Gunnison teen’s project to highlight Fire Festival
Excerpted from Gunnison Times: Will Shoemaker, Times Editor
The smell of propane wafted from a long metal tube as Max Ewy flicked a lighter over small drill holes, igniting the apparatus in a long line of short flames. Ewy rushed around the tube to queue punk music, sent through a speaker at one end of the cylinder. As the sounds of The Damned blared, the flames danced along with the beat.
Part science, part art, Ewy’s Ruben’s tube, as it’s called, jumped to life in a swirl of sound and sight. The first project of its kind for the 15-year-old artist and costume designer, the “standing wave flame tube” has been selected to highlight the second annual Telluride Fire Festival, Jan. 14-17.
The idea for creating the Ruben’s tube came from a YouTube video. And after learning of the Fire Festival, Ewy was encouraged to produce the apparatus for the event.