Artist James Hubbell finds purpose forged in October's inferno

On a flight from New York to San Diego last Oct. 26, artist and designer James Hubbell drew final plans for a new building to safely archive his sculptures, paintings, architectural drawings and other artwork at his Santa Isabel home and studio.

As the plane approached East County, the passengers were alarmed to see ominously thick smoke, then walls of flame.

It was the first day of the worst wildfires in California history. Within days, Hubbell's detailed plans for an archive would become an ironic footnote to tragedy.

Hubbell and his wife, Anne, returned home that day to their unique mountaintop retreat – a complex of hand-built cottages and studios for living and making art visited by thousands of San Diegans and international guests – only to be evacuated two days later.

The Cedar fire roared through their home the next day, devastating half of the buildings and damaging the rest, devouring irreplaceable childhood drawings made by the Hubbells' sons as well as family antiques and Anne's treasured piano and harp.

Fire roared through the living room, once filled with music, art and books. The Hubbells plan to reconstruct this and other severely burned buildings they crafted by hand over 40 years

The fierce fire blew out stained-glass windows and melted art glass into heavy lumps, consumed paintings and drawings, charred terra-cotta and bronze sculptures and destroyed tools and art equipment collected over decades.

It turned the Hubbells' renowned haven into an eerie ruin, reminiscent of an ancient, abandoned village, but not without romance and character. Among the most ravaged cottages, architectural remnants – adobe, stone and brick walls and fireplaces, pueblo-style steps to a rooftop, glinting mosaics and wrought-iron ornament – were still standing in a manzanita grove, though the trees were reduced to black skeletons.

"It's strangely beautiful," Kyle Bergman said after surveying the damage in in November. An architect who had worked with Hubbell and his architect son, Drew, for many years, Bergman returned to San Diego from New York to help organize the Hubbells' recovery and rebuilding efforts.

Despite tragic losses of human life and property throughout Southern California, Hubbell has accepted the wildfires. Fire is part of nature, he says. And nature – with its eternal cycles of birth and death, growth and decline – is his enduring muse.

"When so much of our life vanishes, it makes space for a new part of ourselves to emerge. I think at least for now we are both curious as to where it will lead," he wrote in a newsletter to friends soon after the inferno.

The loss of their home, which Anne Hubbell compared to the pain of losing a loved one, also reinforced for them what matters most. She says they are fortunate that the fire spared some of their buildings, including the fanciful cottage designed for their sons. James and Anne added a microwave oven and dining table and moved in, happy to be home again.

A visitor to the Hubbell home on a wet, foggy day last December found James Hubbell alone with his dog and cat, painting watercolors as he listened to Mozart in one of his studio buildings. Fortunately, this cozy building, with a fireplace and makeshift kitchen, sustained little damage. By this time, electricity and running water had been restored to the property.

Known for his joyful use of color in mosaics, jewelry, stained glass and paintings, Hubbell's watercolors of the landscape around him now included a lot of black. "Black is a beautiful color," he raved, seemingly thrilled that circumstances required its use like never before.

Sense of renewal

Many San Diegans recently marked the six-month anniversary of the October wildfires, but not James Hubbell. He prefers to flow with the river of life.

He's also busy rebuilding the large studio and planning further restoration and reconstruction, creating a special new garden that leads to a memorial arch and meditation spot in honor of Steven Rucker, the firefighter who died nearby while battling the Cedar fire, and carving out a few hours to paint more watercolors.

Now, sprigs of yellow, blue and white wildflowers and clumps of hardy purple iris have arrived to brighten the Hubbell property. Green tufts – young leaf clusters – are sprouting from the boughs of otherwise bare oak trees. Sapling fruit trees, newly planted, hold promise for future seasons.

Bergman and others involved in the Ilan-Lael Foundation, a nonprofit group Hubbell founded decades ago, are helping the Hubbells maintain their home and studios with benefit events, fund raising and workdays for volunteers.

A year or so before the fire, longtime family friend, architect and historic-preservation expert Wayne Donaldson suggested the Hubbells and their children begin planning future stewardship of their home. In books, films and the art and design world, the compound is recognized as a unique architectural treasure and peaceful retreat devoted to the art and craft of building.

They came up with a plan to transfer ownership and operation of the home and studios to the Ilan-Lael Foundation after James and Anne leave. The place would become a center for art and beauty open to visitors for tours and small conferences. A handful of master artists and several apprentices would continue to use the studios.

Donaldson, who recently became California's state historic preservation officer, also began preparing the complex documentation necessary to nominate the home as a San Diego County historic landmark.

The merciless fire didn't incinerate these plans to preserve the Hubbell home as a working cultural resource; it only accelerated them.

A tour revived

The Hubbells' annual open house, traditionally held in June as a popular benefit for Ilan-Lael, is another fire casualty. But, like the phoenix (a favorite Hubbell symbol in art and mosaics), the tour is being resurrected in a delightfully different form.

Instead, six private homes Hubbell designed in San Diego County will be open to visitors June 19. Maps to the homes will also include public artworks by Hubbell, including Pacific Rim Park on Shelter Island in San Diego.

More than 1,000 people around the country have contributed about $180,000, labor and building materials to help the Hubbells restore their treasure-trove of art and architecture. Each new beam in the main studio has a large hole in it – a telltale sign that their donor originally intended to use them for a dock in Mission Bay.

About 300 people recently attended a benefit screening of architecture films and heard Hubbell speak at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Some in the crowd struggled with tears when watching KPBS-TV videos of the Hubbell home and studios before and after the fire.

In addition, Hubbell is making plans for a new Pacific Rim Park in Tijuana, to be designed and built with his guidance by international students in July. It will be the fourth park Hubbell has created as "a string of pearls around the Pacific." In addition to the one on Shelter Island, parks have been built in San Diego sister cities in Russia and China.

In clearing the land, the Cedar fire revealed vistas, boulders and natural contours previously hidden by chaparral and trees. Hubbell is fascinated – and newly in love with his mountain. "It is like living with someone for 40 years (and she) finally took her clothes off," he wrote in an illustrated book he hopes to publish on the Cedar fire called "Fire, Space and Wonder."

Now, Hubbell is able to see the headwaters of the San Diego River, which leads to the Pacific and, ultimately, the diverse Pacific Rim countries he seeks to unify through art and cultural understanding.

"All these ashes in the air settled into the headwaters and flowed down the river and out into the Pacific," Donaldson said, noting the parallel to Hubbell's current art-making priorities through the Pacific Rim Park Foundation.

"He's not so much involved locally now but has moved onto a larger, international platform. Maybe this sounds a little bit mystic, but (Hubbell's artistic connection to the Pacific) is certainly real."
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Ann Jarmusch: (619) 293-1019; ann.jarmusch@uniontrib.com