A POWERFUL STORY ON HOW A GROUP OF ARTIST FROM COMPTON TURNED NOTHING INTO SOMETHING BY TRANSFORMING VACANT BUILDING ACROSS THE CITY AND REBUILT EM INTO A HISTORIC ART CENTER PROGRAM FOR THE COMMUNITY CALLED THE “COMPTON COMMUNICATIVE ARTS ACADEMY” (CAA) IN THE 70's (A THREAD)

IN 1969, A GROUP OF ARTISTS FOUNDED “Communicative Arts Academy”(CAA), A VITAL COMMUNITY-BASED ART PROGRAM DURING THE BLACK ART MOVEMENT. They renovated buildings across cpt, transformed vacant spaces into venues for art. Built art gallery,film workshop, dance n recording studio

When the caa launched, Compton was THE WEST PREMIER BLACK CITY, with natives overcoming housing covenants. This help made Compton the first majority-black AND majority black run city. The city elected it first black mayor in 1969, followed by the first black female mayor in 1973.

Powell experimented with art collection, made possible by the junk materials and scrap from the 1965 Watts riot. They treated vacant buildings N white walls as “objects to manifest into art. Using the concept of reusing n repurposing built environment, they created “The Arena"

The Arena was a vacant skating rink located near Willowbrook Avenue and Palmer Street —today, the location is a shopping plaza. They transformed this huge space into multi-purpose studios, workshops and a performing arts space. Murals and collages covered the floors and walls

Powell recruited local youth to help turn a two-story house that was donated by the Salvation Army into a multi-room educational space called the Happening House.

Happening House opened “12 hours a day [from 12PM to 12AM], 5 days a week with some workshops open on weekends"

As word of CAA spread, so did the number of artists who came to create at CAA. They offered variety of workshops for youth and adults and served over 200 youth. The location was within walking distance to Compton High. Providing an unmatched accessibility of art to the community

Since they couldn’t get glass insurance because of the area they were in, so over plywood went sculptured panels made from junk metal and wood collected from the empty lots around the building. They created ‘something from nothing.’” Outterbridge built a small coffeehouse..

CAA photographer Willie Ford, Jr. built a darkroom with junk materials he found around the city and ran a film workshop that had 45+ students. The Black Arts Council helped design and build a gallery space in the Arena, making it the first art gallery in Compton.

By 1973, the CAA operated five workshop and performance sites, plus an office on Compton Boulevard. “If the facility is around us, somehow we make use of it.” At the sculptural workshop, which also was a daycare. The academy’s theater group, staged plays inside the Arena.

Unable to secure stable sources of public or private funding, and as the new Nixon administration impounded funding for programs like it, the Compton Communicative Arts Academy closed by 1975. The gallery of buildings that bustled with the arts succumbed to redevelopment.

Happening House and Communicative Playhouse are now apartment buildings. A supermarket and shopping plaza appear where The Arena once stood. The Compton-Willowbrook Agency’s Multi-Purpose Center, which held CAA classes, retains its unique structure but is a personal residence now

Here is the complete tour guide to CAA Historic Areas:

COMPTON MULTI-PURPOSE CENTER
342 W Alondra Blvd, served as a sponsoring agency to the academy, with art and film classes offered at the Multi-Purpose Center on Alondra Blvd. The building is now a personal residence.

SCULPTURE UNLIMITED
423 W. Rosecrans Avenue, 90220.
Sculpture Unlimited offered sculpture workshops, as well as child care services, to community members. It is now home to the Charles Dickson Studios.

HAPPENING HOUSE AND COMMUNICATIVE PLAYHOUSE
102 E. Indigo Street & 620 S. Willowbrook Avenue, defunct
The Happening House was a 2 story house turned into a multi-room, educational space, where many as 200 youth attended arts workshops. An apt building stands in former location

COMMUNICATIVE PLAYHOUSE
A local theater group, the Paul Robeson Players, staged plays at the Communicative Playhouse, which seated about 200 people. An apartment building stands in its former location.
LOCATION: 620 S. Willowbrook Avenue, 90220 defunct

THE ARENA
119 E. Magnolia Street (defunct).
The Arena was a former skating rink that the CAA transformed into "a living sculpture" & activity center that housed multi-purpose art studios, workshops, performing arts spaces, & coffee house. Today its a supermarket & shopping plaza