Truth, Told Kindly

In the past, heroes were kings and warriors–figures whose power defined their time. Today, my heroes are firefighters. I started this piece in response to the Los Angeles fires. Watching the Palisades hills burn and the Getty Villa threatened was heartbreaking; I had grown up nearby, and it felt like watching pieces of my own life go up in smoke. Yet while others fled, firefighters ran toward the flames. They stood, risking their lives to protect both homes and history. The child in acrylic painting represents me: how I would reach for these heroes when my own elementary school was on fire, and how endlessly safe I feel in their presence: as though the firefighters created a safe space just for me, one that my childhood interpreted as a shower of color and fluffy clouds, not a blaze of fire and ashy concrete. Our land is quiet because of your courage, thank you firefighters.