Fruit & Labor

Martindale Brightwood is a city within a city. Rapidly changing due to reinvestment and composed mainly of black and brown people, the community remains working class with a strong culture of faith and resilience. I grew up in Brightwood, one of 4 neighborhoods that make up the community.  

My mother, brother, and I got a house over there when I was 15 years old, and I remember how awesome it was for my mother to have a place to call her own. She helped to build her house from the ground up; I remember picking out covers for the light switches in my room. I remember how hard she worked to get that house and how it felt to see it come to fruition. 

There are many stories like ours in Martindale Brightwood. Through my work at the Harrison Center, I've heard many stories about hard-working people finding safety and refuge in a community that welcomed us with open arms. They are consistent stories of determination, triumph, and restoration. 

Through the experience of neighborhood work and storytelling, I learned my community's history from the people who lived it. Many of the elders that I spoke with had memories of the fruit trees that used to be plentiful in the community. I gravitated toward that imagery as a metaphor for abundance and safety. Fruit and Labor started as a show about my neighborhood and has transformed into how memory is made, how we see each other, and perfect our histories. What parts of your story do you latch on to? How do you tell your story your way? 

I want my community to have all the good things. History can be tough to learn, and there are days when it can get heavy. In a community like ours, it can be easy to get bogged down in stories of disinvestment. But time and time again, the people of Martindale Brightwood rally against the narratives placed on us and rewrite their own story. We have worked so hard; we deserve the fruits of our labor.

Fruit & Labor can be seen anytime in the City Gallery through October during Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. The works can also be viewed and purchased on our online gallery through November.