CAAM exhibition looks at the artistic past and present of Altadena

In the first few months of the year, clumsy headlines detail the incalculable losses of Altadena, an unmerged, historic black community in the San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County triggered by the Eaton Fire. But beyond this destruction, there is still a surviving community of artists whose resilience and creativity are the focus of the exhibition at the California Museum of African Americans (CAAM) in Los Angeles. Organized by independent curator Dominique Clayton, “’ode’dena: Altadena’s Black Art Legacy”, uses land and memory to concentrate the interests of making Altadena a black artist who has made Altadena his own home.

At the entrance to the exhibition is a mural filled with Eaton Fire Altadena: Eldridge Cleaver in 1977 and his family, who was at his mother’s home, Rhea Roberts-Johnson and John Muir High School friends at the 1999 John Muir High School dance, Lincoln Avenue in 2005 and Altadena Feed Store and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House and S. House Stoe and S.Asse and Stoe and S.Public moments cherished. At first glance, it is full of nostalgia, and this photo collages the exhibitions in the history of this place.

Nearby, the art of Davises’ three generations of artists is a wall. Going further, the artist’s work, from Charles White and Betye Saar to Dominique Moody and Martine Syms, has a connection to Altadena’s creative ecosystem. The exhibition is an intestinal and heart-warming exhibition that provides a powerful picture of the quiet and painful quietness and pain in Black American life, depicting a shot of this emerald green enclave northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Clayton said the collage provides a means to show the lives Altadena residents create for themselves, “not destruction, because we have seen enough on the news.” From civil rights activists to artists and local residents, the murals indicate “Altadena is a shelter” and sets the context of what this external LA community means to many.

How Clayton organizes shows to expand these networks in a way that shows how artists connect with each other. “Charles White was the ancestor of the show, but his spirit was very strong in Altadena,” she said. His work is close to La Monte Westmoreland and John Outterbridge, who are “really friends and fans of each other.” Nearby is the work of Dominique Moody, whose studio is close to the Westmoreland home.

Clayton also hopes that “ode to’dena” showcase Altadena’s artistic contributions, not only visual arts, but also music, film and literature. One of the most famous outlets of Altadna is Octavia Butler. Octavia’s bookshelf is the bookstore named after its honor at Altadena Bookstore, which has loaned reading materials to the exhibition.

Starting from the 1940s, Altadena became one of the few places in the western United States where black families could own land, which led to the development of the region into a middle-class community. Altadena is wrapped in its natural environment and becomes a safe haven for black people, especially finding artists in the area as a source of endless renewal and inspiration. Clayton organized local responses to support and retain its creations in Altadena’s artist community, an environment he believes has borne a creative Renaissance in which artists have long been able to operate from a peaceful place and surround you on your head, roof, land, space and nature,” she said.

Land is the focus of the work of American artists, Liz Crimzon and grandfather, whose contributions pay tribute to the peaceful yet unpredictable natural environment of the region. A nearly 7-minute video of American artists Arroyo Seco (2022), for example, describes the natural, indigenous and sociological history of the Altadena watershed, where generations of inhabitants sometimes merge and sometimes conflict. and Mushroom bottom (2018), Crimzon depicts beautiful wild fungi found on many trails in the area.

Grandfather’s 2017 movie, Sporadic nature of the selfOn the other hand, a more emotional depiction is provided, showing a curiously spasm-crossing brush, river lining and mountain terrain. According to the Wall Tag, he talked about the work that made his art shape his art, putting him in the face of “the vast world where I belong directly to me.”

The land also begins to focus against the background left by the once modified space. Keni Davis’ watercolors depict illustrations of Altadner Street and staple food business while his daughter artist Kenturah Davis rubs the abstraction altadena (2005), depicting a retro picture of Altadena, using natural pigments and embossed with clay vermicelli in the yard. Sam Pace From the ashes (2025), which contains a burning Flugelhorn, which stems in part from the flames that swept the studio of musician Joel Taylor.

Clayton quickly knew how wide the loss was, she said, and decided not to show any work that showed the fire itself, or any work that was painful or “a painful digestion at the time,” she said. Instead, the selected works reflect Altadena’s memory in numerous ways, the expression of black life, the contemplation of family and community, and the “Altadena’s Black Art Legacy”. This is I just miss yew (2019) Christina Quarles, who moved to Altadena six years ago. She said the abstract figures of the painting merged along the stone wall, depicting the “parodic nature of identity”, and with the “beautiful community) she lives in Altadena, eclecticism, diversity and beauty have improved and inspired generations of artists.”

For more historic views on the importance of Altadena, there is John Outterbridge Comment/54-outhouse (2003), a rural, segregated outhouse, protests with mixed media images from the civil rights era. The history of black collectivism in the face of racial discrimination is not a distant history, he reminds us.

Throughout the exhibition, Clayton paired up works that offer cross-generational dialogue. In portraits of Kenturah Davis and Charles White, we see attention to the details on the black face. In the compositional work, there is a subtle genius that makes the juxtaposition of materials, such as Sula Bermudez-Silverman’s Decade is useless (2024), a combination of wooden coffin racks, chewing gum and insect-eating isogranular, similar to ironing, or a collaborative device by Betye Saar and Allison Saar Gris Gris House (1989), it invites you to step into a creepy wooden shed that seems to exist entirely outside of time.

Mildred “Peggy” Davis’s quilt and Marcus Leslie Singleton’s paintings encapsulate the nostalgia of black American entertainment. Davis’s Feather Star (2008) is made of soft pink fabric with varied patterns and dark bands stitched together to bring you to the familiar warmth of a black grandmother’s living room. Singleton’s razor (2024), on the other hand, there is a snapshot of black adolescence, showing the young cousin on the sidewalk outside of grandmother’s house with scooters, basketballs and Jordan sneakers. These pairings blend aspects of the black artwork with the way the ancestors exist, both turning back and calling.

These family genealogies are most evident in the heart of the exhibition, Dominique Moody Discovered family treasures (2002), consisting of three inlay sculptures assembled from wood, glass, copper and ceramic. To this end, Moody added various objects: figurines, reconstructed mannequins, family photos, maps, ancient Chinese suits. This tree captures the entire life, the paths they travel and the artifacts left behind. Behind these sculptures, Moody took up space for her eight siblings, displayed the memorial canvas and showed herself a canvas. Everyone will personalize with their profile, except for one, leaving a blank space due to the siblings’ obsolete deaths in childhood. At the feet of each outline, Moody offers a personalized title. For example, the title of sibling #4 “Name Unknown” reads: “Stay behind one of the fences that spans between two worlds.”

Clayton began her exhibition research, identifying artists like White, Saar and Westmoreland who have historic connections to Altadena just weeks after wildfires were curbed by CAAM’s permanent collection. As Clayton learns about the artists, these lists are beginning to grow, and they are already starting to make new works from surviving works or brand new works. Procurement work is passed down through word of mouth, one artist will lead to another artist’s people, like Kenturah Davis Blooming duality (2024), details two men facing opposite directions, with white floral scent sprouting from their faces. “real [about] “Who can access whom, who can access whom,” Clayton said.

“To the collective memory of the enclave that this enclave has, fits the mission of the museum, is Cameron Shaw, executive director of CAAM, “is to maintain the history and culture of black people, not only for traceability, but for the present.” This means we must act quickly in our position and contribution. Remind what is dangerous. ”