Calm Fire was painted almost 10 years after Bell returned to St. Ives from Florida, but it still carries all the intensity and colour of the robust compositions associated with a sub tropical climate. He explained his approach to painting as follows "what we should get from art is a sense of wonder, of something beyond ourselves, that celebrates our being here. It condenses the experience we all have as human beings, and, by forming it, makes it significant. We all have an in-built need for harmony and the structures that create that harmony. Basically, art is an affirmation of life.”