This is Fire Prevention Week's Miss Flame. Very David Lynch, isn't she?

Am I the only one who thinks a Miss Flame such as this is bizarre? We're talking a small war-time town created for the manufacture of plutonium, out in the middle of the desert, and this is the costume they come up with for Miss Flame. That's a hell of a lot of sequins for Miss Flame. Did the striking young woman happen to already own the costume for some reason and so they made her Miss Flame? Or did the men who bestowed upon her the title of Miss Flame (for they were certainly men) design this costume and have it sewn up for her, hat and elbow warmers and all? We're not talking big city, we're not even talking Spokane, we're talking tiny government town in the middle of the desert.

The dynamic of Miss Flame gives me a queasy feeling. I think it has something to do with Miss Flame being masked. Why in the world is the woman masked? She's masked in all the pictures I find of her at the Hanford Declassification Project. I don't get it. You know that what you can't see, that's out of the line of sight in this picture, is a room full of men in business suits at their tables, and the masked Miss Flame amongst them makes me uneasy.

Fire Prevention was a big deal in Hanford and Richland with those plutonium reactors out there in the middle of the fire-prone desert. Only, of course, all that was a secret. If you didn't know about the plutonium reactors, all you knew was that Fire Prevention was a big deal and no one wanted you leaving a lit cigarette butt anywhere.

I painted another version of the picture in which I kept the rug but ultimately decided there was too much going on visually. Anyway, look at the rug. It's dandelions. I never in my life would have imagined a rug glorifying dandelions. They were the "weed" in Richland yards and I don't recollect anyone finding them desireable while we lived there.

I remember a number of Saturday mornings out in the yard pulling dandelions, which was kind of crazy and useless.

Another look at Miss Flame, this time in close-up. Now, you tell me, have you ever seen someone who looks so ferociously intent on doing something with the title of Miss Flame?

Look at the set of that mouth! Those teeth! She looks every bit as determined in other pics. Except those in which she looks vaguely confused...

Well, I forget just how large Hanford/Richland was during war time. I hadn't, however, ever realized that during the war it was the 3rd largest populated area in Washington State.