How "Homes in Memoriam" gives wildfire victims a piece of what they lost

After two days of waiting, Ashley Miller's family finally saw what was left of their Pacific Palisades home.

"We realized through aerial footage on the news that our house was gone," the USC graduate said. "I'll never forget my grandfather, out loud, announced the time of death of our home as if were on Grey's Anatomy; 12:47 p.m. is when we found out we lost the house."

In a state of grief and shock, Miller left her grandfather's home and went back to her apartment. Sitting by herself, she learned about other friends and relatives who had lost their houses. Anxious to help in any way she could, she remembered the feeling of receiving a portrait of her college house as a graduation present. 

"I was just sitting there thinking I have to do something. I can't just sit here," she said. "I had that gift in the back of my mind as something that was really meaningful to me."

Two days after the Palisades Fire started, Miller quickly threw together a couple of graphics on her new Instagram page, Homes in Memoriam. It quickly caught the eye of artists, wildfire survivors, and people looking to help her, including co-founder Amy Beemer Lev. With hundreds of requests flowing in, the pair wanted their project to capture the sentiment Miller felt after graduating. They hoped that this would be that "something" that helped families remember the homes they lost — all for free. 

"You can't get back a lot of the memories and the special heirlooms," Beemer Lev said. "This is kind of one thing that people can receive that feels like a little piece of a home."

"As if I was standing in front of it."

After spotting the flames burning the hillside above her childhood home, Erika Fiksdal wrangled her mother's four cats into the car and packed some basic necessities before evacuating from the Pacific Palisades.

"I didn't even look back at the house," Fiksdal said. "We thought we'd back. We thought there was no way that fire was going to come all the way through town and burn our house down, no way."

Aided by strong Santa Ana winds that reached 100 mph, the wildfire quickly spread through the Palisades and destroyed Fiksdal's entire neighborhood, including her family's home. In a state of disbelief, Fiksdal collapsed to the floor as her mother comforted her. 

"It just felt so impossible," she said. "Our home can't be gone. It can't have come through the whole town. I just couldn't imagine it. I couldn't bear the thought of it being gone."

Without a home, Fiksdal and her family started searching through a resources spreadsheet circulating among fire victims. Between filing out the FEMA paperwork, calling her insurance company and searching for food centers, she found Miller's Instagram page for Homes in Memoriam. After sending the photos, Fiksdal waited for the piece of art to arrive, hoping that the artist would capture the importance of her family's home. 

"I didn't know how anybody was possibly going to do that," she said. "It was so special. To us, it was as member of our family. It was a magical place. It held generations of my family, and it cradled us. It carried us through life. My daughter was living in the bedroom I grew up in."

The artist did just that. 

"It was as if I was standing in front of it," Fiksdal said. "She managed to present it in a way that embodied what it was like when I was growing up and what it was like when we last saw it."

"All it felt like I was doing was giving money."

Living in a "donut of disaster" and spared from the destruction of the nearby Eaton and Palisades fires, artist Nontra Null started helping survivors like many others by sending money. 

Despite her charity, the mother of three could not shake the feeling that she wasn't doing enough. 

"All I felt like I was doing was giving money," she said. "It still just felt so impersonal ... just entering my credit card number over and over again."

She hoped to find something that would provide her a chance to make a direct impact on survivors while still allowing her to be a mother of three with a full-time job. 

After scrolling through Instagram, she stumbled upon the opportunity she was searching for: Homes in Memoriam. She connected with Miller and Beemer Lev, helping the women design their logo before starting on her first portrait. 

"It was the first time in a week where I felt like I was doing something worthwhile," she said. "After I finished the first one, I was like 'I want to do more.'"

Beemer Lev said more than 160 artists have volunteered their talent to help Homes in Memoriam complete the roughly 500 portrait requests. While some live in Los Angeles, many more live in other states, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. 

"I just knew it was something I had to do," artist Jane Heldmann said. "It was one small way that I could help people. I had seen the fires and watched the news along with everybody else in the country and realized the trauma that these people were having."

Heldmann, who lives in Portland, spent years crafting house portraits before retiring. Familiar with the art form, she strives to include minute details that an outsider may view as pointless but to the family captures the cherished memories that were destroyed during the fires. In the 17 portraits she's designed, Heldmann has included everything from hummingbird feeders to a water closet chain that a family used to ring a bell by the front door. 

"The smallest details make such a big difference for these families," she said. "We're trying to give them back that just little slice of what they had — a remembrance that they can hang on the wall and have for their children and grandchildren to remember where they lived."

With artists like Null and Heldmann dedicating their talents and time to Homes in Memoriam, Beemer Lev and Miller promised to complete the remaining portraits and to keep the momentum going in the long run. 

"This is not a temporary offer," Miller said. "A year from now, if a family says, 'Okay, we're just now ready for this.' We're still hoping to be able to honor that."