Chicano artist Salomón Huerta loses his Altadena home to the Eaton Fire

On Tuesday, January 7, Salomón Huerta drove to his art studio in Westwood like any other day. 

He remembers hearing about the fires in the Pacific Palisades area that morning, but since there were no warnings for his hometown of Altadena, he felt confident the fires wouldn’t reach his residence.

When Huerta was on his way home at 8:00 p.m., he received a call from his wife and fellow artist Ana Morales-Huerta. “I can see the fire from our door,” she said. Huerta recalls the wind sounding strong and loud over the phone. He could even hear the windows shake from the wind. 

At that point, he knew his wife was scared, so he told her he was on his way but that it would take about an hour to get home. By the time Huerta was on the freeway, his wife called again. “Where are you?” she asked.

Huerta let his wife know that he was stuck on the freeway with traffic and that it would still take some time to get to the home. “If you're afraid, just leave,” he said. Then his wife proceeded to ask him what he needed, but Huerta did not know then. “I needed to figure out how much stuff I had because I have a two-seater car,” Huerta said.

He also said that he didn’t know how filled up his wife's car was. “I couldn’t say, ‘Take this, this, this and this,’ and then there'd be no room,” he said. “If there's no room, then I have to get whatever we can fit or whatever I can get. So, we started to argue and I just told her, ‘You know what, just leave; don't worry about me.’”

Even though Huerta told his wife that he would only take five minutes to grab belongings, his wife did not want to leave him behind. In the panic, his wife waited and waited while Huerta rushed to get home. “As soon as I got there, I already had an idea of what had value, like value that I can sell,” Huerta said.

He knew he couldn’t grab things like his art books, art collection or other material items, because his focus was solely on what he could take to sell in case he and his wife needed money.

“We evacuated at 9 p.m.,” Huerta said. “When we left, I was very confident that the fire was not going to come down to our community. So, I took what's important, because I thought I was going to come back and we were just going to be fine. But apparently I know nothing about fires. I didn’t realize that the fire could move so fast, you know, coming down the hill.”

Unfortunately, by 3 a.m. the fire started burning his house. 

Without Huerta being aware of the situation, the next morning he woke up relaxed and thought that everything was going to be OK until someone sent him a video of everything burning.

“We got a video of the aftermath,” he said. “The whole neighborhood is gone. Where I would get coffee, where I would go to the gym, and where I would go for lunch with my art collectors that would come visit me. The whole neighborhood is gone and I don't plan to go back. I'm not interested in going back.”

Staying at his sister's house since the Eaton fire broke out, Huerta told CALÓ News that he has no interest in going back when the evacuation order is lifted. And that’s because he wants to remember it for how it was and what it was. Altadena, the city he once called his home.

Since the heartbreaking news, Huerta has been selling his art online to raise funds. Known for his series of paintings depicting anonymous subjects who sit or stand with their backs to the viewers, Huerta works serially on a single subject, taking cues from his environment and relationships as points of departure. He continues to work in representational painting, primarily portraiture—distilling elements of classicism with a modern social and cultural scrutiny.

Huerta shared that while he has a small savings account, he reserves it solely for mental health emergencies as he struggles with bipolar disorder.

The artist told CALÓ News that, in addition to losing his home, he is deeply saddened by the loss of irreplaceable photos. “I don't take photos of anything, but I did have a bag of photos when I was young. There were also photos of, like, my mom and my family and everything, and then I had transparencies and slides of my old work, so that cannot be replaced,” he said.

Huerta also shared a message for those who lost their homes. “I'm really sorry and I wish that you're able to move forward with the assistance that you need.”

The founder of the art gallery that represents Huerta, Harper Levine, has created a GoFundMe account to help him with funds that will not be covered by the federal disaster relief programs. 100% of the donated funds will go directly to Huerta and his wife Ana.

“I can tell you he is a beautiful soul, deeply resilient, and the last person who would ask for help. Yet in these extraordinary circumstances it is incumbent upon us to ensure he and Ana receive the help they need,” Levine said.