Building Paradise is an abstraction of a beach cottage honoring the Bruces and the Black homeowners and entrepreneurs who were building their lives and dreams along the coast. 

This artwork consists of an “exterior” and “interior” façade connected by an open archway. The overall footprint is 10 feet tall by 11 feet long by 5 feet wide. The scale and form were carefully considered to be visible from the park terraces above and below, while also respecting the neighborhood vistas to the ocean. 

The “exterior” wall is patterned brickwork with details of indigo that pay homage to the skills of Black bricklayers who migrated west. The blue bricks are a nod to improvisational designs made from leftover and available material—like quilts—and Southern blue bottle trees, which were placed to protect family and home. 

The “interior” walls depict the domestic and leisure lives of residents and beachgoers. Images of residents, collaged from archival photos, will be made with glass mosaic. These figures are placed in front of blue and white ceramic tiles that reference toile or tropical wallpaper. 

I will make the “wallpaper” using cyanotypes, or sun prints, of plants and leaves from present-day Bruce’s Beach Park. The prints are then transferred and fired into the ceramic tiles. The technique is permanent and creates a vintage aesthetic that is both past and present—speaking across time. 

Familiar and familial in form, Building Paradise offers a space for community connection, healing, and pride. It stands as a dream for what may have come. 

What does it mean to be a Black family in the United States? 
What might Willa and Charles Bruce say in response to that question? 

To me, it is about adapting and overcoming adversity—drawing from inner power and strength to survive in modern America. 

In developing this sculpture, the most important aspect lies in its deeper meaning: a quiet message of strength, endurance, and grace. This piece embodies those qualities through the expressions of its figures. 

The father carries a stoic, powerful calm—a thousand-yard stare that reaches beyond the horizon. His counterpart, the mother, veiled in a thin fabric that drapes softly around her form, meets the viewer’s gaze with fragile yet resilient poise. A sense of peace radiates from her, balanced by an aura of protection and dignity. 

The children confront the viewer as they build sandcastles—symbols of a Black future shaped by tender, determined hands. The sand mound beneath them represents grounding, connection, and belonging to the Earth. 

I created this work to express what it truly means for a family to simply have a peaceful day at the beach. We often overlook what it takes for a Black family to experience such peace—the endurance, grace, and quiet strength behind it. 

My hope is that this peace and resilience live within their expressions, revealing all that a family must withstand just to rest, to breathe, and to be. 

My design for the Bruce’s Beach sculpture is a figurative work depicting two figures lounging together on the shore—one soaking in the sunshine and peace, the other absorbed in a book. The figures reclaim their access to this place: both the physical land and the psychological expansiveness it offers. 

While there are many aspects to the injustice of Bruce’s Beach, my sculpture aims to commemorate it as a safe place for Black residents to connect and commune with nature. 

The sculptures will be fabricated in bronze with a colored patina suitable for permanent outdoor display. The patina will give the surface a soft satin quality in muted tones inspired by seashells. This color palette draws from a childhood memory of my mom bringing me to Manhattan Beach, where I was in awe of the seashells on the shore. 

The man, who sits cross-legged holding a book, represents the introspective space Bruce’s Beach offered its visitors. The bronze of the book’s page will be buffed to create a reflective surface; in it, his face reflects back to him, symbolizing inward reflection. 

The woman, reclined with her face tilted toward the sky, embodies the connection to nature that Bruce’s Beach nurtured. Her bathing suit features a quilted sunflower, symbolizing harmony with the sun and the African American storytelling tradition. 

The scene is loosely inspired by a photo of my great-grandmother, Marion Moore, at Bruce’s Beach with her friends. In the candid photo, one friend looks down at a pocket mirror, another is laughing, and Marion looks directly at the camera. 

This sculpture honors all those who found respite, joy, and spiritual expansion at Bruce’s Beach. 

Historically, gathering while Black has been treated as threatening. To stand together, then, is not only an act of joy but of refusal—a continuation of ancestral survival strategies. 

For the Bruce family, establishing a beachside resort was an act of sanctuary building. At a time when most public beaches were closed to Black people, Bruce’s Beach offered a protected place where families could swim, picnic, and build community without harassment. These moments of leisure were never trivial; they were vital to sustaining dignity, culture, and kinship in the face of exclusion. 

Rooted in the Akan concept of Sankofa—“to go back and fetch it”—When Two or Three Are Gathered retrieves intertwined histories: the West African origins of surfing, the migrations that carried Black people across the Atlantic and throughout the United States, and Bruce’s Beach itself as a sanctuary of Black leisure. 

The sculpture takes form as three vertical boards, each ten feet tall, gathered in a half circle like ancestors in communion. Made of recycled oyster shells and quartz, the surfaces recall the Low Country of South Carolina, drawing an invisible line between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Woven rebar wraps the forms like masks, evoking both Gullah Geechee basketry and the early surfboards once crafted along the West African coast from bundled wetland grasses. 

Together, these materials enact Sankofa, linking oceans, histories, and generations—inviting the community to step inside, remember, and move forward together. 

Unity: Circle of Memory rises as an offering of remembrance and healing. The figure stands in stillness, lifting a circular form above her head—a gesture of collective memory held to the light. The circle symbolizes return, continuity, and the unbroken spirit of families whose presence once filled this shoreline with laughter, gathering, and hope. 

The base of the sculpture carries images of families at the beach—a mosaic of belonging that honors the lives lived here before displacement. This work invites the community to stand, reflect, and breathe with history, not as a wound reopened but as a memory restored to dignity. It does not point to loss alone but to the enduring strength of those who came before, and the possibility of unity through acknowledgment. 

Rather than depicting a single individual, the figure embodies all who walked this land—ancestors, descendants, and future generations. Here, memory is not static; it is lifted, held, and shared. In that shared act, healing becomes possible. 

Created by artist Toni Scott, whose lineage is tied to the families connected to this history, the work continues her practice of honoring ancestral narratives through public memory and monumental form. 

Unity: Circle of Memory stands as an invitation: to gather, to remember, and to walk forward together. 

This sculptural work acts as a marker for memory as well as a site of hope and spiritual presence. Rendered in graphite over bronze, this artwork portrays a timelessly styled contemporary family appreciating the beauty of the landscape. The figures embody the aspirations and use originally envisioned by the Black families who created, traveled to, and enjoyed the leisure offerings of Charles and Willa Bruce. 

The four figures portrayed are rendered with elegance and presence to pay homage to the strength of the Bruce family. They also honor countless Black families and communities across the country whose hopes and dreams of having safe spaces for beachfront play, rest, and leisure have been derailed. 

By sculpting figures enjoying the bounty of what the landscape and community have to offer, this work marks the Bruce’s (and other disenfranchised families’) historic achievements while also prompting us to remember to bring their “California Dreams” to the present and future of the Manhattan Beach community. 

Included are four figures: one man, one woman, and two children. My intention is to create an image of each individual’s active right to enjoy the nourishment of nature, to simply exist so they may surf, fish, birdwatch, observe the ocean, or revel in the act of play and awe. 

The work seeks to capture a hopeful vision of Manhattan Beach and Bruce’s Beach today, projecting a present and future vision of harmony among individuals. It is meant to inspire delight and to bring a sense of calm grounding for visitors. 

Across the United States, there are few public works rendering Black Americans simply enjoying the pleasures and freedoms promised by the country.