fire for a mantle with no hearth

For years we’ve enjoyed a mantle with no fireplace. It was taken out of an old house in Maine; it’s color, an ochre yellow milk paint. It leans as a sort of sculpture against the living room wall, defining the space in a unique way, and just like that, it is a pleasure. Then some images of fireplaces in modernist dollhouses (which are in themselves amazing) got us thinking about implementing the idea of “fire”, even without an actual fireplace: making some sort of trompe l’oeil image of fire…

So we started snooping around for ideas…

We love this chalked image of fire:

…and this artist’s vision of fire….we could ask an artist’s friend to help us…

While we contemplate the possibilities for virtual fire…patently “faux” and charming, we just might take to lighting an array of stout pillar candles where the hearth would be. Pure beeswax pillars are divine, though expensive. (We found a good two-for-one on Amazon.)