BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The artist in Blake Weis saw a wisp of Christmas amid the ashes of his family’s Boynton Beach home Monday (Jan. 6).
The 18-year-old used a red rake to unwrap his burnt belongings from the blanket of black soot that clung to them like foil paper. Hidden in the wreckage of disintegrating scraps and melted metals was the back of an iPad on which the Dreyfoos School of the Arts senior used to sketch.
“You look at all of this and I know, ‘Well, all of this is mine,’ ” Blake said, wielding the rake he used to look for his belongings. His eyes hidden behind black eyeglass frames scanned over the debris. “But I can’t interpret it because it’s burned. But when I find something intact, it feels like Christmas.”
He said he was going to make the remnant of the iPad into a sketch book cover. What he didn’t know is what he will do about college.
Blake has dreamed of attending art school. But the countless portfolios and illustrations he’s created over the years are gone, lost in the New Year’s Eve fire that ravaged his Nautica Sound home.
Blake said all the art colleges he’s applying to require portfolios, and he had several that were ready to be sent. Now, he is days away from college deadlines and unsure about his future.
The Weis family is living with relatives in Miami while it tries to find a temporary home in the Boynton Beach area. Kristian Weis, Blake’s father, said the first floor of the Potomac Court home is salvageable, even though there is water damage. But the second floor is a total loss.
The house was in silent chaos Monday; the downstairs living areas were piled with boxed belongings salvaged from the upstairs fire. The Christmas tree was intact, untouched by the flames and baring all of its ornaments.
The upstairs was wrecked. Kristian and Blakes’ brown boots sunk into the soot like dirt while exposed wires, roofing and burnt fans dangled from the ceilings. What was worse was the smell, Kristian said.
“It just smells horrific,” Kristian said. On Monday, he didn’t wear a mask to protect himself from the houses’ fumes and coughed so hard when he left the home that his eyes began to tear. The acrid smell, he said, “gets into everything and it’s so hard to get out of clothes. The smell is triggering.”
It brings Kristian back to New Year’s Eve when the fire erupted in a corner of Blake’s room. The three Weis boys, Devon, Quinn and Blake were setting up a board game downstairs while their parents, Kristian and Lillian, finished getting ready upstairs. In 30 minutes, the family would celebrate a new decade.
That was until Lillian discovered the fire. Kristian went in first, feeling the doorknob first before he flung the door open. Kristian said he tried to extinguish the fire, but the smokey flames “laughed” at him.
Then came Blake with the family’s 2-year-old dog, Luna. When he reached his doorway, he said his room was flickering red.
He said he thought of the artwork in his closet, specifically a portfolio he created in his 11th-grade Advanced Placement 2-D Art Class. He had received the maximum score on his portfolio, a 5.
He wouldn’t be able to save it.
“When you’re going to your room and there’s such a powerful force like a fire inside of it, I just knew it was over,” Blake said.
The family made it outside the house safely and watched the upstairs windows pop and shatter from the heat, Blake said. When the New Year rang, the fire was out, but the only home Blake ever knew was gone. The Florida State Fire Marshal has not released the cause of the fire, but Kristian said an officer there said it was electrical.
What hurt the most was the memories that were lost, Kristian and Blake said. Earlier in the day on New Year’s Eve, the family had found old stuffed animals and memories from the Weis boys’ childhoods.
Blake thinks about the sketchbooks and paintings he’s created since he was in third grade. They are now ash.
Kristian thinks about the hard drive with all the family photos.
“I haven’t wanted to look through the hard drive because I know it’s gone,” Kristian said.
Now, the family is dealing with the aftermath: the insurance, rebuilding and the finances that come with reconstructing their lives.
Blake said he is back-and-forth about his college decisions. He said he’s toyed with the idea of taking a gap year, but said he has many people in his corner pushing him to apply.
“I should at least try,” Blake said.
He said his house is full of artistic inspiration and the experience makes him want to create. But he is especially grateful for those who have supported the Weis’ family. Their GoFundMe page had raised more than $12,000 dollars by Monday. Blake said the experience had made him grow.
“It changed the way I view things. At first, I thought when I saw the fire, ‘All my things are gone.’ But it’s just stuff,” Blake said. “I’ve been very thankful for everyone. I forgot how many people there are in my life that I never see, but (in situations like this), they are there.”
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