The Fire Within; Sky Steps, by Sukey Bryan

The work of installation artist Sukey Bryan features basic elements—fire, water, earth, sky—which offer transcendent openings. The heavens or tongues of fire—as in The Fire Within, at Stanford Memorial Church at Stanford University—enter a building or public space. She is interested, she says, in “the interaction and transformation of natural elements propelled by tidal, climatic, volcanic and tectonic forces.” In Sky Steps, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Bryan presents a quiet blue sky on a landscape troubled by drought. Each step is an acknowledgment of the majesty above and the tribulation below, and each step is a prayer.