Watershed: a post-wildfire community art project

Watershed is a post-wildfire community art project taking place in 2026-2027 in Pasadena, CA. I am inviting community members impacted by the 2025 Eaton Fire to help create a 50-foot textile stream that will be temporarily installed at Arlington Garden in Pasadena in Spring 2027. The project is grounded in the idea that creating art in community with one another and with the environment can be healing.

Fire-affected community members are invited to be a part of Watershed in two ways: 1) by participating in free, hands-on, outdoor art-making sessions that will take place this fall and coming winter; and 2) by submitting responses and images through this online submission form. Responses to the form, in written and image form, will be used in the development and creation of the final artwork.

At the late summer and fall 2026 art-making sessions, attendees will use the cyanotype process to create images and designs on smaller fabric pieces that will later be sewn together into a 50-foot textile stream. Cyanotype is an analog photographic process that utilizes sunlight and water and typically results in blue-and-white images. Winter events will focus on assembling, embellishing, and hand-sewing the individual fabric components together to create the final artwork.

About the project name: A watershed is an area of land that channels water to a common outlet. The term also refers to a turning point, a significant moment or dividing point. The 2025 Eaton Fire was in many ways a watershed moment, a massive turning point that upended many lives. This project draws on both of these meanings.

Watershed is supported in-kind by Arlington Garden in Pasadena, and is made possible in part by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division.

I will be sharing project progress, behind-the-scenes views, additional art-making events, and images of the final artwork on Watershed’s Instagram and Facebook.

Download Watershed‘s one-sheet (PDF) here.

SCHEDULE OF FREE ART-MAKING EVENTS:

MORE PROJECT INFO:

Me (Kate Lain) helping community members make their cyanotypes at a drop-in art-making session. Photo by Helen Wong.
Me (Kate Lain) helping community members make their cyanotypes at the same drop-in art-making session. Photo by Helen Wong.