50 and counting - Watts Towers

By Cynthia Griffin | OW Staff Writer | 08.OCT.09

Watts has been making art for five decades

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines art as “the use of skill and imagination in the production of things of beauty.”
In 1965, a thing of beauty was not a phrase that would have been used to describe the community of Watts.
And yet at that time, co-existing with the chaos and social upheaval that characterized Watts that year, was an art movement that was in its infancy.
That movement began in 1959 with an effort to tear down the eclectic towers that soared over the community created by Italian immigrant Simon Rodia, who constructed the artwork from cement and found items during the time he lived in Watts—1920 to 1954.
“When Simon left, he gave the towers to a neighbor; the neighbor wanted to turn (them) into a taco stand,” explained Rosie Lee Hooks, current director of the Watts Tower Art Center, which sits adjacent to the world-famous Watts Towers.
The city had other ideas about the structure, and issued a demolition order. During a stress test to pull the towers down in Oct. 10, 1959, Hooks said they were so implanted in the land that they tipped over the truck trying to tear them down.
That cosmic act of defiance prompted an effort to preserve the towers by creation of the Committee for the Simon Rodia Towers in Watts.
That effort was primarily pushed by non-Watts residents. But there was also a group of people who had grown up in the area, who saw preservation of the towers as a way to bring art education to the community. Setting up shop under a tarp on the foundation of Rodia’s burned-out house, they taught informal classes. Some of these individuals would go on to make towering names for themselves in the art.
Those teaching under that tarp included Lucille Krasney, noted assemblage artist Noah Purifoy; and enamalist Curtis E. Tann. They also formed the beginnings of the present-day Watts Towers Art Center.
But, as often happens, the best of intentions in communities like Watts, if not sufficiently funded will falter and sometimes die.
What saved this center, said photographer Willie Middlebrook, a former director of the center who spent many of his formative years at the art space, was a decision to give the center to the City of Los Angeles, who then sold it to the state, and then leased it back for $1 a year.
Middlebrook said, the city also infused the community center with $100,000 in funding, and the first director under the auspices of L.A. City, was renowned artist John Outterbridge.
“Our goal (with the center) was to invite young people to learn about their history from an art point of view,” remembers long-time art advocate Cecil Ferguson, who worked with Outterbridge producing exhibitions at the center.
Among the shows Ferguson said that left an indelible impression on him was “Women of Watts.”
“This was a dynamite show. All these (pioneering) women from Watts . . . Frieda Shaw Johnson, Geraldine Burton, Kathleen King,” reminisced the feisty septuagenarian who grew up in the community and said the show chronicled the lives of women who made an impact on Watts.
“Katherine Grimes came to Watts in 1900. She planted an oak tree, and when she died, it was over 50 feet high. She grew collared greens and orchids next to each other,” added Ferguson, who went to church with Grimes as a boy and curated a show at the art center featuring her entire greenhouse.
“Another big show we did was on the Laws family—Anna Laws and Henry Laws. Anna was about 90 years old, and the day we did the opening for the show, they brought her on a stretcher. We gave awards to the whole family, and she got off that stretcher and went to get her award,” remembers Ferguson, laughter in his voice.
In 1942, the Laws family was told that African Americans were barred from living in the neighborhood at 1235 E. 92nd St. in Los Angeles, and were ordered to move. The family fought and eventually won a lengthy legal battle to remain in the home they owned.
As a result of the Laws exhibit, Ferguson said he got the thrill of meeting pioneering activist and newspaper woman Charlotta Bass, who he said helped sponsor the family’s lawsuit.
What Purifoy, Tann, Krasney, Outterbridge and Ferguson did in those years by building the art center was to develop cultural awareness in the Watts’ residents, said Middlebrook. “You have to take into consideration, there was nothing there . . . it brought high quality exhibits of all types to the community to expand the self- image of the Black community.”
Middlebrook also noted that the center was instrumental in helping numerous young artists, including himself, Richard Wyatt, Michael Massengale, Elliot Pinkney and Cedric Adams, develop their artistic skills.
According to Hooks, today the center offers courses that include graphic arts, piano and photography. There are visiting and neighborhood school programs as well as a media arts and animation program.
The center has also sponsored a drum festival for 28 years and a jazz festival for 33 years and hundreds of exhibits.
But more than the tangible gifts that the Watts Arts Center and Towers give back to the surrounding community, there is an essence that touches people.
“Once you come here, once you even walk into the gallery, there is a spiritual connection that automatically gets you, if you tune into it. You cannot leave, You just cannot leave this place, if you are a creative person,” pointed out Hooks.
The Watts Art Center begins wrapping up its year-long celebration of 50 years of art in Watts with a program Saturday beginning at noon that features Ferguson on a artist panel discussion, and a historical look at the center. A film festival Nov. 7 at the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum will conclude the celebration.