Daytime

In this February 16, 2023, edition of LA County Library’s Heart & Hand Book Talk Series, watch Oliver James, one of the brightest new stars on TikTok’s BookTok platform. His story makes for one of the most uplifting in the whole literary world: he taught himself to read at the age of 34 by leveraging TikTok. Oliver is also a fitness aficionado and personal trainer who got started on his reading journey while working out, and now he’s set a “modest” goal of reading 100 books this year. We promise you will come away from this talk inspired! The Heart and Hands Book Talk Series hopes to inspire people to open their hearts and minds by challenging existing perceptions about systemic racism and injustice against people of color. Developed as part of LA County Library’s Equity Initiative, these talks feature discussions on thought-provoking literature as well as conversations with noted authors and speakers. The Heart and Hands Book Talk Series is moderated by Skye Patrick, LA County Library Director.

Dolls in African spirituality are powerful tools that offer an opportunity for ritual healing through veneration of ancestors, protection, good fortune, education, and overall well-being. Chosen by curator Monica Bailey, “Conjure” will use dolls and other spiritual objects to immerse viewers in African cosmology through an African- American lens. The exhibit, co-curated by Oluwo Fakolade (Babalawo), encourages viewers to ask the question, “How can these tools help us flourish our connection with our origin stories and honor these histories going forward?”

Mark Bradford’s 150 Portrait Tone, a mural-size composition that contains elements of both abstraction and realism, is based on an idea for a work that the artist conceived after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in July 2016. Castile, a nutrition services supervisor at an elementary school, was shot after being pulled over in his car—an incident that was livestreamed on Facebook by Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

The painting features excerpts of Reynolds’s dialogue from the video. The title, 150 Portrait Tone, refers to the name and color code of the pink acrylic used throughout the painting. Like the now-obsolete “flesh” crayon in the Crayola 64 box (renamed “peach” in 1962), the color “portrait tone” carries inherent assumptions about who, exactly, is being depicted. In the context of Bradford’s painting, the title presents a sobering commentary on power and representation.