” Grandsaert said. “That made me realize that we really do all have the same experience when it comes to these wildfires.”
Grandsaert said: “I’ve been trying to work with this idea of coping. These things are going to happen. We can’t really control it at this point. We can do our best to mediate it, but things are going to be happening and we don’t have the coping mechanisms for massive loss. I mean, I don’t know how to deal with the fact that we lost 200,000 acres. It’s so hard to look at. And then you think about, how is a 10-year-old going to think, and how do we get other people outside of this area, or that live in fire country, to understand how devastating (it is)?”
The next issue of “On The Farm,” to be published in the fall, will follow Jax and their mom as they face a wildfire and prepare to evacuate, touching on shared anxieties around wildfires in the community.
A third issue will show the harsh realities of rural life in the winter. Then, a fourth will focus on spring.
“I’m hoping that the spring volume … represents all of our community feelings or the community consciousness, which is a celebration. We’ve made it out; made it
through another year. We’ve helped each other. We’re fixing whatever’s been broken and we’re doing it again, because this is life,” Grandsaert said.
The “On The Farm” comic project is funded by a Kern Dance Alliance (KDA) Creative Corps grant, in partnership with the California Arts Council. The grant funds come from the larger California Creative Corps pool, a statewide pilot grant program designed to support artists and organizations in creative and cultural projects addressing public health and social justice issues.
Grandsaert’s project was one of 20 to be funded through KDA, and one of hundreds throughout the state.
Meghan O’Keefe, executive director of Amador Arts, said: “We are not at all surprised that Grandsaert was awarded this grant because her work is grounded in her devotion to building community paired with her technical skills as a well-trained fine artist. With her education, experience, and work ethic, she was destined to receive this grant — she earned it.”
Amador Arts provided Grandsaert a letter of recommendation and technical assistance with the grant-writing process, which O’Keefe said is a service the Arts Council extends to “any party interested in applying for arts grants.”
Ultimately, it was Grandsaert’s unique project idea that landed her the $132,400 grant. A May press release stated: “Elizabeth Grandsaert, with the support of the KDA Creative Corps, is set to embark on an exciting project that aims to promote awareness related to water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery in rural communities throughout the Mokelumne Wilderness area. … This incredible project aims to educate the public on effective conservation strategies and build community around shared experiences.”
Eligibility for the Creative Corps grant was only extended to those living or working within the “communities that demonstrate the highest levels of need as indicated by the California Healthy Places Index (HPI),” according to the California Arts Council. The HPI indicates scores related to the health and wellness of communities throughout California, by zip code. Factors include economic conditions, access to education, transportation, pollution, housing, the quality of neighborhoods, and healthcare access. Amador and Calaveras communities ranking in the lowest quartile on the HPI include Pioneer, West Point, Wilseyville, Rail Road Flat, Mountain Ranch, Sheep Ranch and San Andreas.
As such, Grandsaert intends the comic to be representative of rural communities within both Calaveras and Amador counties where the comic will be distributed for free. Readers can participate by joining the “Fire Keeper’s Club,” an interactive membership that gives community members a chance to share their experiences and get free swag like stickers and emergency preparedness resource materials.