Altered Remains by Aleina Grace Edwards For six weeks, every painting on the wall is brown. Pretty, stoic deer stand and stare with wide wet eyes; slick panthers stalk across the frames; and dawn breaks over some craggy mountain tops. Entire galaxies churn, the panels bursting with starfields that could be anywhere, in our corner of the universe or another. So many worlds rendered in sepia. “He paints with tar from the La Brea Tar Pits,” I explain whenever a visitor asks about the material—and they always ask about the material. They’re intrigued by the thick, sepia paint, all the subtle textures. What is this, what is that? They always want to know how a thing is made. I introduce the Tar Pits over and over. It’s the end of summer, and people are on vacation in Los Angeles, many for the first time. “It’s the only active Ice Age dig site in the world,” I say.…