The Impact of the Los Angeles Fires on the Creative Community

From afar, it’s difficult to comprehend the profound destruction of the Los Angeles fires which broke out last Tuesday and continue to rage. At the time of reporting, 24 people have died, while more than 40,000 acres and more than 12,300 structures have burned, according to Cal Fire. 

Stories are emerging from the city’s creative communities of catastrophic individual losses including homes, entire archives of work, studio spaces, rare collections, historically significant instruments and irreplaceable equipment. 

“It takes years to really fully understand what the effects of traumas like this actually are,” says Eileen Townsend, editor of LA-based arts magazine Artillery. “Regaining a sense of stability takes a long time.”

Townsend, who had just returned to the city to join volunteer efforts after leaving her Pasadena home due to hazardous air quality, spoke of the impact on the local arts community in Altadena, one of the worst affected areas. “Altadena is a historically Black neighbourhood where a lot of Black families lost generational family homes,” she explains. “There are artists in that community where, it’s not just transplants who moved to LA for the art world, its generational networks of support.” 

Artist Martine Syms, whose first retrospective in France is currently on display at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, lost her family home in Altadena. The artist shared a photo on Instagram of the ruins, with the caption: “We been here for over 40 years…Three generations under one roof and now everyone is displaced.” Syms included a link to a Google document with information on how to support her family. 

Renowned hip-hop producer Madlibs also shared on Instagram the news of the loss of his Altadena family home, along with his extensive record collection, music equipment and hard drives of recording sessions. In another street within the same suburb, the personal library of late novelist, playwright and critic Gary Indiana was destroyed in the fire. Colm Tóibín wrote in the London Review of Books that the collection had been stationed in a house in Altadena for just one day when the fires tore through the home. 

Graphic designer Dan Benesch grew up in Altadena and was concerned about his mother’s home close to the edge of the Eaton fire. “I went up there and the house was completely fine. I have survivor’s guilt, it was just complete luck,” says Benesch. 

“There’s a lot of famous architecture here that’s burnt down,” he continues. “The requirements for building now are different to when these houses were originally built. The whole neighborhood is not going to look the same again.” 

One of the many historical architectural structures which were destroyed in Altadena was a street designed by Gregory Ain in 1945, comprising 28 homes – a first in modernist housing developments. Another historic location in the Altadena foothills, the 45-acre creative community Zorthian Ranch, created by late artist Jirayr Zorthian in the 1940s, also saw near total destruction from the fires.

Within the modern art community, Alto-Beta, an artist-run contemporary art gallery in Altadena focused on emerging and mid-career artists, also burnt down in the Eaton fire. On Instagram, the gallery posted links to eight artists who had previously exhibited at their space who had also lost their homes and/or studios, directing followers to fundraisers. Within four days, the community pulled through and Alto-Beta secured a new location for their February and March shows in the artist-run apartment space Ruth Gallery. 

Amid the destruction and heartbreaking stories, the creative community has pulled together to provide artists with food, housing, mutual aid, financial assistance and donated supplies. “It takes a really long time to build a studio, it’s a huge amount of investment to create a space that has the specific set up you need to do your work,” says Townsend. “But there’s been a lot of effort from project spaces and galleries that weren’t affected to contribute not only to the immediate livelihood needs, but to help people to rebuild their studios.”

Artist Adam Alessi took to Instagram to offer a space for fellow artists unaffected by the fires to donate supplies to those impacted. “Among those people are artists who have lost everything from their studios, archives, materials, books, works in progress, musical equipment, photography equipment, hard drives, everything,” writes Alessi. 

According to musician Aaron Longsleeves, who has spent his whole life in Los Angeles, the devastation is irrevocable: “In the Pasadena and Altadena areas where some of my friends live, it’s almost like you can take the city off the map with how bad the fires have destroyed it.”

One source of hope amid the destruction was the outpouring of community support, he adds. “This is the strongest I’ve seen us come together,” explains Longsleeves. “It’s a beautiful thing, especially in a city with a perception like LA has. The reality is that we have a sense of community and this can keep us going during the restoration period.”