A week after the devastating Eaton fire tore through Altadena, killing 17, with 24 people missing as of this writing, and destroying more than 7,000 structures, cars were double-parked outside Knowhow Shop in Highland Park. People from all over Los Angeles, their faces obscured by masks due to raining ash, carried bags of toys and clothing to donate to Altadena Kindred, a fundraiser for Altadena children who have been displaced.
Just a month ago, one of the event’s organizers, Linda Hsiao, an Altadena ceramist and industrial designer, had helped host a similarly community-minded event in the foothill town. At the holiday craft fair at Plant Material, local artists shared handmade ceramics, knives, jewelry, hot sauce, embroidery and tie-dyed textiles. Adding to the family-friendly vibe, the St. Rita Cub Scout Pack showed up to sell mistletoe foraged from the nearby trails.
Bianca D’Amico, an artist who helped organize the December event — her son attended the preschool on Christmas Tree Lane that burned down — is proud of the hyperlocal market they created together in the former gas station, which amazingly survived, on Lincoln Avenue. “There is something deeply personal about our fellow vendors who pour so much of themselves into their work and are the spirit of Altadena,” D’Amico said, calling them a “creative, plant-loving, dog-friendly, kid-wrangling community of makers, artists and designers.”
Today, nearly all the vendors, including Hsiao; her husband, architect Kagan Taylor; and their two children, are homeless. “Our house is still standing, but it’s not safe for us to return,” she said of the smoke damage. “Right now, all I can think about is how we’ve lost our friends, our schools, our entire community.”
Hsiao’s shock was evident as she welcomed friends and accepted donations for Altadena Kindred. “This is where we were supposed to grow old,” she said haltingly. “This is where my son was supposed to ride his bike to school.”
With the loss of neighborhood schools, Hsiao is determined to find a way to create a place where all of the community’s children can gather.
But how do you create something like that when all of your neighbors are gone?
Located at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, the unincorporated community of more than 42,000 people has long been a refuge for artists, according to glass and metal artist Evan Chambers, who was born and raised in Altadena, just like his parents and grandparents.
“It’s always been a very accepting community of eccentric people of all types,” said Chambers, who purchased his home from the estate of the infamous compost czar Tim Dundon, also known as Zeke the Sheik.
He credits gallery owner Ben McGinty with creating a space for all artists at his Gallery at the End of the World, which survived the fire. “He accepted all of us,” Chambers said of the gallery, which has existed for more than two decades. “I had my first show there.”
Chambers, 44, grew up surrounded by river-rock walls and Arts and Crafts homes that have informed his aesthetic as a glassblower. He lost his home, including the ceramics studio he built for his wife, Caitlin, but is adamant that he will rebuild. “We’re going to rock this,” said the father of two. “With climate change, there is no safe place to go. All that matters is that you suffer with the people you want to help and be helped by. If you’re going to burn, you burn with your people.”
Born and raised in Los Angeles, ceramist Victoria Morris has lived in many neighborhoods throughout the city. But when she purchased a small midcentury house in Altadena a decade ago, the artist felt like she had found a home, personally and professionally. “I thought, ‘This is my last stop,’” Morris said.
The ceramist worked in a studio on Lake Avenue, two miles from her home, where she stored photographs and hard drives in the basement. Just a month ago, Morris hosted a holiday sale, and people packed the showroom to shop for her midcentury-inspired lamps and vases.
Today, it’s all gone.
Morris feels fortunate to have a second home in Ojai. Still, she grapples with the nightmare of evacuating on Jan. 7 and what she has lost. “My husband, Morgan [Bateman], said, ‘Grab your wedding ring, your passport, the animals, and get a jacket and some sturdy shoes.’ There was this beautiful vintage Japanese print that cost nothing, but I loved her so much. And as I was leaving, I thought, ‘Should I grab her?’ Something in my brain said no. I have a notebook where I write the formulas for all my work. It’s been my bible for the last 20 years. Did I grab that? No. Our hard drives? Gone.”
When Bateman finally managed to get access to their property, he found their home and beloved garden smoldering. “All our neighbors are gone,” he told her, rattled.
On Wednesday, Wolfum textile designer Annabel Inganni was thinking about her 14-year-old son as she waited to pick up a free mattress and box spring at Living Spaces in Monrovia.
“He is in eighth grade, and his school in Pasadena has something like 67 families that have been impacted,” she said. “They are such a supportive community, but I’ve been burying my sadness just to get Bird back to school. And I know it’s not just us. It’s the entire town.”
Inganni lived in the Rubio Highlands neighborhood with her husband, furniture designer Brendan Sowersby of 100xbtr, their two dogs and three cats (all were evacuated safely). Their home was filled with custom furnishings the couple designed. Now, everything is gone. Many of her neighbors lived in their childhood homes. She describes the community as “heaven on earth.”
“Altadena is the most special, innovative, diverse, accepting, core-values town I’ve ever lived in,” she added. “The sense of community is strong. Now, we don’t even have a post office. I lost my home, studio and the archives of everything I’ve ever done. It’s a lot.”
After temporarily evacuating to Moorpark last Tuesday, Thomas Renaud returned to Altadena after learning his neighbors’ home was still standing.
“They wanted to go back and get some things, and I offered to drive them,” he said. Renaud was hopeful that the home he shared with his partner, Chris Maddox, and their dog, Van — who both got out safely — would also be left unscathed. But as he drove down Altadena Drive after dropping off his neighbors on Wednesday, all he could see was ash and fire. “When I rounded the corner to my street, I saw that the entire neighborhood was gone,” he said, “and I just lost it.”
When the LGS Studio ceramist and Maddox purchased their house about five years ago, they immediately fell in love with Altadena’s creative community.
“Many artists, musicians and writers live here, and we felt like we had our slice of that,” he said. “We put so much love into that house; it was a place for all our friends and family. It wasn’t just that we lost a house but a home.”
Although Renaud returned to work at his studio in Glassell Park this week, he said he is still in shock. “I don’t think I’ve slept more than one night in the past week,” he said. “Everything right now feels so overwhelming. All the support humbles us, but where do we begin?”
He said that, like many others without homes, finding semipermanent housing is a good start.
As artists, it’s unsurprising that many are haunted by the things they left behind. For Morris, it’s a set of mugs by Los Angeles ceramists Kat and Roger, a quilt she made with her mother, a pencil drawing of her grandmother by her grandfather.
Chambers mentions a lamp by Pasadena artist Ashoke Chhabra and his great-uncle Charles Dockum’s mobile color projector, as well as Dockum’s correspondence with architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
The journals that Inganni had been keeping since she was 6, along with irreplaceable family mementos, are destroyed. “Brendan’s father passed away two years ago, and we had his ashes and photos, and they’re all gone,” she said. “That’s what gets him the most.”
When it came time to evacuate, Renaud grabbed one bag of clothes, the dog, the dog bed and his great-grandfather’s watch. “I didn’t think the fire would come this far,” he said. “My grandmother was a painter, and I had her original artwork. Those are the things I’m grieving for the most. I was thinking, ‘We’ll come back.’ But it’s family history that we can’t get back.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Morris sought refuge in her studio. But now the businesses near her studio are gone, like Altadena Hardware on Mariposa Street, Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, Café de Leche and Steve’s Pets. Added Morris: “Everyone at the hardware store knew my name and would always offer my dog treats.”
Despite all they have lost, the artists acknowledge moments of grace. Friends have set up GoFundMe accounts to help them with their short-term needs. Chambers’ friends from preschool and elementary school built beds for him and his family. Morris has received notes that have brought her to tears.
“Two people sent me pictures of one of my vases and a bowl and told me they survived,” she said. “And it has brought them so much happiness. They offered them to me, and I told them no. I want them to keep them.”
Hsaio received a photo from a tequila maker in Altadena who went through his rubble and found one of her Tiki tumblers intact. “These people weren’t just my customers,” she said. “They were my community.”
Still, some are filled with trepidation about what comes next.
Renaud and Taylor have received text messages from strangers offering to purchase their damaged homes. “It’s still smoldering,” Renaud said in disbelief.
“It’s going to be the Wild West,” Inganni said. “Everyone I’ve spoken to is rebuilding. That’s what is percolating in the community. But I think people are very nervous about land grabs and worried about people who don’t have the financial capability to cover themselves.”
In the meantime, Morris just wants to get back to work. “I don’t want to miss being a part of rebuilding Altadena,” she said. “It may be a collective. It may be a store. There’s no way I can cut and run out of a place that’s so special.”
Inganni said Sowersby is considering building desks for the community and developing a fireproof home system.
Renaud, temporarily living in a friend’s accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in Mount Washington, also wants to help.
“I needed to go and see our house because I needed to grieve,” he said. “If you don’t see what you’ve lost, it’s always a question mark in your mind. But now, I want to be a part of the rebuilding. I have a truck. I’m ready.”
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