“The Crenshaw Dairy Mart is a commitment to building, sustaining and remaining a sanctuary of care and creativity.” Our team crafted this declaration during our generative somatics retreat in 2022 and as we near the end of 2024, we are more committed to our community and our work than ever before. In 2024 alone, CDM hosted 11 events and served over 1,000 community members. As we look forward and continue prototyping the abolitionist imagination, we know that we need the support of our community to sustain this work. 

In recent weeks, I’ve found solace in Charles Mingus' album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. In the liner notes, he writes about the idea of “spontaneous composition” - calling back to his great peers who would lean on informed improvisation and risk-taking to compose solos and movements in real time informed by the spirit of what’s happening around them. Their decisions and choice of notes would challenge and move the work forward. What may sound accidental would be led with great intention and while not always the popular or digestible offering, these decisions shifted entire conversations and approaches to music and art-making. Spontaneous composition requires deep trust of the arranger, band leader, soloist and all performers to follow the flow. It requires awareness and observation in order to pivot while in motion. It requires commitment and trust in each other. Our work at CDM and our experimentation and inclination to prototype the abolitionist imagination is akin to this approach. To imagine a new world, we must take risks and practice creativity differently than before. In my role as Executive Director, that often looks like letting go of perfectionism, opening and preparing myself and the team to frequent pivots, weighing all aspects of collaboration and relationships and trusting ourselves even if failure is a possibility. 

In just a few years, Crenshaw Dairy Mart has greatly impacted the Los Angeles creative economy and prioritized moving with care at the center of our work. 2025 will mark our five year anniversary and we look forward to reflecting on this journey with you all and sharing our plans for a sustainable future. 

We deeply look forward to hosting more community members in our parking lot, playground and gallery in 2025 and hope that you will support our efforts to keep our gathering space accessible, welcoming and safe. 

Whether a one-time donation, or by becoming a monthly donor, your donation is received with immense gratitude and will sustain us to provide an autonomous space for artists at the margins and support our longevity here in Inglewood. 

Here’s are a few highlights from this year:

With gratitude,

Ashley Blakeney

Crenshaw Dairy Mart is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Crenshaw Dairy Mart must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. 

Hear From Our Community

Filmmaker Arielle Estoria reflects on the impact CDM Film Festival had on her practice: "The moment the title came on the screen I gasped and then I wept. Look at you I thought. Look at you on that big screen where you’ve always known you belonged. And it’s true. I have envisioned myself on televisions and billboards ever since I was a little girl. Finding every opportunity to be in the spotlight, show off a new song or performance of some sort and not out of vanity (maybe a little) but mostly because I just really really loved it. Seeing on this big movie screen the visuals I had in my head, beautifully executed and expanded by Natalie and her team Vibehaus. The dancers I just told to move and be and how gorgeously they did so. All of it came together so beautifully and I showed up honestly, fully and I love that for me." Read more on Arielle Instagram here and her Substack here. 

juice wood and Vern Yancy, co-founders of the Inglewood Community Fridge, reflect on how their efforts in mobilizing mutual aid programs at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 changed their community's perspective on what and how resource allocation across community can look like. "The [Inglewood Community] Fridge and the Crenshaw Dairy Mart - I honestly think - changed our lives forever. There is no going back to [before] that first interaction [with this team]. Y'all changed our lives for the better." In 2022, juice wood joined the inaugural cohort of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship for the Advancement of the Creative Economy (CDM-FAACE). See his culminating exhibition in 2023, I Could Show You.., here. Watch the full oral history archive interview at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart as part of Free the Land! Free the People! a study of the abolitionist pod.