Kirista Trask, Cambium Gallery co-owner, stands beside a display of Williams’ artwork.

A century after the Great Astoria Fire decimated the city on Dec. 8, 1922, a look back reveals the region’s rebirth. One artist, using ash from an Oregon forest fire, is bringing the metaphor home.

Now on view at Cambium Gallery in Astoria, “Rising from the Ash,” is a series of works by Portland-based encaustic artist Kelly Williams, featuring several pieces containing fused ash.

In 2017, as the Eagle Creek fire raged in the Columbia River Gorge, Williams was making a series of abstract pieces in her backyard, outside her studio, for a show – and left the work in progress outside overnight.

When she returned to it the next morning, she found the panels coated in ash from the fire. After a moment of panic and hard of breathing from the pollution, she had an epiphany.

“It was a really rare opportunity to transmute this tragedy into opportunity and positive change,” Williams said, “into something that can inform and educate about forest fires.” She then fused and integrated the ash into the paint using heat from the summer sun, open torch flame and antique irons.

As an artist, Williams uses her deeply-layered abstract encaustic paintings to address social and environmental issues. The encaustic process uses molten beeswax mixed with pigments that’s layered onto a medium, such as wood, and manipulated with a torch.

With a background in psychology and social work, Williams also engages with people around personal issues, helping people to change their narratives, heal through art and turn trauma into strength.

While it isn’t immediately obvious which of the pieces incorporate ash, Williams encourages visitors to touch the artwork and experience its materiality.

“As an artist, sometimes your job is to not hit people over the head, but have them be curious and intrigued enough to get closer and apply their own interpretation and infuse the work with whatever level of meaning is appropriate for them,” she said. “It can be as simple or complex as people want to make it.”

Though the works come from miles away, they ground the viewer in Astoria’s historic reality, both as a reminder of our own calamity and an invitation to make change.

“Our world feels like it’s falling apart,” Williams said. “Astoria burned to the ground and it has grown into a beautiful, dynamic and interesting town.”

Williams also reflected on takeaways beyond the commemorative mark. “Sometimes we have to take moments that may feel like complete disaster and allow them to morph into something bigger and better,” she said. “Change takes time and if we see the longer viewpoint and put the work in, we can turn those moments into something meaningful and beautiful.”

Aside from her website, galleries and events, Williams also shows her work as part of the Portland Open Studios tour, an organization Kirista Trask, Cambium Gallery’s co-owner, leads as executive director.

“When the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association approached us to show art related to the 1922 fire centennial, (Williams) immediately came to mind — because what involves fire more than encaustic? You literally use fire to paint,” Trask said.

Her own emotional reaction to the artwork surprised Trask. “I lived in Portland during that fire and the idea that the Gorge was burning down was horrifying to me,” she said.

“These panels are permanent documentation of that experience, which is now a big part of living in Oregon.”

Cambium Gallery

1030 Duane St., Astoria

Open 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday through Monday. Exhibit on view through Jan. 3

www.cambiumgallery.com