Fundraising efforts strong to repair fire-damaged ArtHouse in Homewood
As the fire was burning on Valentine’s Day, Vanessa German walked toward the house. Firefighters stopped her.
“They said, ‘You can’t go in there,’ ” said German this week, standing outside the house — the ArtHouse on Hamilton Avenue in Homewood.
This was the place she founded. The place for kids to come and create without stress and tension.
“I wanted to save the art,” German said. “They went in and moved the art to one side. They covered it with special tarps. They protected it.”
When she was alerted to a fire, after making sure the artist in residence was safe, German thought about the art pieces inside.
Most of the works were preserved. But the house suffered extensive interior damage.
A burning candle in a bathroom in the resident artist’s apartment caught a shower curtain on fire. The flames moved to a closet containing towels and cleaning products, some that exploded, and woke up the resident artist, before a fire alarm sounded, German said.
“No one got hurt but it has to be traumatic to wake up in a fire,” German said.
She doesn’t have a total damage estimate but knows she will need to replace a good portion of the metal roof. She said most of the destruction isn’t visible from the outside. Some windows in the rear portion of the house are boarded up.
German plans to rebuild. She said she has run into insurance issues because the market value is said to be lower than the rebuild cost.
A GoFundMe account set up to help the ArtHouse has raised more than $118,000.
On the GoFundMe page, German wrote, “The ArtHouse began as Love Front Porch more than 10 years ago on the front stoop of my house in Homewood. I would make art outside on an old ironing board that I’d rescued from the trash to repurpose as an outdoor art table. The children who lived in the row houses next to me would often sit and join me, playing with clay, learning to take pictures on an old Pentax K100 film camera.”
German said she is touched by seeing that amount of donations from people. Some messages in support came from as far away as London.
“We will be OK,” said German.
A nationally recognized artist whose sculptures and assemblages are in museums and collections around the world, German grew up in Los Angeles and moved to Pittsburgh in 2000. She founded Love Front Porch and the ArtHouse, community-based art initiatives, after she ran out of room in her basement and moved her art-making to her porch.
“The kids would stop by after school,” she said. “Sometimes they would go home and come back with an adult who would also make art. So many of the adults would tell me how they forgot how much fun making art was.”
The ArtHouse has a garden, an outdoor play space, an indoor art studio, a reading room and a small backyard theater.
“We are going to rebuild the ArtHouse bigger and better,” she wrote. “The ArtHouse will continue to be a community space and a residency space for two artists. There will be a healing garden, a new ceramics studio and printmaking facilities.”
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop is a TribLive reporter covering the region's diverse culinary scene and unique homes. She writes features about interesting people. The Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist began her career as a sports reporter. She has been with the Trib for 26 years and is the author of "A Daughter's Promise." She can be reached at jharrop@triblive.com.
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