The sun is hot this Saturday morning overlooking the Ohio River at Newport on the Levee in Northern Kentucky. It’s a perfect day for Louisville artist Billy Keith to do street art. Keith calls himself a solar combustion artist.
“I use the sun and giant magnifying glasses to make images into wood with the sun and a focal point that’s about 2000 degrees,” explained Keith.
Dozens of people enjoying summer activities in Newport stop to watch Keith make art. The crowd is intrigued by how the artist moves a platter-size Fresnel lens over a piece of plywood that’s about 16 inches wide and 24 inches long. The plywood rests on a makeshift easel. Cheri Lawson asked Keith about his work.
“So Billy, watching you rotate this lens, it’s almost like you’re using it as a paintbrush or a pencil. Am I right?" asked Lawson.
“Yes, exactly that. I try to find a focal point which has to be perpendicular to the sun so the wood always has to be moved so it’s facing directly at the sun as square as I can to the sun and then the lens has to be perpendicular to that. So, all the light energy’s concentrated down into a focal dot," said Keith.
“What are you currently burning?" asked Lawson.
“Right now I’m burning the backside of a piece of wood that has a tree without leaves, a winter tree. And then I’m burning a summer tree on this side, so a tree with leaves,” explained Keith.
“It looks like you’re just moving this disc around but you’re actually drawing with it. How do you get the leaves so specific?" asked Lawson.
”Years of technique, through speed and understanding where the lens and the focal point live together in harmony I’ve learned how to take and just manipulate this 2000-degree focal point into an instantaneous arc of light that I use to draw images with,” said Keith.
Kahina Bourai from Columbus, Ohio watches Keith work. With her dark brown hair pulled up on top of her head and a flowered purse draped across her shoulder, Bourai takes pictures of Keith as he works.
“It’s just interesting. The first time I’ve seen this kind of art. He’s doing it with like fire or something. Creating fire with glass or the reflection of the sun. That’s really interesting”
“I want to keep a memory of that and just look at it later. It’s unique. I’ve never seen that before,” explained Bourai.
The 50-year-old Keith said he taught himself more than 14 years ago how to capture the sun’s light and burn one-of-a-kind works of art. He wears welding glasses to protect his eyes. The work, Keith said, lifts his spirits and he hopes it does the same for others.
It's been a tough little go of life lately with the advent of the election cycle so to speak. So, that kind of interferes with my personal harmony. But when I stop and make art with the sun and connect myself to the sun, I usually forget about all of those concerns of the earthly plain and I have my interactions with people in this moment and everything is more harmonious and kind of more beautiful.”
On this day, people from places including Wichita, Kansas, Chicago, and Lexington stop to watch Keith work. Fifteen-year-old Jace Traugh and his family are here on vacation from Millville Pennsylvania. Traugh said he’s mesmerized the way Billy Keith seems to channel the sun. He asked Keith what got him into this type of art. Keith explains how he started by collecting lenses as a solar experiment.
“So I used to use them to boil water and melt change and just set pieces of wood on fire to let people see the power of the sun and then one day I had a near-death experience that led me to believe that I was supposed to be the guy making art with the sun and magnifying glasses to create moments like this on the earth,” Keith.
Traugh calls the experience of meeting Billy Keith and watching him work, awesome.
“I did not expect to have this experience on vacation but I am pleased to say the least,” said Traugh.
Haley Norris is with her dad Matt from Bowling Green. She was thrilled when Keith burned her name into a piece of wood. Keith said he likes to do that for kids in the audience as a gift they can take home. Matt Norris is grateful.
“That’s pretty cool, ain’t it? He just used the sun to carve your name,” said Norris.
Billy’s work has been featured at folk art festivals around the country in places like Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Kentucky according to Billy’s wife and manager, Michele Keith. Michele said her husband also has a large social media presence which she manages. She posts clips to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and live videos from their backyard on TikTok.
“On a typical day, we would have over 30 thousand views. And it was so cool because we would have people like, we’re from the UK, we’re from Thailand, hello from Africa or Wisconsin,” said Michele.
Michele Keith said her husband puts his heart and soul into his work.
Billy Keith agrees.
“My mission is to make a sacred space for me and for other people to exist in for a moment,” said Billy Keith.
A gallery showing of Billy Keith’s work is scheduled for August 23rd in Louisville at The Sun Shop.
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