Art Lovers Mourn Irreplaceable Loss of Treasured Works : Laguna Beach: Hundreds, if not thousands, of paintings, sculptures and other pieces--many made by recognizable names--perished in last week’s firestorm.

Artist and collector Jim Blacketer took inventory:

His $24,000, 19th-Century Italian painting?

Gone.

The three glass windows, made in Scotland, circa 1800s, depicting scenes of poet Robert Burns’ work?

Melted.

His own latest work, a Pacific Ocean seascape painting, just hours from completion?

Turned to ashes.

In a town where art not only imitates life, but is a hobby to most and a way of life for many, last week’s firestorm proved particularly costly.

How costly no one knows just yet. But it’s clear that, along with the 366 homes that burned, hundreds, if not thousands, of paintings, sculptures and other pieces of artwork--many made by recognizable names--perished.

For years, artists and art lovers have been drawn to this bucolic coastal burg tucked between the once-beautiful Mystic Hills and the Pacific. Art plays as big a role in the Bohemian community as cappuccino at sunrise, beach volleyball at noon and tangerine-sky sunsets at dusk.

“I know for a fact a lot of things were lost,” said Rebecca Ardell, an independent art appraiser. “Art is a big part of the community.”

The problem is, when art is gone, it’s gone for good.

Furniture, bicycles, houses--those can all be replaced, repaired or rebuilt. But with sketches and the like, it’s a different story. You could hardly ask American artist Frederick Waugh to paint you another marine scape.

“If they’ve got it covered, they’ll get the money to replace it,” said Allstate insurance agent Pat Freeman. “But money’s not the issue for a lot of these people. It’s the art they want.”

Nowhere is this sentiment more keenly felt than on Canyon Acres Drive, a secluded, tree-studded lane where nearly everybody knows everybody else’s name, and many of those names appear in Southern California art galleries.

Off Laguna Canyon Road, at the easternmost gate to the city, the homes on Canyon Acres were some of the first to go as Wednesday’s firestorm marched west.

Mark Blumenfeld, 50, a well-known ceramics artist, lives--or lived--at 406 Canyon Acres Drive.

Every December he invites 3,000 people to his home-studio for a private showing. But there won’t be one this year. He lost four months’ worth of work in the fire--some $30,000.

“It’s all gone,” he said as he surveyed the rubble with an insurance adjuster.

Ironically, Blumenfeld’s hand-sculpted pots, baskets, cups, plates and dishes withstand temperatures of up to 2,400 degrees. But Wednesday’s blaze cracked them like day-old biscuits.

“A lot of the steel in my house just melted into puddles,” he said. “That tells you how hot it got.”

Like many who lost their homes, Blumenfeld never thought the fire would reach his home and studio. In fact, he was working right up until he had to flee.

When he, his wife, Beverly, and their 14-year-old son fled, they had time to snatch only some clothing.

“The last thing I did was, I ran up to the studio to put a big sprinkler on--to keep the pots cool so they wouldn’t crack,” he said.

Just up the hill, artist Pat Klotz, 57, whose most recent commission was a wall mural at the Digital Ear stereo store in Tustin, sifted through what was left of her two-story studio--that being a single turquoise stone given to her by a friend.

Everything else--sketches she had done as a teen-ager, a “fly eye” window from Buckminster Fuller’s famous dome, a recently completed $10,000 oil-pastel painting of some roses that had hung in a San Diego gallery--gone.

“The only thing I have left is my portfolio,” she said. “This one’s gone, too,” she said, paging through her portfolio and pointing to a snapshot of a multicolored, trapezoid-shaped painting.

Klotz said she wasn’t at her home when the fire hit and she’s glad: “I didn’t want to think about what to keep because I wanted everything.”

Among the people who collected and admired Klotz’s work was Blacketer, who lived at 266 Canyon Acres.

Blacketer, 62, is a well-known seascape painter who has appeared in “Who’s Who in American Art?” since 1958.

There’s no way to tell by looking at his home now, but it once contained the kind of things you would expect in the home of a man who--at 16--had work on display at Carnegie Hall: a $15,000 genuine Tiffany window; 1,600 antique, turquoise ceramic tiles that once belonged to a hotel in Paris; a pair of Gothic paintings, one valued at $24,000; three 19th-Century windows inscribed with scenes from Robert Burns’ poetry, not to mention a painting he was putting the finishing touches on.

“It was on the easel,” Blacketer said. “I only needed about one more night.”

The windows with the Robert Burns-themed inscriptions, he said, “are probably priceless right now.”

Soft-spoken, Blacketer is philosophical about the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars of antiques and artwork he had collected over the past three decades.

“None of it is replaceable. But I’m one of these people who, when something’s gone, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

In an odd way, he said, it’s kind of exciting to have to start over, to build your house from scratch. And as he spoke, a neighbor wandered by and said as much: “It’s a new canvas for you to work with, Jim.”

“That’s a good way to put it,” Blacketer said. “A new canvas.”