Woman was sad about losing her art collection to LA wildfires—then artist stepped in with heartwarming idea
Losing precious big things because of a tragedy can be devastating, but a person might mourn the little things, too. A woman who lost her house to the LA wildfires was significantly upset when the fire claimed her art collection. It was heartbreaking for the family to go back to their home and see it in ashes, as they hadn't anticipated that the fire would cause such extensive damage. The couple, Jill and Greg Adams, were struggling to wrap their heads around the incident and the irreplaceable things they had lost when an artist stepped in to do something about Jill's lost art collection, per CBS Mornings.
"I don't know where the house was now," Greg remarked as the couple drove to the street their house was located on. "By no means whatsoever did we ever think that the fire was gonna explode as big as it did and take all of our homes and my own with it," Jill pointed out. "Every day I remember something else that I lost that is not replaceable." Her art collection, consisting of three pieces by a street artist, Retna, was among those things. The artist readily agreed to paint something new for the couple to make up for their loss. However, he added something that might serve as a tribute to the family's lost house.
Retna used ashes from the couple's old house to paint on the canvas. "Something that we had never really tried before was to use the earth and mother nature, the elements," the artist explained. Jill tried to salvage a piece of something as they went back to their house weeks after the fire with Retna. They collected ashes, and the artist turned that into paint."Just seeing everything in rubbles and looking like a bomb went off and going through their house and picking up a couple of pieces, it was a pretty surreal experience." Retna got to work after that, and the pieces were featured in a documentary project by Core Art Gallery.
"I feel so special to be able to have something so unique from someone who I think is just such an amazing artist," Jill expressed. Retna grew up in LA as a graffiti artist and then went on to get training in hieroglyphics and calligraphy, per the outlet. The artist shared that his paintings have hidden messages in quite a few cases. The man called the pieces he made for the family, "Script of the flame." Jill added, "To have a piece of artwork like this in my home that is made from my home is just something that is always going to be special to our family."
Retna made three paintings from the ashes, one was going to be given to the family, and the other two would be sold, with the proceeds going to victims of the fire. People shared their remarks about the artist's thoughtful work in the comments section of the video. @jashannon wrote, "That's awesome. If they have good insurance, they can rebuild and in many locations in California, the land portion of the property, which remains after a fire, is worth more than the structure."