Quake Victim Turns <i> Angst </i> to Art : Thousand Oaks: Michele Relkin uses shards from the wreckage of her home to create collages.

Dazed and grieving, Michele Weston Relkin stood in her wrecked Thousand Oaks house, gazed at the glittery carpet of glass and thought of art.

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The stunning January earthquake had just knocked her once-solid home off-kilter, tilting the walls, cracking the foundation and blowing out every ground-floor window.

But even in her despair, Relkin found inspiration.

A professional artist, she had spent the past two years gluing shards of glass over her painted canvases to craft sparkling collages. The violent tremor provided a heap of new material--and enough Angst to fuel a creative explosion.

Indeed, in the months following the disaster, Relkin incorporated chips from her shattered cups, plates and windows into the glass-flecked collages. The resulting “earthquake art” will be on display--and on the auction block--during a fund-raiser fellow artists are holding for her Thursday.

“When I first started the series, I didn’t know where to get all that glass,” Relkin said. “Little did I know, two years later I’d be walking through it in my own house. It certainly made me think about how fragile life is.”

Five months after the earthquake, Relkin, her husband and her 10-year-old son are still struggling to rebuild their lives, upended during a frantic half-minute on Jan. 17.

Their most immediate hope is a cash grant from Thousand Oaks, which could cover a substantial chunk of their estimated $75,000 to $100,000 home-repair bill.

The grant program, organized just last month, offers needy residents a shot at the $501,000 recovery fund the federal government handed Thousand Oaks after the Northridge quake.

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So far, 200 homeowners have requested grants, and on Tuesday the City Council will consider extending the application deadline to July 18. Meanwhile, building inspectors will visit each applicant during the next few weeks to assess damages. Before doling out any money, however, Thousand Oaks officials must verify that recipients have exhausted every other possible source of funding.

“It’s going to take some time,” warned management assistant Dan Severn, who is coordinating the grant applications.

Based on a cursory look at the applications, Severn said he feels confident the city will have enough money to meet most requests.

But because council members have voted to limit the grants to a maximum of $30,000 per home, Relkin and her family are looking to other sources for help as well.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been paying for the Relkins’ temporary housing, a two-bedroom apartment in Thousand Oaks. FEMA can offer housing vouchers for up to 18 months but cannot cover home repairs when the tab tops $10,000, spokesman Marty Zucker said.

Turned down for a Small Business Administration loan, Relkin lodged a request for funds with the state’s Individual Family Grant Program. She’s still awaiting word on that application--anxiously.

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Until she gets some money from somewhere, Relkin cannot even hire a contractor to plot repair strategies.

“It’s like I’m in checkmate,” she said. “The house just sits there and there’s nothing I can do. People in Thousand Oaks think everything’s back to normal, but for a handful of us, it’s not. Thank God for my art. Without it, I’d be a dead fish.”

Relkin will display her earthquake glass collages, priced at $125 to $400, during Thursday’s fund-raiser auction.

Artists she’s never even met have contributed pieces to the auction, ranging from cheery ceramics to abstract paintings. Friends have organized the event, mailing 2,000 invitations and securing donated refreshments from Anzio’s Ristorante.

“Artists are by nature really generous, and when you hear about something this terrible, you want to help,” Thousand Oaks painter Charlotte Miller said.

“You can contribute something beautiful that you’ve created,” Miller said, “and you know it will give someone else comfort.”

FYI

The silent auction to raise money for Michele Weston Relkin’s home-repair fund is scheduled for Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Gallery 9, located in the Hamburger Hamlet Plaza at 29020 Agoura Road in Agoura Hills. The auction will feature work from more than a dozen local artists. For information, call Gallery 9 at (818) 597-9629.