Green Renewal of The Fires

Chris Dali - "Renewal"
By Johanna Spinks
36 x 36", via palette knife

The Face of Malibu Rebuilds
By Johanna Spinks
A series of interviews and sketches by Spinks appearing weekly in The Malibu Times featuring the rebuild of people who have lost everything. 

Green renewal on the fire torn mountains - and within me. This portrait of Chris Dali, relative of the great surrealist painter Salvador Dali, was started the day of the Malibu wildfires that took 600 homes and two-thirds of my neighborhood. Yet alone, the rest of the destruction through California.

It was started the day of the fires, from a three hour life sitting with Chris, and survived an absolute inferno blazing around my studio, home and neighborhood in a way that is hard to describe and  nothing short of a miracle that my home, studio, and this painting and other paintings didn't burn. The fire came right up to my kitchen back door and studio front door but decided to go, unfortunately, to my neighbors. We have some big repairs but nothing compared to others. 

I did lose quite a few commissioned portraits in Malibu homes that burned to the ground. I am so sad for these familes who have lost everything. It is going to be a long re-build. As some of you know,  I been painting "The Face of Malibu- Rebuilds" with The Malibu Times, donating my time sketching, interviewing and writing about people who have lost everything  in the fires while still being displaced myself. So far about 11 people have been featured. The interviews are painful and tears on both sides are often shed. 

The green portrait of Chris has been sitting on my easel for three months, waiting for me to get back to it, defying me not to finish it after all it has been through with nature. The journey home and back to life has been slow. It was three and a half weeks before we could legally get to our home with roads opening, yet alone live there. We managed to hard-hike in once and it was just devastating to see the destruction and not be able to immediately protect your home from incoming rats and terrible smoke damage with broken windows. Nothing happens until those roads open! Now, friends' burned homes are being bulldozed to the ground. Humbling. Shattering. Something life doesn't prepare you for, to watch. 

Three months later, I am feeling so grateful I got to finish this portrait of Chris. It will aways be a special painting for me, as will the new series and the very brave people I am also grateful to have met.

I also show the "Face of Malibu Rebuild" sitters who I have met so far. The series continues weekly.

Thanks
Johanna