In the summer of 2024, just before her freshman year at Loomis Chaffee, sophomore Amber Zheng’s family moved into a house in Glendora, Calif. The family had considered nearby Altadena. 

A few months later, in January 2025, the Easton Canyon Fire ripped through Altadena, taking 19 lives and destroying 9,000 structures, leaving neighborhoods unrecognizable. Another blaze, the Palisades Fire, killed a dozen people and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures in Pacific Palisdaes, Topanga, and Malibu. 

“I was shocked, felt helpless,” Amber said. She was miles and miles away, living on campus her freshman year. 

Amber and others from CM Cubed Art in Walnut, Calif., a studio to which she has belonged since she was in elementary school, responded by making art. The resulting exhibit — a collection of tiles depicting chimneys in blue porcelain paint — is part of student work now being shown in the Richmond Art Center. Chimney after chimney, 30 in all, each standing among remnants of a home.  

Amber titled the installation “East Meets West,” based on the fires being in California and the artwork miles away on the East Coast. Twenty-five of the tiles were painted by students from the art studio in California and first exhibited in the Los Angeles Art Show earlier this year. Five were painted by Amber, who worked on hers when she was home in March for spring break. The project is part of Amber’s work as an intern in the Norton Family Center for the Common Good.   

Amber saw the devastation first-hand with her family when she was home for spring break in her freshman year. “As you drove by and walked by,” she said, “only the chimneys were left. Chimneys represent comfort, the hearth, the home, family, but they also can represent what can happen in our world if we don’t take charge. A lot of time with environmental issues, they become mainstream, everyone is talking about them, but as time goes on, we forget. It is important to keep awareness.” 

One thing Amber will not forget after seeing destroyed neighborhoods: the smell of smoke and ashes.