The Eaton and Palisades fires burned through 55,000 acres of neighborhoods for nearly three weeks. For the Los Angeles art community, every day brought reports of grief and loss as the count of artists who lost their studios, homes, livelihoods, and lifework rose. As a writer for this magazine, I knew numerous sculptors who were affected—I’ve been in their studios, interviewed them, followed their work in exhibitions. A brief and not nearly inclusive list of some of those sculptors includes Ruby Neri, Paul McCarthy, Beatriz Cortez, Coleen Sterritt, Jameson Carter, Margaret Ross Griffiths, and Camille Taylor. The impact of these extreme fires will forever change their lives. The scope of the damage and its financial after-effects cannot be underestimated; artists are at the mercy of numerous forces—insurance companies, building codes, the housing shortage that pre-dated the event, and the rent-gouging that erupted in the wake of the fires. The decision to rebuild is fraught.
Altadena, a hilly community abutting an enormous sweep of parkland distant from the heart of the city, had an amazing concentration of artists. Geographically inconvenient for commuters, Altadena was, for many years, affordable for artists. Because of the noise and dust that we sculptors create, we’re often not welcome in loft spaces, and so many Altadena sculptors took on the additional financial burden of building home studios. These are now gone.
The Los Angeles art community has rallied behind artists affected by the fire, setting up grants and other resources. The largest of these funds, the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund, is organized by a consortium of Los Angeles cultural institutions and philanthropists. These funds began to be disbursed on January 20, 2025. If you’d like to contribute, you can link to the fund here. If you are an artist who has been impacted by the fires, you can apply for an emergency grant at cciarts.org. The current application deadline is February 18, 2025, at 5pm PST.
