Between January and October 2025, I began the project of clearing out my parents' home in Altadena, CA.
The Eaton Fires destroyed thousands of homes throughout their neighborhood, located blocks from the base of the mountain where the fires began. My parents' home along with their immediate northern neighbor remain standing. Standing on the porch of my parents' home, I now have a clear line of sight facing South, West, and East. I see the occasional wire frame of a melted chair, the shell of a washing machine, bikes buried underneath piles of rubble, but the land has begun to clear. Slopes razed, property lines staked.
The heat of the fires surrounding the house left it singed and with many shattered windows. I had visited my family days before the fire, so when I returned, many of the items in closed rooms were just as I had left them with some important changes.
Soot, dust, dirt, a sticky film, now coated the surface of everything. It was much more noticeable in rooms with broken windows, but I came to realize everything wore this film.
I found clothes stored in closed closets, relieved to find them unharmed. After a couple minutes of handling the fabrics, my hands would turn grey.
Plastics turned sticky alongside anything with rubber or elastic. These couldn't be cleaned.
All shoes had to be thrown away. Dishware, Tupperware, liquids, soaps. Anything stuffed, too difficult to wash, food, tea, the entire kitchen.
Books are where it gets tricky. My family has thousands. As I sorted through, trying to determine what had enough importance, value, emotional attachment to go through the process of getting it professionally cleaned, I thought about Specificity. Am I attached to THIS book? or the contents of its pages? Would a replacement serve the same purpose, or would my attachment be lost with this copy of A Wrinkle in Time? I began to consider our shelves as holding our own collection of Victorian poison books. Precious but ultimately toxic.
Specificity
I had been thinking of this distinction in the past couple years, but the stakes had changed as I addressed a life's worth of things.
Much of the house had to be thrown away or tossed into storage in the hopes that one day we can "deal with it". Clothes had to go to special cleaners and be washed+3 times before they were safe to wear.
I spent countless hours sorting and weighing the emotional value of the house's contents, primarily in +90-degree weather.
I found my strongest attachments were to objects from my childhood, the ones I touched and used every day. Bedsheet sets, stuffed animals, familiar fabrics, rocks, fragile leaves found in boxes, the boxes themselves. I wrapped things carefully and shoved as much as I could into my budget airline friendly baggage to take back to Chicago. I found that the size constriction led me to seek symbols of attachment, reminders of something expansive like a time in my life rather than objects of monetary value. I took pillowcases, 2 of which are featured in the works below (the floral set, so decade worn it had become unfathomably soft, often on my parent's bed and the illustrated Winnie the Pooh case).
The Eaton Fires destroyed thousands of homes throughout their neighborhood, located blocks from the base of the mountain where the fires began. My parents' home along with their immediate northern neighbor remain standing. Standing on the porch of my parents' home, I now have a clear line of sight facing South, West, and East. I see the occasional wire frame of a melted chair, the shell of a washing machine, bikes buried underneath piles of rubble, but the land has begun to clear. Slopes razed, property lines staked.
The heat of the fires surrounding the house left it singed and with many shattered windows. I had visited my family days before the fire, so when I returned, many of the items in closed rooms were just as I had left them with some important changes.
Soot, dust, dirt, a sticky film, now coated the surface of everything. It was much more noticeable in rooms with broken windows, but I came to realize everything wore this film.
I found clothes stored in closed closets, relieved to find them unharmed. After a couple minutes of handling the fabrics, my hands would turn grey.
Plastics turned sticky alongside anything with rubber or elastic. These couldn't be cleaned.
All shoes had to be thrown away. Dishware, Tupperware, liquids, soaps. Anything stuffed, too difficult to wash, food, tea, the entire kitchen.
Books are where it gets tricky. My family has thousands. As I sorted through, trying to determine what had enough importance, value, emotional attachment to go through the process of getting it professionally cleaned, I thought about Specificity. Am I attached to THIS book? or the contents of its pages? Would a replacement serve the same purpose, or would my attachment be lost with this copy of A Wrinkle in Time? I began to consider our shelves as holding our own collection of Victorian poison books. Precious but ultimately toxic.
Specificity
I had been thinking of this distinction in the past couple years, but the stakes had changed as I addressed a life's worth of things.
Much of the house had to be thrown away or tossed into storage in the hopes that one day we can "deal with it". Clothes had to go to special cleaners and be washed+3 times before they were safe to wear.
I spent countless hours sorting and weighing the emotional value of the house's contents, primarily in +90-degree weather.
I found my strongest attachments were to objects from my childhood, the ones I touched and used every day. Bedsheet sets, stuffed animals, familiar fabrics, rocks, fragile leaves found in boxes, the boxes themselves. I wrapped things carefully and shoved as much as I could into my budget airline friendly baggage to take back to Chicago. I found that the size constriction led me to seek symbols of attachment, reminders of something expansive like a time in my life rather than objects of monetary value. I took pillowcases, 2 of which are featured in the works below (the floral set, so decade worn it had become unfathomably soft, often on my parent's bed and the illustrated Winnie the Pooh case).
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SO/Braid/龔悅明/2016 (Some Things Grow Back), 2025.
Oil on panel. 8”x 8” x 3/4” $575 |
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SO/Leaf/NPVNC/2018 (Top Drawer Reliquaries), 2025.
Oil on panel. 8”x 8” x 3/4” $500 |
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SO/Charcoal/Altadena/2025 (Resting Places), 2025.
Oil on panel. 8”x 8” x 3/4” $400 |
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SO/Pillow/Mother/1979 (At 13 years old), 2025.
Graphite on paper. 17” x 15” x 3/4” $200 |
