A watercolor painting of Charlotte Tragos’s home in Los Angeles, which burned to the ground amid the Palisades Fire. Los Angeles artist Jordan Heber put out a call on social media, offering to paint homes that were destroyed free of charge.
Courtesy of Jordan Heber
The Palisades Fire burned Charlotte Tragos’s home to the ground. The height chart from when she was a child was marked on the kitchen wall. Family heirlooms filled the cupboards. Her parents’ wedding video from the 1990s was stashed away in the basement. All of it is gone.
“It was a pretty special and unique house,” said Tragos, 19, who fled with her parents, her younger sister and their three dogs when the fire broke out on Jan. 7. All Tragos took with her was her high school diploma, her dog’s ashes and a pair of sneakers.
“The streets were packed with people running, driving on the wrong side of the road,” she said, adding that everyone knew they were running for their lives.
A few days after the fire started, a friend of Tragos’s shared a video of an Los Angeles artist offering to create watercolor paintings of people’s homes before they were scorched.
“To anyone who lost their home in the #lafire I will paint it for free,” the caption reads.
Tragos reached out to the artist, Jordan Heber, asking if she could do Tragos’s childhood home.
Jordan Heber, a brand strategist and artist based in L.A., is offering keepsake paintings for people who lost their homes in the recent wildfires.
Courtesy of Jordan Heber
“I wanted to do it as a surprise to my parents who are inundated with so much right now,” she said.
Tragos sent a photo to Heber, who got straight to work and completed a painting of Tragos’s home in just three days. She also painted another home, as well as a local school for a teacher who reached out to her. Heber has made several other sketches of homes she plans to paint.
“Our homes are so much more than these physical standing things that we keep our belongings in,” said Heber, 31, who lives in Santa Monica. “It’s an incredible honor to create these lasting tributes to the places that held so much life and memory.”
Tragos said she will forever be grateful to Heber.
“It means the world,” she said. “We’re in a position where we have nothing, and anything like that, especially pieces that commemorate what the house meant to us, it is really uplifting.”
Heber works as a brand strategist, and she does commission paintings — primarily of people’s homes — as a side gig. She typically charges between $350 to $400 per painting.
“I moved around a lot when I was younger, and so the meaning of home is significant to me,” Heber said, noting that she has the word “home” tattooed on her forearm.
A painting of Jeremy Wineberg’s home in the Palisades.
Courtesy of Jordan Heber
After the wildfires started, Heber thought about ways she could contribute.
“I was just feeling so helpless,” she said.
A friend sent her an Instagram post by another local artist offering to draw people’s homes at no charge, and Heber was inspired to do something similar.
“This will be my way to help people,” said Heber.
Shortly after she posted her offer on social media, requests started coming in. Her video on TikTok has been viewed nearly 70,000 times.
“Hundreds of people have reached out,” she said. “I’m still working through messages, and I’m getting more and more.”
Heber is currently working on about 25 paintings, including one for Jeremy Wineberg, whose home in Pacific Palisades was destroyed.
“It was a place you never wanted to leave,” said Wineberg, 39, adding that the house had been in his family for nearly 30 years.
At the time of the fire, Wineberg was in his home with his partner, Zander Jimenez, and their two dogs, Winnie and James. Wineberg was able to grab his jewelry box and iPad before they had to flee. He left the rest of his belongings behind.
“It’s not just stuff; it was everything that represents me, and I just feel so lost right now,” said Wineberg, who is staying in La Quinta, about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles, at his father’s home.
Jimenez came across Heber’s painting offer on Instagram and eagerly sent her a message.
“We told her our story, and she so kindly and lovingly made such a beautiful memory that looks exactly as if it was a photograph,” said Wineberg. “We’re going to frame it and put it in our new home eventually.”
Wineberg said he lost many treasured pieces of art in the blaze.
“It’s such a circle of a story, where we’ve lost everything but now, we have this new piece of art that we’re going to be bringing into our new home,” he said.
Heber has many more paintings to complete — and she plans to make some of local landmarks that were lost, too. She said she is glad people find her paintings meaningful.
“Hopefully it inspires others to use their talents to help people,” she said.
