Latest news with #andHope
Associated Press
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Some artists lost their life's work in LA wildfires. Fellow artists are helping them recover
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anthony Obi never imagined the night of Jan. 7 would be the last time he'd step inside his safe haven. The Houston rapper, known professionally as Fat Tony, has lived in the Altadena neighborhood for a year and says he and his neighbors were prepared for heavy winds and perhaps a few days of power outages. 'I totally expected, you know, maybe my windows are going to get damaged, and I'll come back in like a day or two and just clean it up,' said the rapper. But residents like Obi woke up the following morning to news that thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods had been burned to ash, destroyed by flames that wiped out large areas of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Although the neighborhoods are on opposite ends of the county, they are known hubs for many of the city's creative community, housing filmmakers, actors, musicians and artists of various mediums. 'LA is not just rich, famous people who have giant mansions that were destroyed,' said visual artist Andrea Bowers, who is assisting artists recover. 'So many members of our community lost everything, they lost all their artworks and their archives, that's irreplaceable, a lifetime of labor and a lifetime of research.' 'A lot of my collectors lost their homes,' said figurative and conceptual artist Salomón Huerta, who lost his Altadena home of three years to the Eaton Fire and worries the art scene in LA will downsize as a result of the wildfire. 'Before the fire, I was in talks with certain collectors. And then, after the fire, they're not in a good place to talk. I'm hoping that there's support so that the art scene can still thrive. But it's going to be tough.' Obi and Huerta lost not only personal treasures, business opportunities and homes but also vital equipment and professional archives, adding to their emotional burden. Huerta left behind slides and transparencies of past work that he had planned to digitize for an upcoming book. 'Everything's gone,' Obi said. 'All of my stuff that is related to Fat Tony music that was in that house is gone, and it was the motherlode of it.' From aftermath of one fire, a support network is born Kathryn Andrews never imagined she'd experience another wildfire in her lifetime. The conceptual artist was forced to flee her Pacific Palisades neighborhood as smoke drew near, the second time in four years she's had to escape a wildfire. She lost her Juniper Hills property to the 2020 Bobcat fire, which burned a large section of rural Los Angeles County. 'I've already experienced one home being burned. I think you have a different focus after that. Maybe we become a little bit less attached to material things. And we began looking at a bigger long-term picture, thinking about, you know, how we live together in community, how we live in relation to the land and how we can work together to solve this,' she said. Andrews is the co-founder of relief effort Grief and Hope, which aims to support creatives financially as they enter the long road ahead and was founded alongside a group of gallery directors, art professionals and artists like Bowers, Ariel Pittman, Olivia Gauthier, and Julia V. Hendrickson. 'Our primary goal is getting people triage money for just whatever the most emergent need is,' said Pittman. The fundraising effort began shortly after the fires broke out with a Go Fund Me seeking $500,000. They have now raised over $940,000 of their new $1 million goal via non-profit art space The Brick. As of Tuesday, Grief and Hope has received more than 450 inquiries, and Pittman says the funds will be evenly distributed to applicants. The deadline for artists to submit a needs survey has concluded, but the relief effort will continue fundraising until mid-March. Grief and Hope also has five different groups of volunteers providing peer-to-peer support, helping with medical needs, safety issues, and renter's issues and collecting survey data to better serve their creative community. 'These are people who already have made very long term commitments in their work, including the five of us, towards building community and building sustainability around artists and art workers in our city and beyond,' said Pittman. For Grief and Hope, creating a more sustainable future for artists throughout the city begins with affordable studio spaces and housing. Creative tools lost, and a long road ahead For photographer Joy Wong, losing her home of eight years meant losing the beauty of Altadena. She describes the overall area as 'a pocket of heaven.' 'I didn't want to leave,' said Wong who safely evacuated with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. 'We were just so in love with this house, and it wasn't just my house. It was also my studio space.' Many, like Obi, Wong and Huerta, have started GoFundMe accounts. Meanwhile initiatives and relief efforts have popped up around Southern California ready to assist with clothing donations, art supplies, professional equipment for creatives and more. 'I'm applying to everything,' said Obi, who needs to replace his instruments and recording equipment. Wong said she's received much support from family, friends and colleagues. 'I think I just have to kind of lean on the community and get back into shooting,' she said. 'I got to get all my gear back, too. It's going to be a long road, but it'll be OK.' How some artists see LA's arts scene can be reborn Superchief Gallery co-founder and director Bill Dunleavy said he believes that this is an opportunity to rebuild long-needed infrastructure for the arts throughout Los Angeles. 'Quite a lot was lost and in the areas affected by the fire. And it's going to affect rent prices and studio prices and art markets and everything else,' said Dunleavy. 'I've been so impressed with the amount of compassion that people feel and the sense of duty people have felt to help with this. ... I hope that continues into the coming years.' Creative director Celina Rodriguez said she hopes freelance artists and creatives continue to work and shoot production or projects throughout the city, rather than leaving because of the wildfires. 'Having lost so many locations that we would shoot, typically in Malibu, Topanga, the Palisades, all throughout. We will have to absolutely come together and figure out how we can continue working in Los Angeles ... and urging people to shoot productions here,' she said. Rodriguez and Dunleavy began collecting donations at the Downtown Los Angeles gallery and within 48 hours transformed it into a bustling donation center with over 150 volunteers. The duo are now working with displaced families to make sure their daily needs are being met. Dunleavy said the relief effort has only encouraged him to take this work beyond just the donation center and explore the possibilities of non-profit work for the community. 'All of our wheels are turning now that we've seen the power that just self-organizing can have.'
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Diane Guerrero's Heartbreaking Story About Coming Home To An Empty House At 14 Years Old Because Her Parents Had Been Deported Is Going Viral Again, And It Hits Way Too Hard
Diane Guerrero is an actor most known for her role as Maritza on Orange Is the New Black. She is also an immigration reform advocate who has experienced the devastation of family deportation firsthand. Diane has been open about the moment she realized her half-brother and both her parents had been deported while she was at school by detailing it in her book My Family Divided: One Girl's Journey of Home, Loss, and Hope. And, ten years ago, speaking to CNN about the day it happened, Diane shared, "I would always have this feeling — I was always scared that my parents were going to be gone." Diane went on to share that because she was the only US citizen in her family, her father would remind her "every day" of the situation they were in. "My dad had this whole system. 'Here's where I hide this in case anything happens' and, you know, 'Don't be scared and know that you're going to be okay and that we love you very much and we wish this situation was different for us, but this is our reality.'" The day her family got detained and later deported to Colombia, Diane recalled having a "feeling" something happened. "I called my parents a million times. I was coming home from school and I was really excited because I went to a performance arts high school so around that time we were planning Springfest. Everyone was getting their parts and their singing roles. I was really excited because this was my first year and I was really excited to tell them about it," she told CNN. However, her happiness disappeared. "I got home, and their cars were there, and the lights were on, and dinner was started, but I couldn't find them," she said, fighting tears, adding, "It was really was really hard." Eventually, the neighbors came over and told Diane that her parents had been taken. "I broke down. I hid under the bed because I was scared somebody was going to come for me." "I was so scared. What do you do? And then I'm so scared for them, what they're going through, you know, my parents are going to jail — and for what? They're not criminals." After a few hours of waiting with the neighbors and parents of her friends who knew about the situation, Diane finally got a call from her dad. "He said that he was being detained. And then my mother called — they were separated." And because of all of this, Diane said her relationship with her parents is forever changed. "It's tough. We've been separated for so long; I feel like sometimes we don't know each other. It's difficult because I've grown up without them. There are things about them that are new that I don't recognize, and it hurts. But I love them so much and I hate that they have gone through this. I know I've been by myself but I feel like they have lived a very lonely existence by themselves." She went on, "It is so difficult for some people to get documented — to get their papers and to become legal. My parents tried forever and this system didn't offer relief for them." Finally, Diane emphasized that even though she was only a minor at 14, no government agency reached out to see if she was okay after this occurred. She relied solely on her friends' parents to help get her through the rest of high school and beyond. The clip that has been reshared on TikTok has been gaining significant attention with over 700,000 views. And people have been quick to point out how difficult the last season of Orange Is the New Black must have been for her. Her character, Maritza Ramos, gets deported to Colombia at the end of Episode 5. The episode is called "Minority Deport.' Since taking office, President Trump has signed a series of executive actions related to immigration that are expected to lead to significant enforcement of immigration policies.
