Noche del Fuego

A few weeks ago, our group had the opportunity to visit the studio of Cecilia Mattos, a local artist. She had a nice working space, full of large paper mache sculptures she had been preparing for the "Noche del Fuego," which I'll explain more in a moment. She also had several shadow-box type pieces on the walls that were 3D manifestations of famous works by Pedro Figari, a famous Uruguayan artist from the early 1900's.  (I recommend an image search of his work!)
Anyway, the "Noche del Fuego" is an event stemming from the "fallas" of Valencia, Spain in which compilations of art are built and then burned as homage to Saint Joseph. Therefore, we were standing in the midst of mortal art... something I should probably incorporate into my life... the space under my bed would probably appreciate it. Here is the studio and sculptures to be burned:

So, that Saturday we went out to see the tower come crashing down in flames.
I have to say that the composition was poor and the structure was overall disappointing. (These things may have added to the pleasure of watching it burn...)
The neat thing about it all was that I ended up standing next to the artist throughout the event, and it was great to watch her expressions and reactions to the process unfolding before us.
Visual summary: