January 27th — January 18th started like any other morning for Lyons digital artist Android Jones. A few inches of snow had fallen the night before, so Jones went outside, put on his headphones, and started shoveling the driveway.
An artist with a career of almost 30 years, who has exhibited his work around the world and projected his work in the Sydney Opera House and Empire State Building, Jones has seen his wife scream and wave. I couldn’t hear her at first. about his music.
“The barn is on fire,” Jones’ wife told him.
Panicked, Jones drove 1.5 miles (1.5 km) to the family property on Highland Drive near 66 Colorado and 36 US. There was his two-story barn built by his father, next to the house where his mother lived. Jones grew up on this property and his father was building a new barn after his original barn burned down in his 2008.
The barn housed Jones’ files, artwork, tools and sketchbooks for 20 years. He kept the work that was in the Smithsonian Institution there and hoped to one day pass it on to his three children. It wasn’t just his space in the studio, which he used five or six times a week. It was “the densest collection of personal and professional information that was me,” says Jones. It felt like a sacred space to him. And he felt a connection with his late father in 2013.
On that snowy morning he arrived to find the studio completely engulfed in flames. Black smoke rose into the sky. Flames were coming out of the doors and windows and Jones could not get within 10 to 15 feet of the barn and began to feel his skin burning.
The Boulder County fire department responded quickly and put out the fire before it spread to Jones’ mother’s home. Jones said he wanted to express his “deep appreciation” for the efforts of Lyons, Hygiene and the Left Hand Creek Fire Department.
But it was too late to save the barn. Jones watched the building collapse, feeling as if he was “previewing what it would be like to die before I die.”
“I think the drama loses everything in a surprisingly violent and dramatic release of energy, with just the raw power of fire, and the smoke and heat loses everything.” I had an idea.”
No one was hurt, but the barn was destroyed. Investigators have yet to reveal the cause of the fire.
In the days that followed, Jones began to go through stages of grief, beginning with shock and denial. I wondered if he was being punished in some way. And he worried about what would happen to his family, who depended on him to support them through his art.
But adding to his grief, he says it’s been about a week since the fire brought some new revelations, unexpected insights, and even solace in places he didn’t know he’d find it. He called it the “worst best week” of his life.
A self-reliant man, Jones has always enjoyed helping others, but before this incident he struggled to ask for help. But now that his studio and everything in it is gone, he realizes he has no choice. He has a family to feed and members of his team that depend on his salary. So he started a fundraiser.
And the community has risen on this occasion. As of Friday night, his GoFundMe page has raised more than $275,000 of his.
“I’m seeing[people]showing up in ways I never could have imagined,” Jones said. “So this is a win. A win for our community. It feels like a triumph for the human spirit and the relationship between artists and the people who support them.I never thought of this kind of victory and now I live it.And ( I am really very grateful to everyone.
Jones said art had always been a way of exchanging value in the world for him, and he felt loved and supported because others loved his work. Even now that the work is done, the support continues to pour in, and he feels he is forging new relationships with himself, his friends, and the community.
“Without the art in the way, for the first time, not only did what I thought I was doing made me worthy to them, but I could actually feel everyone’s love… most It’s a transformative journey.”
Jones said he plans to rebuild the barn once the debris and rubble have been cleared.