Santa Rosa artist survived the fires, now donates paintings to those who lost it all

Joy Solheim makes no claim of greatness as a watercolor artist. But spend even a few minutes with the 88-year-old Santa Rosan and her paintings and you’ll see her artwork is quite lovely and that making it gives her joy.

Solheim gave away a good many of her watercolors Sunday to people who six months ago lost whatever paintings they might have owned, along with the walls on which they hung.

“They’re actually not very magnificent,” the long-ago Piner-Olivet teacher’s aide said of her paintings. But if fire survivors are pleased by them, Solheim added, “that’s all I care about.”

On Sunday afternoon, she and her daughter-in-law, Brenda Solheim, carried 22 of her original watercolors, most but not all of them featuring flowers, into Best Western Plus Wine Country Inn & Suites on Hopper Avenue, an area menaced by the Tubbs fire.

The women welcomed into a conference room donated by the hotel all the fire survivors who’d expressed an interest in receiving one of Joy Solheim’s watercolors. The painter and her daughter-in-law gave away the framed paintings to restore a touch of art to people whose homes were turned to ash, and to celebrate that they were able to offer the gifts because their own homes and the artwork inside didn’t burn.

The Tubbs fire came close. Both of the Solheims live in Wikiup, the development off Old Redwood Highway north of Santa Rosa hit hard by the firestorm.

Joy Solheim, widowed since the 2009 death of her husband of nearly 61 years, Howard, occupies a Wikiup duplex down the hill from the home of her daughter-in-law and son, Dale. They all three fled in the wee hours of Oct. 9.

Solheim was sound asleep when her neighbor in the other duplex unit, Jay Burns, squeezed through a sliding door she’d left narrowly ajar for her new dog.

She recalled, “He tapped me on the shoulder and he said, ‘Joy! Joy! Joy! We’ve got to get out of here!’”

Farther up Wikiup Drive, her son Dale, a retired civil engineer, jumped from bed upon smelling smoke and rallied his wife. Phone calls confirmed that Dale’s mother and his and Brenda’s two daughters in Santa Rosa all were OK.

Flames had approached the homes of nearly everyone in the family - “We survived by one house,” Brenda Solheim said. She’s grateful and astonished no one in her family lost a home.

Jump forward to early March. Solheim noticed on the Santa Rosa Firestorm Update Facebook page that someone offered to donate a painting to someone whose home was lost.

She looked about her and Dale’s narrowly missed home and at all of the paintings her mother-in-law has given them over the years.

“I started thinking of all the people who are looking at bare walls.” It occurred to her that she and her mother-in-law, too, could offer up a piece of art, or two.

Solheim drove down the hill to speak to Joy, who at once embraced the idea to offer a painting, perhaps even more than one, as a gift to someone who lost their home. She picked a piece, one bearing a cluster of calla lilies and single daffodil.

Her daughter-in-law snapped a photo of it and posted it on the Santa Rosa Firestorm Update Facebook page.

In a note alongside the picture, she wrote, “My sweet, talented Mom-in-law would love to donate this painting to anyone who is in need of some wall art. This is an example of her talent in watercolor. She may have more to donate. Her name is Joy and she hopes her painting(s) will bring you joy.”

The Solheims had no idea if anyone would be interested. But the Facebook page lit up.

“The response was just crazy,” Brenda Solheim said. The posting that offered the painting “really struck a nerve,” she said, drawing more than 500 “likes” and 160 comments, some of them expressing an interest in receiving the painting.

The Solheims offered more of Joy’s paintings. Fire survivors responded on Facebook with stories that illustrated why they would treasure one of the flower watercolors.

One shared a photograph of the daffodils that bloomed alongside the ruins of her home. Another told of losing the photos of the irises at her wedding, and of naming her daughter Iris. Still another wrote that she’d treasured the paintings by her late mother that all were reduced to ash.

A rare, nonfloral painting by Joy Solheim that depicts a conventional, old red barn - “Every painter eventually has to paint a barn,” she said - prompted a woman to share on Facebook that she will not rebuild her home and will leave California, but would love to have the barn watercolor as a reminder of the lost Fountaingrove Round Barn.

In recent weeks, Solheim created new watercolors for fire survivors who told of sentimental attachments to particular flowers: yellow roses, or poppies or lilies. She framed them all.

She and her daughter-in-law also selected the paintings from their homes that they’d give away, then they discussed the best way to get them to the fire survivors. How appropriate, they agreed, to meet the recipients at the Best Western hotel that survived the disaster that struck Santa Rosa’s Hopper Avenue and Coffey Park.

Hotel manager Todd Anderson, who has his own harrowing tales from October, insisted on giving them a conference room for free.

It’s hard to say who was happier Sunday, those who presented the paintings or those who accepted them.

“It’s a small, little thing, but it means so much,” said Christa Gatti, who picked up a watercolor of daffodils and carnations.

A Kaiser Permanente nurse who lost her home in Coffey Park, Gatti shared with the Solheims that she loves watercolors and probably had 20 in her home, but escaped with just her two dogs.

She takes issue with Joy Solheim’s humility about the quality of her artwork. “She’s very good,” Gatti said.

It was Cindy Williamson who shared a photo on Facebook of the daffodils that bloomed alongside the remains of her Coffey Park house.

“Everybody knew my house,” she said. It was daffodil yellow and full of pictures of daffodils. Solheim painted a watercolor of daffodils just for her.

The artist beamed gently all through Sunday’s reception and art giveaway.

“I’m really pleased,” she said. “And really amazed that they like them.”

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.