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Like The Phoenix
| Article
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10535 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1993 |
678 Words |
| Author
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Amy Seidman-tighe
Amy Seidman-Tighe is a photographer residing in Culver City,
California. |
It was five o'clock in the morning on July 11, 1991, when Mariah Woodruff woke up abruptly to loud cracking noises. She thought it must be firecrackers left over from the Fourth of July festivities.
When the glass carver looked out her bedroom window and saw smoke mingled with fog, though, she realized that the artists colony down the street was ablaze. Panic-stricken, she rushed to her studio to save her drawings, tools, glass only to be pushed away by firemen saving adjacent buildings. Moments later, the roof caved in over her studio.
Brokenhearted, she left, returning hours later to find the building a smoldering shell. She knew that she had lost her entire business and eighteen year's worth of work.
Around eleven o'clock, however, as Mariah found herself standing alone in the middle of what was once her studio, she had a phenomenal experience. "A silent darkness was all around me," she recalls. "It was as if everything had come to a standstill. Then the stillness was broken by a soft, light stream of wind that not only passed through the studio but also passed through me. I felt weightless. I felt a spirit lift me up by the shoulders, and I actually thought I was settled with the most peaceful feeling I ever had, and I realized then that everything was going to be all right."
Moments later, a fellow artist handed her a pair of welder's glasses. In a daze, she put them on and viewed the last phase of the eclipse that had just caused the shadow to cross over her studio.
Later someone explained to her that a solar eclipse is symbolic of a new beginning, and the coincidence of one occurring the morning of the fire became significant to the artist.
Mariah is always saying, "Let your life unfold, and pay attention." This is precisely how she became a glass artist. After several years at the Arts Center College of Design of Beverly Hills and UCLA, Mariah still didn't know how her talent would manifest itself. Only after many years of exploring different mediums such as painting, embroidering some carpentry, and even being a chef--she found glass etching so intriguing and challenging that she said: "I finally am who I'm supposed to be."
News about the tragedy spread as rapidly as the fire. Mariah started receiving many sympathetic phone calls from
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