About Us
THE FULL STORY
as told by Brian Knappmiller
I did not lose my house in the fires of January 7th and 8th—my friend did.
I did not lose my belongings—my friend did.
I lost nothing. My friend lost everything: his home, his car, and nearly all he owned.
And yet, through his loss, I gained something I didn’t expect—something that has stayed with me ever since.
On the morning of January 7th, the Pacific Palisades fire ignited. Hours later, that same night, the Eaton Fire began in Altadena. When I heard the news, I immediately thought of one of my closest friends and longtime creative collaborators who lives there. He was out of town, safe in Santa Cruz, and his home had been evacuated. We spoke calmly, logically—about fire lines, distance, probability. By all reasonable measures, his house should have survived.
The next morning at 9:50 a.m., I received a text:
House burnt down.
It felt unfathomable.
Weeks later, once access was permitted, I joined him at what remained of his home. We arrived separately, navigating National Guard blockades. What stood before us was no longer a house—just ash, rubble, and debris. The faint outlines of rooms were barely visible, like a memory struggling to hold its shape.
We put on hazmat suits and respirators and stepped into the ruins. Every step felt soft, like walking on pillows—except the ground beneath us was the residue of twenty years of a life.
We sifted through the ash. Nothing remained.
One of his favorite spaces had been his music room, where over 4000 vintage blues and jazz records—some dating back to the 1940s—once lived. Standing there, we noticed a shape in the ash that looked unmistakably like a stack of vinyl records, frozen in place. I bent down, instinctively expecting resistance—something solid. But the moment I touched it, the entire form collapsed, instantly dissolving into dust and vanishing as if it had never existed.
My friend said nothing. He simply continued surveying the property.
Struck by how calm he seemed, I finally asked how he could be so at peace amid such total destruction. He answered without hesitation:
“People make the mistake of thinking the house was the gift. That the things were the gift. They’re not. My house wasn’t. My records weren’t. The gift was getting to enjoy them—the memories they created. That’s the real gift.”
It wasn’t the answer I expected. But it was the one I think many people needed.
Months later, we would revisit that conversation and talk about what it revealed: the illusion of permanence. We grow up believing in the idea of a “permanent residence,” yet one ember and a shift of wind can erase that illusion entirely. Nothing physical lasts. The closest thing we have to permanence is experience—what becomes memory. In the natural world, there is no forever.
That day, after we finished searching and found nothing of value—his “fireproof” safe reduced to ash—he made a series of balloon flowers and placed them around the lot. Small, vibrant gestures against a monochrome landscape.
I began photographing.
Those images became The Gift.
Each framed print is a true one-of-one, with unique elements applied to both the frame and the print itself—deliberate choices meant to underscore impermanence and the value of experience and connection. One hundred percent of the proceeds from each print is donated to charities that provide musical instruments and art supplies to those who lost them in the fires.
