Artists tap into anger, melancholy and hope as Eaton Fire recovery continues

After sculptor and printmaker Camilla Taylor lost their home, studio and nearly all possessions, including their artwork, to the Eaton Fire in January 2025, they attended groups processing grief and sadness. Taylor didn’t feel sadness though — they felt deep, deep anger.

Anger that “something so big was taken away from me.”

Anger at the “extreme inconvenience” of their loss.

Anger at themselves for being upset when comparing their loss relative to “people in Gaza who are actively being subjected to a genocide.”

Anger that people minimized their lost artwork as merely objects, when these were the objects they made.

“As an artist, I define myself by the objects I create and can create. … The objects are who I am and now they’re gone,” they said.

Showcased in the Post-Fire 1 group show running until June 1 are artworks Taylor and others made after the fires that tap into an array of emotions. The show evokes unease in warped window frames and a whirling floor-facing fan, and finds hope in drawings of colorful plants growing aside charred tree trunks.

Taylor’s piece titled "Fury" hangs from the wall in the shape of a shiny cloak, made of hundreds of etched and handcut copper feathers, to represent the Greco-Roman mythological creature the Furies. Another artwork has the word “rage” etched in a copper silhouette of a grease moth.

Post-Fire 1 features 22 artists from the Altadena area who experienced the traumatic loss of homes and studios due to the Eaton fire. The Des Artistes organization plans for this 2026 show to be the first of four annual shows in support of artists who were affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Camilla Taylor’s piece “Fury,” an etched and hand-cut copper sculpture shaped like a cloak, is displayed during the “Post-Fire 1” show in Culver City. The work explores rage and gentleness through layered copper feathers inspired by the Greek Furies and Taylor’s experience rescuing an injured Pacific loon.

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Camilla Taylor’s piece “Caretaker (Grease Moth),” an etched and hand-cut copper sculpture, is on display in the “Post-Fire 1” show in Culver City. The work references the grease moth, one of the few moth species observed feeding on human corpses, and explores emotions of rage and anger.

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In a public talk tied to the exhibition, artist Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio said before the fires a lot of his work was socially inclined, but he did not really have a social practice as he does now.

He found that “doing things beyond myself and being involved in other community projects has been really healing.” Aparicio has worked on a memorial project in Altadena’s Triangle Park, hearing community members share stories about the fire, their lives, and what Altadena has meant to them.

Recovery through connection

Connectedness plays an important role in recovery from a traumatic event.

“Social support turns out to be one of the biggest predictors of recovery,” said Robin Jacobowitz, interim director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at SUNY New Paltz. “Also, the level of perceived social support you have, that includes everything from strong family ties and/or peer networks, community support.”

Jacobowitz said that after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 there was a lot of outmigration due to the long road to recovery and its challenges. “Having strong social ties has been shown to even prevent that,” said Jacobowitz, while recognizing that structural issues still remain, like the loss of housing, lack of insurance or employment opportunities.

Still, these ties may provide social, financial support, or even just accurate information. Jacobowitz said research has shown faith institutions drew the Vietnamese community back to New Orleans.

“When people have those community institutions involved in recovery, they stay,” she said.

Organizing for those who lost homes

Jacobowitz said communities begin to heal by acknowledging their loss, “through memorials, legacy, or anniversary events,” she said. “The loss is honored and now part of the community story and the community’s life, and how the community will continue to function and thrive together.”

After the fires, as acts of altruism spread across Los Angeles, Taylor was invited to participate in art shows where organizers would receive no commission so that proceeds would go directly to its artists, who self-identified as fire victims. Taylor was surprised to meet more than one artist who participated but had no real direct relation to the fire. They said one artist did not live in an area where the fires burned.

Upset at people taking advantage of the situation, Taylor channeled this anger to doing what they were already good at doing, which is curating shows. A connector in their own right, Taylor organized an intimate group show titled, “My House Burned Down,” which recognized artists who lost homes in the recent and older fires.

Taylor also helped to co-curate "Post-Fire 1."

Camilla Taylor sculpts a piece resembling a braid in lost wax before it is cast in bronze.

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Taylor said the anger they've felt has lessened. “It’s really exhausting. It takes so much energy to be angry.”

Anger is a common, if powerful, emotional reaction to loss, among other emotions, according to the authors of the book Disaster Mental Health Theory and Practice, James Halpern and Mary Tramontin. Emotional reactions after a disaster can depend on a variety of factors, including an individual’s history. For Taylor, they said they have historically had a tendency toward anger in response to trauma, going back to their childhood.

Taylor said they do not make art to heal, but rather to understand. In discussing their artwork Fury, Taylor explained that “the Furies could punish the gods for breaking divine law with extreme self-awareness.” Fury was part of a body of work around transformation and becoming a completely new thing.

Taylor clarified though that their art is not about themselves. If it were so specific to their own experience, then the art would just be for them and art would not be doing its “first job,” which is “to communicate.”

Taylor’s artwork in the show titled The Dead, is in reference to the memory of Altadena. On a white paper the word memory is repeated in different lettering styles, made from rubbing a black crayon in the shape of Taylor’s hand, which is also part of the art on display, over different headstones in Altadena’s Mountain View cemetery.

Artwork is displayed during the “Post-Fire 1” show at Des Artistes gallery in Culver City.

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Taylor used to go on frequent walks through the historic cemetery, which was established in 1882. Century-old headstones and plaques sit among a variety of trees.

“All the houses, like a horseshoe around the cemetery, are completely gone, but the house of the dead is fine,” Taylor said. Taylor described the surviving cemetery as representing the historically Black community, the tree-stump headstones by the fraternal society, the Woodmen of the World, and the waves of immigrants.

“It has archived the history of Altadena,” Taylor said.

“What I really loved about Post-Fire 1 is that many people who came to the opening did not realize what we all had in common.”

The attendees “just thought it was a really good group show.”

Funding for this story was provided by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, as part of its "Spreading Love Through the Media" initiative, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.