The Burned Babies are ceramic works recovered from the ruins of my Altadena home and studio after the Eaton Fire in January 2025. The name comes from the potter George Ohr, whose Biloxi pottery burned to the ground in 1894. Ohr called the pots he pulled from the ruins his “burned babies.”

As I made my way back to Altadena to see if my house was still standing, I thought of Ohr. I knew that even if the house was gone, there would be pots waiting for me in the rubble—my own burned babies.

Warped, cracked, melted, and refired by the fire, these objects survived when so much else did not. They are both pots and records, carrying the material history of a home, a studio, and a life transformed by fire.