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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lois Beckett

Wildfire destroyed a historically Black town. These artists won’t let its legacy disappear

a composite image of a woman, and the sun rising over an urban valley
Betye Saar (left) and Altadena, California. Composite: Bethany Mollenkof for the Guardian/Getty Images

On the walls of the gallery, Keni “Arts” Davis’s watercolors show Altadena before and after the fires. There is a local hardware store, a beloved diner, the quirky local Bunny Museum, which held tens of thousands of rabbit-related items.

Then, in gentle strokes of paint, there is the wreckage of each place: rubble, charred beams, burnt-out cars. Davis labels each of these images “BFA”, beauty from ashes.

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