COMMUNITY PROJECT

Benjamin’s project will bring Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory, residents impacted by the Eaton Fire, and additional LA community members together through art, storytelling, and climate action. The initiative will engage youth, adults, seniors and local artists in a shared process of creative restoration and ecological awareness.  The core program revolves around a Butterfly Ball Workshop, where participants will craft clay pinch pots to be filled with California native wildflowers and poppies to be dispersed on sites around the city. These hands-on sessions highlight the importance of native flora and fauna while capturing stories of generational resilience. These Butterfly Balls are more than garden tools – they are living metaphors for resilience and a cultural practice in land stewardship. Like our communities, they hold the potential to thrive in difficult conditions, restoring beauty and life where there has been loss. By linking these efforts to the recent burn areas of Altadena, participants will acknowledge how fire and drought test both landscapes and people, showcasing how the community-led process of artmaking is a healing act of renewal and that pollination and resilience are acts of resistance and hope. The project will serve as a source of inspiration in a culminating 10 × 15-foot community mural, created with sustainable Beeck mineral-based pigments, celebrating renewal, biodiversity, and cultural resilience. Community members will contribute to every stage – from ideation and conceptual rendering to painting – ensuring true collective ownership. By documenting oral histories from long-term residents of Altadena, Boyle Heights, and surrounding communities, the project also preserves multigenerational stories of culture and ecological resilience for the future.