“Bosley said Benton stated she walked to his house from Valley View Medical Center without shoes and Benton had lost her cellular phone. Bosley took Benton home and took care of her feet. “
In Phoenix, Arizona, during the summer, sidewalks can reach scorching temperatures, potentially exceeding 160°F (71°C). This extreme heat is primarily due to the dark asphalt absorbing a significant amount of solar radiation. In fact, the temperature of the pavement can be 40 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the surrounding air temperature.
A mural by Garth Benton is being restored after soot damage.Credit…Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times
San Sebastian Avenue
At 11:35 AM on July 1, 2025, I talked to a woman at the Getty Villa for almost a half-hour. She was there when the INFIRNO approached. She said there were burning embers flying everywhere. The next day, she said there was six inches of ashes in the inner sanctuary where the pond is. Our conversation was a miracle. I will not divulge her name – at this time! I’m going to author an article and try to get it published in a famous perodical for the arts. She, and our story will be in my aut0biography, San Sebastian Avenue, also ‘Capturing Beauty’.
At 1:20 PM July 1 I talked to a woman in the records department at Valley View Medical Center about Garth Benton’s daughter, Drew Benton, coming to their medical center – with bare feet? I wanted to find out if she was wearing shoes. Damien Bosley told the Defectives he treated Drew’s feet. Why? I was told I could not be sent any records of Drew – unless I had power of attorney. I asked her how hot it was. She said very hot.
“Would someone walking on the sidewalk with bare feet suffer – burns! Did any medmical person who saw Drew – see her burned feet?
“You’ll need power of attorney to get that information!”
Why do I want this information? The biggest question I have asked (and others) is how could Drew Rosamond Benton, have stabbed herself in the thigh twenty times? It had to hurt. Wha’t wrong?
ISN’T SHE FEELING ANY PAIN?
What would cause her to – GO NUMB? Did she become afraid – IF IT HAPPENED?
I talked to an attorney back in September, They wrote me a nice letter saying they would not take the case. The legal battles over the estate of the famous artist, Christine Rosamond Benton – was hideous! I was rendered powerless because I am poor, My PTSD makes me want to get under the covers and curl up in a ball.
I asked the woman at the Getty Villa if the personel fought the fire. She said they put out spot fires.
“Ive been putting out spot fires most of my life due to my crazy family!”
She laughed. I had told her about one biographer saying Christine rendered masterpieces in a closet by flashlight.
I’m going to try to get a grant from the Getty Foundation to do a complete study of the fire, and the history of the murals, and Garth Benton. This study will include the death of Garth’s daughter, who may have helped with the touch-up years ago.
It’s time the mental illness – that torched my family – come out of the closet. We were already
PHOENIX BIRDS
I told the person at the Valley View Medical Center
“It’s 113 degrees today. Didn’t anyone wonder about my niece not wearing shoes?
“You’re going to need power of attorney!”
John Presco
Several novels explore the lives of artists grappling with mental illness. “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath is a semi-autobiographical novel that vividly portrays depression through the experiences of its protagonist. “Touched with Fire” by Kay Redfield Jamison examines the connection between bipolar disorder and artistic temperament. Additionally, “The Incantations of Daniel Johnston” is a graphic novel that delves into the life of the musician and artist with bipolar disorder.
Garth Benton is Dead
Posted on May 7, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
I learned from sister, Vicki Presco, that the father of our niece, Drew Benton, passed away five days ago. Garth Benton married Christine Rosemond Presco in 1986. Garth was married to the actress, Harlee McBride, before that, and had two daughters, Jessica, and Bree.
I was glad to hear that Drew was there for her father when he passed, with the help of Vicki. This is the family unity that I hoped for when I visited Vicki in June so we can go foreword. We have spent too much time at the stern of the ship looking at the destructive flotsam in our wake. We have been moving to the bow of the ship in order behold a brighter future.
For those who have inherited at least one of the Muses, let us continue to look to our creations, our beautiful children, and the loving bonds we made, for inspiration.
Above are the images of the beautiful Muses that Garth rendered in his mural ‘Hall of the Nine Muses’. Bree is performing a one act show in New York. Drew is working on new artwork. Here is the webpage Drew designed for her father: http://www.garthbenton.com/
Scorched Stumps and Spotless Art at the Reopened Getty Villa
Although the museum’s artwork was unscathed, roughly 1,400 trees on the property burned during the Palisades fire. Visible traces of the devastation are intentional.
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By Matt Stevens
Reporting from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles
June 27, 2025
When visitors arrive at the Getty Villa’s gate and granite pillar, they will almost immediately be confronted by a Los Angeles hillside that has been changed — and charred.
The eucalyptus trees have been intentionally pruned, their blackened stumps protruding from the ground at sharp, jagged angles. The devastation is hard to miss, said Camille Kirk, the Getty’s sustainability director.
“We have to acknowledge the burn,” she said.
The museum that is as famous for its stunning landscape as for its art collection reopened on Friday on grounds that have been licked by flames. Nearly six months after the Palisades fire carved its way through the neighborhood and came knocking at the museum’s door, the best way to understand its significance may be to notice what is no longer there.
Roughly 1,400 trees burned beyond saving, many which once shaded the now barren hills that stretch out around the 65-acre property. The melted P.V.C. pipe that had made up the museum’s irrigation system in those hillsides has been removed. Gone too is the rosemary, zapped by flare-ups, that once decorated the concrete ledges that encircle the museum.
That is how close the flames got. Less than a football field from a Greek and Roman treasure trove. But while the grounds were damaged — the hills on all sides were enveloped, the museum quite literally surrounded by fire — officials say the campus buildings and galleries were never ablaze.
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“This is exactly what it looked like — there was not a speck of dust,” Les Borsay, the Getty’s emergency preparedness specialist, said as he recently strolled through the museum’s immaculate second floor, recalling how similar it seemed to what he found the morning after the fires began.
“There was a little bit of smudge on the deck there outside the windows,” he added, pointing through the glass. “But for the most part, it was just like this.”
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In the aftermath of the fire that began in the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, officials have made it as clear as ever that the museum itself is the safest place for its collection — a refuge that is also a steel and concrete fortress.
Even if they felt otherwise, it would be impossible for curators to decide to haul away, say, “Portrait Head of Augustus” in their cars during an emergency and leave the mummy that is resting nearby. (Though Borsay did concede: “The good thing about the mummy is, I could ride in the H.O.V. lane.”)
“There was not a moment when I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, my Etruscan sarcophagus is about to be burned to a crisp,” said Katherine Fleming, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Indeed, if those who will now brave a battered Pacific Coast Highway to come to the Getty notice anything special, it may be that the property is as pristine as ever. The frescoes that cover the walls of the outer peristyle have been touched up; the central reflecting pool, drained of soot, is crystal clear; fresh plants are growing in the gardens.
On a recent afternoon, a conservator was carefully attending to a sculpture of the Roman god Mercury, whose sandal had lost its wing.
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It has been a slow and deliberate process to figure out exactly how to reopen the Getty Villa, Fleming acknowledged. Were there days that the museum would create the least strain on the Pacific Coast Highway? (For now, officials have settled on Friday to Monday.) What were the optics of opening at all when at least 12 lives and 5,000 nearby buildings had been lost? (Tricky to balance.)
“We want to be a symbol of some kind of life in the neighborhood, but we don’t want to look like, ‘Hey, everything’s good over at the Getty, so sorry,’” Fleming said.
The feedback so far has been positive, she added. People seem to be happy the museum pulled through, and it appears to have maintained its standing as a good neighbor.
Kirk, the Getty’s sustainability director, said the museum’s “fire journey” would evolve as time passes and guests explain what they need.
But officials did purposely decide to leave visible traces of the fire on the property. They have saved some burned Italian Cypress tree trunks, which they may place in a spot currently occupied by gumdrop boxwoods. And docents have been preparing fact sheets about the Palisades fire and its impact.
One key detail? The Villa in Pacific Palisades is modeled on the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
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