Friday, February 20, 2026

At Altadena’s Fire-Recovery Hub, Art Fills the Space Between Loss and Tradition

A free exhibition pairs an Afrofuturist painter’s Kwanzaa assemblage with a fire survivor’s jazz-inspired work through March 31

The candles on Jasimen Phillips’s assemblage are melted, the wax pooling in shapes that record time the way a family records it — by gathering, by staying.

The piece, “7th Day of Kwanzaa,” anchors “Culture of Black Excellence in Art,” a free exhibition now on view at the Eaton Fire Collaboratory at 540 W. Woodbury Road. The show brings Afrofuturist paintings, mixed-media work, and assemblage into a building that opened four months ago as a disaster-recovery center — a pairing that, during Black History Month, gives the space a second purpose.

The exhibition, co-presented by the Eaton Fire Collaborative and Altadena-based nonprofit Soul Force Project, features Phillips alongside Samuel Pace, a mixed-media artist and Eaton Fire survivor whose work draws on jazz and blues. It opened February 7 and runs through March 31, free and open to the public during the Collaboratory’s regular hours.

Phillips, a Los Angeles-based painter and founder of the African American Women Artists Collective, works in a style that blends abstract expressionism with Afrofuturism. She is known for her rotated canvases, which challenge viewers to shift perspective. Her “7th Day of Kwanzaa” reflects on Imani — faith — the seventh and final principle of Kwanzaa.

“As the candles burn, family gathers in conversation,” Phillips wrote in an artist statement accompanying the work. “Melted wax records time spent together — Imani shaped through shared reflection, repetition, and the quiet labor of keeping tradition alive.”

Also on display is “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” a painting Phillips said honors her grandparents, who in the 1990s became the first Black family to buy a home in an all-white neighborhood. After someone threw a brick through their window, they stayed. For more than 30 years, they raised their family there.

“My work examines how perception, identity, and emotion are reshaped in a world increasingly mediated by machines,” Phillips said in a statement provided to organizers. “But it also honors the rituals and traditions that keep us connected to one another.”

Pace, who was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, developed his signature style after moving to Europe in 1989, where he began using jazz and blues as subject matter, according to his website. His mixed-media works combine acrylic on canvas, wood, collage, and discarded recyclable objects. He has produced commissioned works for the Playboy Jazz Festival, the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, the Watts Towers Jazz Festival, and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, among others.

According to the exhibition’s press release, Pace is a survivor of the Eaton Fire, which began on January 7, 2025, and destroyed more than 9,000 structures in and around Altadena. The press release describes his recent work as channeling “his personal journey of recovery into mixed-media works inspired by Jazz and Blues.”

The Collaboratory, at 540 W. Woodbury Road, opened in October 2025 as a centralized recovery hub for fire survivors, housing more than two dozen partner organizations that provide services ranging from housing navigation to mental health support. It is open Monday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The February 7 opening reception included food from Hutch’s BBQ Pasadena, live music, and a guest speaker, according to the press release. Soul Force Project, which co-presents the show, is an Altadena-based nonprofit that promotes social justice through music and the arts, drawing on the legacy of nonviolent action associated with Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

The exhibition is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Eaton Fire Collaborative at 818-926-0150 or visit eatonfirecollaborative.org.