Hope from the ashes
By Gretchen Ammerman
Oregon Coast TODAY
When the Henton family moved to a house on Echo Mountain and set about making the property feel like home, they had no idea that in less than two years, those efforts would be burned away.
Early on Wednesday, Sept. 9, wildfire driven by strong east winds tore through the Echo Mountain area.
“One of my neighbors is a dispatcher and was on duty,” said eighth-grader Emma Henton. “She contacted her family and they woke us up, saying ‘The fire is close, you need to leave. Now.’”
That gave the family a small head start, but the situation was quickly deteriorating.
“Burning pine cones, sticks and small branches were falling all over the place, and my dad and our neighbors were trying to stamp them out,” Emma said. “The transformers were blowing and it looked like lightning was striking all around us.”
As the family rushed to evacuate, they gathered a few essential items.
“We as a family came to the consensus that if we tried to think about what we valued, we would just get caught up in it,” Emma said. “So, we just got a couple of electronics, family medicines, our pets and my dad and sisters’ guitars and got out of there.”
Once finally able to return to their five-acre property, they were met with stunning devastation. Then, Emma noticed something small that had survived: a little self-portrait in clay.
“Pretty much everything was gone,” she said. “To think that this is the thing that survived, and that it got baked again into something new, I thought it was pretty cool.”
Emma made the clay figure in an art class when the students had been learning about Greek gods and goddesses.
“The assignment was to make a self-portrait in a style inspired by the art of ancient Greece,” she said. “It used to be decorated with acrylic paint, and it had earnings and hair color; there is still a metallic shimmer from the hair color, which actually looks really neat. It looks even more like ancient art now that that’s all burned away.”
The fire is helping Emma learn at a young age what really matters.
“I’m not really upset about losing things like all my clothes, because those things can be replaced,” she said. “But family pictures, baby clothes, little mementoes that meant a lot to us, we didn’t get to save those things. We’ll make new memories, but those things have a weight; you can feel that they are gone.”
Though Emma’s feelings about her loss shift day by day, she and her family are humbled and appreciative of the love shown by their community.
“We’re the best dressed family now,” she said. “I’ve never had such nice clothes. People are trying to do everything they can to help us; it’s amazing.”
While sifting through the ashes, Emma found another thing that both surprised her and made her smile.
“I found a single page from ‘The Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers,’” she said. “It was a page that described Helm’s Deep and it was burned on the edges but still completely readable; it was really cool that survived too.”
In Tolkien’s enduring fantasy classic, the fortified gorge of Helm’s Deep was the scene of a key battle, during which the forces of good triumph against seemingly overwhelming odds.
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Emma’s clay piece and the book page will be among other items on display in the Chessman Gallery next spring as part of “From the Ashes,” a show curated by gallery director Krista Eddy.
“It’s not a typical art show,” Eddy said. “The idea is to collect and display interesting, impactful, objects that have been pulled out of the ashes, and the stories that come with them. We want to start now so that those things aren’t lost.”
Eddy has been trying to find ways to help the community during COVID-19, and now finds the fire has created a new need for healing acts.
“It was such an unexpected and profound event that happened to our community,” she said. “We want this to be another way to bring the community together, and especially honor the people that were impacted so greatly by it.”
Unlike an art show where pieces are created to be seen and can be inspired by a variety of motivations, this will be a show about hope and healing, where the objects on display are only part of the story.
“We really want to hear people's stories that come from the heart,” Eddy said. “I have been finding that talking about things that survived the fire can really help bring stories out for the survivors. The stories can be about the items, or people can just bring things that were transformed in a way that just looks really interesting. There are no rules. Photos are welcome too."
Items for the show can be dropped off at the Lincoln City Cultural Center; or email Eddy at k.eddyalexander@gmail.com to make arrangements. Stories can also be pre-typed and dropped off or emailed in.
“We can store objects or we can collect them before the show,” she said.
“But we will definitely be returning everything back to people if they want them back.”
While the show is being curated, we will also be running stories in these pages. Please email gammerman@oregoncoasttoday.com if you are a survivor of the Echo Mountain fire, and have a story around an object, or a story about rising from the ashes, that you would like to share.
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Another way Eddy has been giving community members a way to heal is with a huge thank you card.
“We wanted to say thank you to all the people that completely put themselves on the line to save other people,” she said. “There were so many we couldn’t even list them, so we just wrote ‘Thank You First Responders.’”
The 51 students of the St. James Santiago school helped paint the banner, then Eddy sewed loops on the bottom to let the broader community get involved by tying on ribbons.
“It’s supposed to be for the whole community,” she said. “The only thing you have to do to participate is put up a ribbon; you can bring your own or take one from the box that I have near it outside. Each ribbon is a person saying ‘thank you.’ My big hope is that not only will our local first responders see it and know how grateful we are, but that people will take photos and share them with the [first responders] who are gone already, and there were many of them."
The banner will be on display through Halloween.
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The fires that ripped through the county gave Eddy a new focus, but she also continues to work on a project she started during lockdown to help families stuck at home with restless children.
Working with a team of volunteers, Eddy has filled the former Yoga studio with pre-made kits that parents, grandparents and even family friends can pick up for kids. Kids can also certainly come along and choose their own projects.
“We keep looking for creative and safe ways to help kids make art,” Eddy said. “The art kit room is continually stocked and there are always new ones. They are meant to make it easy for people to pick up, and to complete the project they select.”
The Lincoln City Cultural Center is located at 540 NE Hwy. 101 and open from 10 am to 4 pm, Thursday through Sunday.