How artists are helping LA fire survivors find hope and comfort

As people struggled to cope with the immense loss from the Los Angeles fires earlier, artists stepped into offer help.

They taught free classes to victims of the fire, drew pictures of destroyed houses and offered much-needed entertainment to give people a break from the devastation.

“The arts are like taking a vacation from yourself – we get lost in a play or a painting or a piece of music,” says Beth Sussman, a master teaching artist and Juilliard-trained pianist who taught in free care camps organized by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.

The camps she worked at were at Pamela Park and Mar Vista and were for children ages 5-13 affected by the fires.

“These kids went through a tragedy with so much loss,” she says. “My objective was, let’s have fun and forget everything for a short while.”

She performed for the kids on the piano, had them try out percussion instruments and taught them call-and-response songs from Africa.

Beth Sussman. Photo courtesy of LA County Dept. of Parks and Recreation

Some of the kids were immediately engaged and some were slower to warm up. While in a normal classroom situation she would have encouraged all the kids to get more involved, here she let them be. Her goal above all was to provide comfort.

“The arts really take you out of yourself,” Sussman says. “We were able to do that for a little bit.”

Pasadena Playhouse’s Education Department also offered a free day camp to kids in elementary and middle school who had been affected by losses of their homes and schools due to the fires.  The camp ran 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and included instructions in puppetry and film-making. The program gave kids something uplifting to do in a stressful time and gave their parents a chance to deal with the aftermath.

Some 50 kids came the first week – some who were alumni of the theater’s after-school programs and summer camps and others who were referred by friends.

Arie Levine, the Playhouse’s education director, says the teachers were paid through donors.

“The arts really take you out of yourself,” Sussman says. “We were able to do that for a little bit.”

It is not unusual for the playhouse’s teachers to work with children who have gone through trauma, Levine says. While the LA fires were an enormous tragedy affecting thousands of people, there are always students in the theater’s programs going through some form of difficult challenge.

Artist Asher Bingham stepped into help by drawing free pictures of homes lost in the fire. She got her idea after a close friend’s home was burned just days after the friend got married.

“It was really surreal,” she says. “I didn’t know what to say to her. It was the best day of her life followed by the worst day of her life.”

Bingham impulsively decided to pull up a picture of the house on Google Street View and draw it for her. “I wanted to say ‘I’m sorry’ in the way I can,” she says.

Bingham decided to offer the same to others and put up a reel on Instagram offering to provide a free house drawing for anyone who lost their house in the LA fires.

“At max, I thought I would get 10 houses or maybe 20,” Bingham says. The reel went viral and she got so many requests that she had to enlist other artist friends to help to keep up with all the requests.

She and her friends have drawn hundreds of pictures and she has a waiting list with over 1,000 more requests.

“This is a service that needs to be done,” she says. “So many people are responding in a way that is heart wrenching.”

Image courtesy of Asher Bingham

People like to have the ink drawings rather than just photos because they can capture memories. Bingham says she and the other artists can set the scene in the spring when everything is green and add flowers and swings. “I think if this is my home, what would I want of this image brought through?” she says.

Bingham, who accepts donations for art supplies, says the fires came at time that was already difficult for herself and people in the entertainment industry. A film and TV editor for almost 20 years, Bingham says she hasn’t been able to find work for a year-and-a-half because of the writer’s strike and the increasing use of artificial intelligence in film projects.

She was glad that her drawings were helpful to others. “I didn’t realize how healing, how cathartic having a final drawing of your house could be,” she says. “I had one woman who was openly weeping. I got so many hugs.”

Going through significant challenges themselves made some artists want to help the community more. Maggie Mackay, executive director of Vidiots, a nonprofit video store, says her organization struggled greatly when it lost its longtime iconic location in Santa Monica several years ago and moved to its current location at the Eagle Theatre in Los Angeles. Her organization appreciated the help of community supporters and wanted to give back to the community in turn.

In mid-January, Vidiots joined forces with the nearby Bob Baker Marionette Theater to offer a free show to dozens of children and their families affected by the fires. The goal was to give families an escape from their troubles. The families enjoyed a puppet show and movies.

Mackay says she’s already looking forward to hosting another show in a few years to celebrate the rebuilding of arts and other organizations destroyed by the fires. She says artists are resilient problem solvers who can create something out of nothing.

Photo courtesy of Los Angeles County Dept. of Parks and Recreation

While the fires were still raging, Debbie Allen, the choreographer and actress best known for her work in the 1980s TV series “Fame,” devised a plan to offer a free series of community dance classes in Santa Monica. “Dancing in the Light” is for fire impacted children and families “plus all who want to gather as a community and use movement to foster connection, self-expression and collective healing.” No dance experience is required, and all levels are invited to attend.

Allen told NBC LA that she knew quickly that she had to do something to help the community. “We feel the pain of what has been lost but we know we have something that we can give to help pull people up,” she says.