MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
When Los Angeles artist Asher Bingham learned the house of a friend was one of the 16,000 structures destroyed by the LA area wildfires, she didn't know what to say that could be helpful. So she found another way to respond. Here's KCRW's Megan Jamerson.
MEGAN JAMERSON, BYLINE: Last week, 20 drawings of houses covered Asher Bingham's coffee table.
ASHER BINGHAM: (Sighing) It's a beautiful and very sad pile.
JAMERSON: All of these homes were destroyed by the Los Angeles wildfires. Bingham is a portrait artist, and in the wake of the devastation, she started to draw keepsakes for people of what their houses used to look like. Inside her home studio, which was safe from the fires, Bingham's hand guides a fine-tip black marker around a sheet of thick white paper.
BINGHAM: I'm using lines to give you the ideas and the impressions of shapes.
JAMERSON: Eventually, they form a house with foliage in front. Bingham started doing these drawings two days after the fires began. She realized she couldn't afford to donate to all of her friends' recovery funds. So she put out a call on Instagram asking people to send her pictures of their homes, and she'd draw them for free.
BINGHAM: And I was thinking, you know, if I get 10, if I get 20, that would be really cool to share these gifts with people.
JAMERSON: Photos started pouring in. She's now received over 1,000 requests. There are ranch homes and apartments in Altadena, beach bungalows and mansions in Pacific Palisades, an RV on Pacific Coast Highway. She says she loves capturing the little quirky decorating touches of each place.
BINGHAM: One lady had a bucket of flamingos on her porch, and it's one of my favorite details.
JAMERSON: Bingham says many requests also came with stories, which she reads off of her spreadsheet.
BINGHAM: (Reading) My partner and I bought our first house in March, and it burned down Wednesday. My dad ran out with his flip-flops, and he doesn't have a picture of his home. House burned down while delivering a new baby.
JAMERSON: To keep up with the demand, Bingham has had to recruit a team. Fifty illustrators from across the country offered to help, though she's capped it at eight because that's all she can coordinate. Friends manage the emails, and strangers on Instagram have offered to donate art supplies.
BINGHAM: I think I accidentally started a nonprofit.
JAMERSON: People have already started to receive their artwork, like Fay Robles, whose friend, Katherine LeBlond, requested the drawing for her.
(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING AND DOOR OPENING)
FAY ROBLES: Katherine.
JAMERSON: Robles opens the door of the apartment where she's been staying since she evacuated from her rental home in Altadena. LeBlond hands her an 8-by-10 envelope.
ROBLES: Can I open it?
KATHERINE LEBLOND: Yes, of course. Special delivery.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENVELOPE RUSTLING)
JAMERSON: Robles pulls out the drawing.
ROBLES: Oh, my gosh. Wow.
LEBLOND: There she is.
ROBLES: Oh, it's so beautiful.
LEBLOND: Oh, and the little dog bowl.
ROBLES: I know - the little dog bowl.
JAMERSON: Robles says that bowl was always in the backyard for her dog, Snake. Robles works in television and had lived in the house she rented in Altadena for 11 years. Two small barbecues, which she used to host cookouts, are also in the drawing.
ROBLES: It represents not just where I lived and my home and all my memories but the whole community that I loved (crying).
JAMERSON: The kind of community, Robles says, where neighbors wave hello and invite you over for coffee. She says she still hasn't been back to see the remains of her home, and that makes Bingham's drawing even more precious.
ROBLES: So it sort of feels like all I kind of have right now of my home. And so it's really special and something I'm going to treasure forever.
JAMERSON: Wherever Robles ends up making a home next, she'll find a place to hang this portrait of the one she lost.
For NPR News, I'm Megan Jamerson.
(SOUNDBITE OF FURINO AND IMPORTMEDIA'S "ABOUT CLAUDIA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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