Palisades/Altadena Fire Survivors are being gifted a Maury Ornest painting.
Maury Ornest was a Beverly Hills High School baseball player who was selected by the Oakland A’s in the 15th round of the 1977 draft. Instead of going directly into the professional ball, he first attended UC Santa Barbara.
His family was originally from Canada and Ornest played for Canada in the 1978 World Series as an 18-year-old, and in the 1979 Pan American Games the following year.
The right-handed switchhitter had a .363 batting average and was taken the third round of the 1980 draft by the Brewers. In his 1982 season, the 6’3” 195-pound athlete played A ball in the California League.
As he was working his way through the minor leagues, his career ended in 1982 with a headlong collision into an unpadded cement outfield wall.
Over the next few years, the charming, funny brother that Laura Ornest loved, started to disappear. She said that Maury began to experience the world as a hostile place. He suffered breaks from reality and was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
The family tried to help, but like so many who have a relative with mental issues, they felt helpless. When Maury was in his 30s, a psychiatrist suggested that he try painting. Although his life had revolved around sports, he tried art.
He took a few classes at Otis Art College but was essentially self-taught. Even as demons tugged in his head, he continued to paint for the next 20 years.
His sister has described her jock brother as “silly and fun” before his mental illness, and that comes out in much of the art with smiling fish and marching snails.
In July 2018, Maury, 58, died of a heart attack.
Rustic Canyon residents, Laura and husband Rick Leslie said, “When we went to his house, we were overwhelmed and surprised by the amount of paintings. Every room was stacked full of paintings. We could hardly move around all the canvases.”
Later as she went through Maury’s papers, she found public storage rental slips. They went to the units on Pico and when they opened the doors, they found hundreds of different-sized paintings. After the art was tallied, her brother had completed more than 1,400 pieces of art. He had also kept journals.
“He left so much,” Laura said. “He tried so hard.”
In one of his journals, he had written “I hope that if only one honest person would buy my art, that would make me happy. I hope that happens while I’m alive.”
His sister said his humor came through in a subsequent writing, “When I die, let me know so I can make another painting.”
Laura and Rick said, “What struck us most of all was the vibrancy, the joy, the love, the humor, the silliness and whimsy in the paintings. He transferred his inner darkness into vivid, life-affirming colors with passion and energy.”
Fire victim Lisa Maier selected a painting from those in a storage unit (below).
Now, his family is sharing Maury’s art with Palisades and Eaton Fire Survivors. They are allowing survivors to select a painting. So far about 80 people have chosen a piece of original art.
Laura said that many have told her, “this will be the first piece of art we have in our new space.”
The couple know the tragedy and the hardships that fire survivors are enduring. “Offering art seems minor,” Laura said.
But the two have been told, “this gift is major.”
When one looks at Maury’s paintings, one sees his struggle as he attempts to make his world right – through colors and objects and purpose. In the case of so many who had homes destroyed, the everyday, the familiar, the “who I am” disappeared. Maury’s art reflects the identity loss for people as they search to reestablish their lives, just as he did.
“He found art and it gave him purpose,” Laura said. “More than seven years after Maury died, we hope his art can be a symbol of hope, resilience and new beginnings for those who lost their homes.”
Circling the News selected a “piece of Maury’s art” on March 4, Maury’s birthday. Several other residents were doing the same. As they were looking at paintings, a short videotape was being made to accompany an earlier documentary Outsider that chronicled Maury’s life.
There will be a screening of Outsider at 5:30 p.m. on March 28, 2026, at Gallery 169, Santa Monica Canyon. It will be followed by an art exhibit.
The family continues to offer one of Maury’s paintings to everyone who has lost a home. If you’d like a second painting, they ask you to make a contribution to either Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services or UCLA Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
To contact Laura: [email protected] To view Maury’s art work: click here.
Anthony and Sue Marguleas selected this painting because they had visited New York two weeks before 9/11, and because all three of their boys had played baseball with PPBA. This piece of art “spoke to us,” Anthony said.
