All Ages Artmaking: Drawing what matters most

Floor 1, Lobby

Open to all ages

Join Whitney Educators in the Museum's lobby to create a drawing inspired by Biennial artist Kelly Akashi's Monument (Altadena). Draw the people, places, objects, and ideas that matter most to you.

Monument (Altadena) stands as a symbol of the widespread losses suffered in Altadena, California, during the wildfires of January 2025. After Kelly Akashi’s home and studio burned down, the chimney was the only structure left standing. The artist worked with a mason to rebuild it piece by piece, alongside a reconstruction of her home’s walkway, in luminous glass brick. 

Explaining her decision to create this work Akashi said, “I've just gotten very interested in the idea that if this recreation of my chimney is a kind of monument for what's happened, that it shouldn't be made of a singular mass material, that it should be reconstructed with the same labor that the original chimney was constructed in with brick laying. Because I really love this idea that not only is that labor going back into the reconstruction of the chimney, but that it's also a monument made of many parts, many bricks, and many pieces.”