ALTADENA — An aspiration for Altadena is all there, painted on a 60-foot-by-15-foot wall, next to a parking lot off Woodbury Road: The parrot couple lovingly consoles each other, perched on a charred tree branch. A bed of California poppies blooms in a stunning orange hue. Butterflies flutter against the backdrop of a clear blue sky and trees, basking in a bright crystal-esque sun.
And there was Rose Drew, sitting crosslegged on the black pavement, with her paintbrush and paint, in Zen-like fashion putting the finishing touches on a mural that day by day over two weeks has brought a big dose of color in the middle of a town pummeled by the Eaton fire.
As she dabs some shade of orange on a poppy, it’s a moment of pure focus. Cathartic. A respite from the loss, from dealing with the insurance issues of a lost home. The hard work of rebuilding. But also, it was a giving moment, even for a woman who lost the home she was living in with her parents, in a town they all loved.
“Words are hard for me sometimes,” she said, reflecting on the devastation and the recovery. “Between all of the responsibilities I have as an adult and everything that’s going on, it’s very much nice to get away and take a break and work on something that is beautiful and can be enjoyed by all.”
Welcome to 409 East Woodbury Road, and the side of Samera Arkel’s event space business.
It’s exterior wall has become a stucco canvass that has brought together the Eaton fire’s survivors, young and old, artists, musicians and others.
Amid the ruins, they are putting some color and some hope back into a community awash in the din of debris removal, big trucks, uncertainty over the future.
For weeks since the Eaton fire, the spot has become a kind of gathering place — where a mix of art and conversation has buoyed a community where so many have lost so much.
Gradually, Arkel — not content to sit by and do nothing to help — has found herself collaborating on various community support and recovery efforts. Her site has become a conduit to helping in the recovery.
Then one day she got the request for a wall.
“I said I have a wall,” she said. “And then we all came together. I felt like it was something we needed. We needed some color, since everything was so black and white. And we just said yes. And I’m so glad we did.”
Arkel herself has seen loss. Her family lost five properties in the fire, including her own home.
But her business, an event space, survived, becoming a kind of beacon in the area.
“We hang out. People come at night, put on some tunes, we eat, we have wine, we break, sit there. Nobody wants to go home,” she said.
A recent community day brought dozens of people, where World Central Kitchen provided food. They bonded over food, music and art.
And this weekend, from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the site, Arkel and the supporters of the mural said she is inviting the community to an official unveiling of the mural, complete with music and more.
The request for a wall came from The Goodness Tour.
Several feet from Rose Drew, on the other end of the mural, Benjamin Swatez, covered in sprinkles and splotches of paint himself, was busy orchestrating the final touches this week. He’s a co-founder of the nonprofit Goodness Tour, which goes to disaster-ridden communities, using painting, drawing, music, concerts, film and storytelling to offer moments for emotional aid and some hope to rebuild.
He’s seen the aftermath of disaster around the country and the world – from the rubble of Hurricane Helene in Ashville, North Carolina, to refugees of the war in the Ukraine, to the ravages of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Before the fires, L.A. was not at the top of the list of the places his team – founded in 2014 by Swatez (artist and muralist), Luc Reynaud (musician and former American Red Cross volunteer), and Jeremiah Alexis (new media content) – would ever come to. But on Jan. 7, that all changed when the mammoth Eaton and Palasades fires ripped through beloved L.A. County communities.
But life has a way of changing things.
“I spent 10 years growing up in Southern California around here, and it just felt like, well, I’ve been blessed to be able to do this kind of community empowerment work through the arts in 42 different countries, and it’s happened right in our backyard,” Swatez said. “So let’s show up and just create space for all of the genius to emerge out of people that are just, you know, excited to, or, I would say, excited thirsty for, for the opportunity to feel creative again when sometimes, like the trauma and the adversity can oppress that creativity.”
Even as he dabbed some color on the Altadena mural, not far away in his mind was his group’s visit to the Ukraine, where he painted a community mural in Moshchun, a bomb-ridden town, where he stayed to absorb the town’s reflections. It resulted in a piece symbolizing the hope of families reuniting safely with their loved ones.
The painting depicts a stork, a symbol of birth and prosperity in the village, as the “hands of faith” hold a nest symbolizing the aspirations of the war-torn nation. In Lviv, he was joined by 45 Ukrainian volunteers on a mural that spoke to the hopes of peace and renewed vitality of the town’s land.
“It’s about creating with community, rather than for the community, you know?” he said. “I mean, so like we can, we can symbiotically learn and grow from one another.”
Much of that learning is in how people can suffer such loss and still give of themselves for something larger.
Randolph Heartfield is among the local volunteers who have joined in the mural project.
His mom lost her Altadena home in the fire — and with it, he lost hundreds of pieces of art he’d created throughout his life. He wasn’t sure whether, or how soon, he’d be able to create again.
Still, there he was this week, finding pride in the giant depictions of butterflies and the flowers he had a special hand in creating.
He was grateful for the group of artists swooping in to create a space in the area. He knows there’s much to do to get life back on track. But he’s made some connections, even amid the loss. And his creative juices are flowing again.
“Good people do exist in the world, ” he said. “You just to have find them. I don’t think it’s has hard as might have thought.”
Ultimately, more than 100 people from the community have put a brush to the wall.
Hope in a comeback is already emerging.
“As horrible as it is, when I was driving around today, trees that are burnt up, flowers are blooming of the trees, where the trunks are ashen,” said Drew, who has put her job as a clinical lab scientist on hold for now to help her parents rebuild their lives. “Life finds a way. We’ll figure it out. We’ll come back beautiful and strong. And this is kind of first steps. We’ll be back. We’ll be back.”
Staff writer Anissa Rivera contributed to this article.