Collage and Assemblage

Inspired by Noah Purifoy’s work following the 1965 Watts Uprisings, Jacqueline Alexander-Sykes (Executive Director of St. Elmo Village in Mid-City), and LA based artist Terrick Gutierrez have developed an afternoon workshop centering the art of found-object assemblage. Community members will follow the practice of using found objects to tell a story, reinterpreted through their reflections, interests and memories, as well as learn more about the history of the art, and its ties to Los Angeles.

What to bring: any items you’d like to include in your piece, i.e. fabrics, something from the garden or family photos.

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About Jacqueline Alexander-Sykes:

“Creating is my centering and my focus”, says JACQUELINE ALEXANDER-SYKES, a multi-talented artist who utilizes color, shape and perspective to create striking forms figures and landscapes. Her pallet includes working with acrylic, oils, watercolor and 35mm camera.

Within the past 40 years Jacqueline has found her voice in the creative process, a voice that speaks eloquently through painting, photography and other creative endeavors. After receiving her Bachelors of Arts degree in Art History from San Jose State University. Jacqueline traveled to Africa and studied in Ghana during the summer of 1974. A few of her many accomplishments are, the design of a mural located on Venice Boulevard (across from the Helms Bakery building), two Public Art projects with the Department of Cultural Affairs at the J. Serra Library and Good Beginnings Day Care, and a published photograph in a book entitled “Black Women for Beginners” by S. Pearl Sharp. She has also been included in several recent exhibitions at the Los Angeles Photography Center, Art-n-Barbee, The Watts Towers Art Center, the California Afro American Museum at Exposition Park and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Barnsdall Park.

Since 1979 Jacqueline has lived and worked at St. Elmo Village, in Mid City Los Angeles. The Village has been an avenue for Jacqueline to share and teach the process of creativity to others as well as being a place of creativity where she can explore and develop as an artist and exhibit her work. For the past six years her work with youth has extended to be a Discussion Leader for the Getty Multicultural Internship Program, in which college interns are mentored. As a Board of Directors Member and Administrative Director of St. Elmo Village, Jacqueline has been an important part of the day to day work that the Village accomplishes in the community. In 2019 Jacqueline became St. Elmo Village’s first female Board President and Executive Director after the passing of her husband Roderick Sykes, cofounder for the Village.

As a visual artist Jacqueline Alexander-Sykes continues to develop by borrowing from and recreating the “material” that life has to offer. Recently she has partnered with her husband, Roderick Sykes to paint two of the Los Angeles City Angels. In 2000 she painted two panels for the CRA/TNI (Community Redevelopment Agency / Targeted Neighborhood Initiative) that have been installed at Alta Loma Elementary School. Among her other public art commissions are art for the Junipero Serra Branch Library as part of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Public Art Program, creating art for the walls of Raymond Avenue Elementary School and producing three painted panels for Good Beginnings Pre School. The most recent mural was painted for Walter N. Marks Realty Inc. on the Helms Bakery property.

Jacqueline considers painting and photography to be her “Third Eye”. All of life is a picture to be captured and enjoyed. “The creative process can save lives, it saved mine.”

About Terrick Gutierrez:

Terrick Gutierrez (b. 1994) is an LA-based interdisciplinary artist, creative technologist, activist, researcher, and curator. He is a child of Belizean and Mexican immigrants and his work explores urban life through the lens of the rapidly changing built environment such as liquor stores, public housing projects, and other cultural and physical landscapes that have shaped the city. Social issues including food insecurity, cultural erasure and displacement are themes found throughout his work which also explores personal histories addressing topics such as race, identity, and migration. Gutierrez earned his Bachelor of Arts in psychology with a minor in art from Morehouse College and a Master of Professional Studies in interactive telecommunications from New York University in 2019. He has exhibited across the country, including Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles, and his work is in private collections on both the East and West Coast

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The Crenshaw Dairy Mart is pleased to present abolitionist toolbox, a new series of program workshops, roundtables, and oral histories examining the local contemporary and historical legacies of Black artists and artists of color-founded arts spaces in Los Angeles. The series examines an intergenerational stewardship of community through built micro-economies as sanctuary spaces for safety, placemaking, skill-sharing, communal learning, archiving, storytelling, and coalition-building. These intergenerational conversations between contemporary and historic community arts spaces empower community members through historical isolation, divestment, and erasure. Through the lens of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart artist collective’s vocabulary of collaboration with a myriad of multi-hyphenate artists (for example, artist-organizer; artist-gallerist; artist-curator; artist-writer; artist-educator; artist-administrator), abolitionist toolbox explores survival tools for Black artists and artists of color in the contemporary landscapes of abolition and the creative economy. As part of abolitionist toolbox, the Crenshaw Dairy Mart will record and archive a contemporary history of the rapidly gentrifying community of Inglewood in the tradition of oral histories, concurrently mapping a coalition of Black-led-and-founded artists spaces in Los Angeles.

Collaborating artists and organizations include Dr. Avriel Epps, Black Girls Code, Patrisse Cullors, Kelsey Reynolds, Avery Collinsbyrd, Waunette Cullors, gene aguilar magaña, Terrick Gutierrez, and Jacqueline Alexander-Sykes of St. Elmo Village. 

This workshop series is made possible by Teiger Foundation.