Works at Risk : Collectors lost some prized pieces in the quake. Many took steps to prevent damage. And few say the disaster will make them abandon their hobbies.

First they heard the roar from the earth below, then the sound of glass breaking--not just ordinary windows or even treasured family heirlooms, but art, contemporary glass sculptures that had been lovingly acquired over time to become part of significant art collections.

When the shaking stopped, art collectors in the San Fernando Valley waited anxiously for the sun to rise so they could see what was left of their collections.

After the Jan. 17 quake, one may question why anyone living in earthquake territory would want to be surrounded by delicate art objects. But once a collector, always a collector.

“Half the fun is in the hunt, the chase,” says Dan Greenberg, who collects glass and other art objects with his wife, Susan Steinhauser. “We knew the price we’d pay for collecting this kind of material, that we’d have to suffer. The nature of glass puts it at risk, but the joy of living with the material--you don’t realize how much you enjoy it until it’s not there.”

Most collectors have faced the fact that they live with the risk of damage to their collections from natural and man-made events. They take reasonable precautions to prevent damage, but like most of us living in California who continually hear that the Big One is coming, art collectors just don’t dwell on such impending doom. After all, how can you live if you’re always standing by for a disaster?

Greenberg and Steinhauser’s sizable collection is housed in their Westside home and his Van Nuys office. In the weeks since the quake, they and many Valley collectors have been taking stock of what they lost--or what was spared. They have spent time mulling over which of their efforts to protect their art succeeded and which did not.

“It’s remarkable how random the destruction was,” Greenberg says. “Places where I thought we would lose everything, nothing broke.”

As these collectors share their experiences and thoughts for the future, it becomes obvious that the philosophy behind art collecting has as many variations as there are artistic media. What might seem prudent to one collector after the quake--to secure every piece of art to a solid, ideally immovable object--is overkill to others. They’d rather live with the peril of losing artwork than not being able to pick it up and hold it.

“I don’t like having anything permanent. I move art around all the time,” says Carl Schlosberg, a private art dealer in Sherman Oaks who lost several sculptures and a 17th-Century glass collection in the quake. He is restoring his home, where every room needs some work, and outdoor sculpture garden, where he lost a few pieces--and giving some attention to collecting art pieces that will endure earthquakes. “You have to use common sense when placing things,” he says, but beyond that, he intends to continue to move his sculpture around.

Greenberg and Steinhauser had plexiglass guards installed in front of some shelves before the quake, which prevented many glass pieces from falling and breaking. But art objects on other shelves were not protected by a barrier, and most of them survived. Many were secured to the shelves with a sticky, soft wax sold as Quake Wax. “The pieces we lost weren’t well balanced,” Greenberg says.

He is considering putting two strands of fishing line across unprotected shelves. Fishing line would offer some flexibility while possibly preventing objects from falling, and it would be less intrusive to the eye than plexiglass.

Gloria and Sonny Kamm have hundreds of glass and ceramic sculptures, and Sonny’s multimedia teapot collection, which also numbers in the hundreds, in their Sherman Oaks home. They have been diligent about protecting their collections.

Of other earthquakes they have been through, Gloria Kamm says, “We’ve had 5s and 5.2s, and we’ve never had anything fall over or move around,” Gloria says.

“We always knew psychologically we would have a problem with the Big One, and this came as close to the Big One as I care to have it,” Sonny Kamm says.

Unscathed by the quake was the abstract major glass installation work in their stairwell. It was built into the wall by artist John Gilbert Luebtow. Because they had affixed smaller objects to pedestals and shelves with wax, most did not become airborne.

Their cabinets were bolted to the wall. But some of the glass shelves within, held in place with just a couple of pins, collapsed, creating a cascading effect that damaged several works.

“We had shards over the entire bedroom,” Gloria Kamm says. “When something is lost, you always think you should have done better.”

“We’re going to silicon the shelves to the brackets and the back of the cabinets,” Sonny Kamm says.

He is also looking into how to hang paintings more securely. In some instances, a painting fell off the wall, damaging it and nearby glass or ceramic objects. “I don’t think I realized that part of the reason paintings fall is the wires snap because of the tension,” he says. “As an old fisherman, I think there should be a redundancy of wires, and they should be coated with something so if they do snap, there’s still something left there.”

Regarding securing objects, Sonny Kamm has some caveats about using wax. “I think the waxing helps, but it’s better for squatter pieces that aren’t heavy. Once they get to be a certain weight, I think somebody is really kidding themselves thinking waxing will do,” he says. “On a heavy piece, you really have to create a base. You have to use something like silicon. The problem with silicon is that if you silicon a delicate ceramic, you may not be able to get the base off of it. You can damage the piece just by trying to take it off.

“There are no pat answers, and being near the epicenter, all bets are off,” Sonny Kamm says.

But being close to the epicenter doesn’t mean everything that isn’t secured will break, either. Nothing broke in a closet full of teapots that were free to move around at the Kamm house.

In Granada Hills, at the home of Bonnie Campbell and William Freeman, CSUN professors and Depression-era glass collectors, four good-sized glass pieces were launched into the air. The items--”grand Art Deco stuff from the early ‘20s,” Campbell says--are probably intact because they were on a dresser that is low to the ground.

During the quake, “the top drawer flew out, apparently on the upward movement of the dresser,” she recalls. “The glass pieces slid into the drawer and traveled across the room with the drawer. There on the other side of the room was the drawer with my underwear and the glass on top, unharmed.”

Adhesives purchased in a drugstore held down all but one of the tall, slender glass pieces of an artwork by Harvey Littleton at the Woodland Hills home of Jim and Paula McDonald. Yet, several large glass pieces by Dale Chihuly weren’t tacked down, and they remained pretty much in place.

“Now that I’ve seen what they’ve gone through, I’m thinking that they’re better left alone,” Paula McDonald says. “You think some of these are sitting flat, but they really aren’t. And to get the stuff in exactly the right place is tricky. When I tried to do it, I felt like I was gonna break the piece myself in my clumsy attempts to get the contact in exactly the right place.”

Collectors are also coping with their emotional responses to their losses.

“We gave serious thought, at least for a couple days, to chucking the whole thing and collecting something else. We decided not to,” says Sonny Kamm.

“You go through many of the same things as when somebody dies,” adds Gloria Kamm. “It’s not quite as poignant, but you have had a loss of something that is meaningful in your life.”

“I think five minutes after the quake, I said to Gloria: ‘The typical thing that’s going to happen is there’s going to be a lot of temptation of recriminations, like, why didn’t you do better about keeping up the insurance? Why didn’t I wax down things better? Why didn’t we stick a pole up that piece so it wouldn’t topple?’ I said, ‘Why don’t we make a pact--we’re not even going to talk about any of that.’ It helped just to enunciate that really early on.”

The Kamms also resisted the temptation to immediately throw broken pieces away. “I think that’s a bad mistake,” Sonny Kamm says. “We waited, and a couple of days later started trying to be a little more methodical. I’m glad we did.

“There’s a little bit of an embarrassment factor--people think, oh, what a schmuck I am because we have all these delicate things and we know we live in earthquake territory. That’s why they want to get rid of the stuff, so like nothing happened.

“Some of the pieces can be saved, even some that are pretty badly broken. We had a piece restored once, and I was amazed at what was done. And maybe the shards can be used in some respect, to make a survival piece or an altar to the earthquake. Maybe your grandmother had 12 cups. You can restore one and keep it as a memento.”

“I know people who are putting their things away in boxes, but that’s not like us,” says Beverly Gladstone about herself and her husband, Bruce. They collect glass and various other art objects. “We like them out where they can be seen and admired. Since I work at home, it pleases me to be surrounded by beautiful art objects. We’ve been here 32 years, through many earthquakes and none of this glass has broken. So we know that this house will sustain shakes and earthquake waves unless it’s very violent, and that’s a more rare occurrence.

“We display them with full knowledge that if a catastrophe happens, they’re history. But you don’t expect a catastrophe to happen. You can’t dwell on these things because everything is ephemeral--everything goes including yourself. So I’m just gonna put my art pieces back on with some Quake Wax and go on with my life.”

WHERE TO GO

What: “Emergency Care for Your Family Possessions,” a pamphlet by Scott M. Haskins, a fine arts conservator. A Collector’s Catalog contains products designed to preserve art collections, which includes Quake Wax.

To order: Send a check or money order to Conservation Materials Ltd., 1275 Kleppe Lane, No. 10, Sparks, NV 89431.

Price: $1 for pamphlet, $3 for catalogue.

Call: (702) 331-0582.