Mendocino artist Larry Fuente’s work space, home destroyed in blaze

A Mendocino-area artist whose unique ornamental work has earned him national recognition lost nearly everything in a fire that also badly injured a friend asleep at his combined home and work space Friday night.

Larry Fuente was unhurt in the 6 p.m. blaze along Comptche-Ukiah Road, but a friend pulled from the fire suffered serious injuries and was flown to the burn unit at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where he was said to be in stable condition, fire officials said.

The friend had been asleep in a recreational vehicle parked adjacent to the large metal warehouse when it caught fire and spread to the structure, another friend, Nicholas Wilson, said.

A neighbor pulled him out “and saved his life,” Mendocino Fire Capt. Tyler Grinberg said.

“If that person hadn’t been there to pull him out of the structure, we’d be having a very different conversation,” he said.

Fuente was inside the building and unharmed but lost some five decades of work as flames spread into his workshop jammed with boxes of plastic parts, random objects, resin and other substances used to create projects reflecting what the Smithsonian American Art Museum once described as “an obsessive interest in surface ornamentation.”

His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art and on the cover of National Geographic, as well. Word of the blaze spread widely among friends and residents in the area.

Grinberg said volunteer firefighters from Mendocino, Comptche, Albion, Elk and Little River fire agencies worked to try to save the structure and contents before the color of the flames informed them that the variety of materials burning was doubtless hazardous amid the superheated gas of the metal structure, and they had to switch to preventing the fire from spreading into the surrounding pygmy forest.

Cal Fire assisted more than 30 firefighters using a helicopter to carry buckets of water to drop water flames licking at the edges of dry vegetation as propane tanks in the art studio popped off periodically, Grinberg said.

Firefighters did manage to save Fuente’s famed Mad Cad art car, a 1960 Cadillac transformed by gluing on jewels, beads, mannequins, shoe soles and plastic ducks.

The car, ironically, most years serves as the centerpiece of Mendocino’s July Fourth parade, which this year was canceled because of the coronavirius pandemic, Grinberg said.

He also said that Fuente’s friend should be OK.

“I can say that we’re hopeful and confident for a recovery of that patient,” Grinberg said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.