Artists Introduction

     Charlie Smith and Jaime Ladet have been collaborating and touring together since March of 2004. They spent the spring & summer of 2004 on the road sharing four different fire caldrons at nine different events within the Burning Man regional network. This touring and sharing of these caldrons has stimulated an inspiring commonality and friendship between the regional networks across the country.

Charlie has been involved in the Burning Man community since 1998.

In 2000 Charlie collaborated with Syd Klinge on a project named Hearth . In 2001 Hearth returned to the playa along with a new wheeled fire caldron known as Infanity. In 2002 three new fire caldrons, "The Nausts", were built to symbolize the four directions.   On the night of the burn, people from four different regions pushed them around the inner circle.   Since 2002, the Nausts have been showcased at different regional events across the country.   Charlie has released, moved, and gifted these caldrons to the regional communities for the last four years.   In 2003 the "tunnel of transformation" made its way to the playa with the help of the infinite oasis theme village.   The tunnel was fully funded by Charlie and the regional community within the theme village.   The Nausts reunited and were burned together in the black rock desert for Burning Man 2004.   Charlie has attended decompression parties and regional burns sharing this work in the following states: New York, Colorado, California, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Utah. He has received funding from BRAF and some of the regional organizations to help offset the costs of transportation and expendables allowing the fire caldrons to travel between communities.

Jaime Ladet is based out of the Seattle Washington . She has been involved with Burning Man since 2000 when she volunteered for the Café décor crew. She has continued to be part of Burning Man's café décor crew through 2004. She has been involved in performing & fire arts since 1995 when she was kidnapped by a group of silly fire clowns in the mountains of North Carolina. She has been a member of the Burning Man fire conclave since 2002.   Jaime has been performing, teaching, and collaborating with other performance and fire artists in her community, nationally, and abroad.   Jaime is a documentary photographer. She traveled, supported, and documented most of the 2004 regional fire tour. During the fire tour she acted as art support for the tour helping to install, tend, organize and navigate throughout the Project. Jaime has a BA degree in theater design & production and has brought her gift of aesthetics, talent, and skills to the table in this huge collaborative project.

Jaime and Charlie have decided to collaborate on this project as they balance each other with their different skills and personal attributes. They view this new project as a symbol of a higher level of commonality through collaboration and education in the fire arts community. They believe this is a great exercise in regional collaboration.   It will build stronger relationships between the participants and the communities by working, learning, and developing new techniques in creating what is ART.   This project will be documented very carefully so it may act as a model for other artists to use in developing and extending their art forms within the Regional Network.