An educator, psychologist, and author, Jamieson is a preeminent scholar on the works and life of author Octavia E. Butler, who was born and raised in Pasadena, California, not far from where Jamieson grew up. “I came to Butler’s work pretty organically." Here's her PST ART tour based on exhibitions exploring the works of Octavia E. Butler.
Southern California, California
Favorite place to eat in SoCal: I really love the Pasadena Fish Market. While they fry up fresh fish, you can also get authentic cooked Jamaican food and Jamaican patties!
Best kept SoCal secret: I really love Octavia’s Bookshelf. It’s so approachable, and there are so many cool events and goodies in there. I’ll drop my kids off at school and I’ll just run in to buy a few things and go back home. Because I'm like, I need some retail therapy. Let me go buy some more bookmarks. I never let anyone know I'm going because I just want to enjoy my shopping in my yoga pants. I'm not there in any scholarly capacity. It’s purely for my own self soothing.
I love SoCal because...wherever you are, you can see the mountains, you're not too far away from the beach. You can go to a strawberry field or a fruit stand and get locally grown things. We have our Buy Nothing groups and our Little Free Libraries, so that things don’t end up in landfills. We have a whole set of diverse activities and types of people who we can encounter and get to know. I love being from here. It’s one of my favorite places. I wouldn't want to be from anywhere else.
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33 North Catalina Avenue, Pasadena
WED-THU:10AM-6PM
FRI-SAT:11AM-8PM
SUN:12-5PM
MON-TUE:CLOSED
HAVE DESSERT FOR BREAKFAST
Start out in Pasadena, birthplace of Octavia Butler and where Jamieson also spent lots of time as a child. The Gourmet Cobbler Factory, a Black-owned bakery known for incredible cobblers, bread, and even New Orleans-style gumbo, is one of Jamieson’s first recommendations in the area. “The Cobbler Factory is one of my favorites,” says Jamieson. “It's been around for probably almost 50 years. When we were filming for Black-owned companies, we got cobbler from the Cobbler Factory.”
Jamieson also likes the food from Clifton’s BBQ, a partner restaurant at the Cobbler Factory and in the same building. “They have things like greens, macaroni and cheese, and other African American traditional foods.”
33 North Catalina Avenue, Pasadena
VISIT IMPORTANT LANDMARKS
In 2022, the public middle school that Butler attended as a student, took on her name in her honor. Butler’s influence is woven into much about Octavia E. Butler Magnet Middle School and its STEAM-based curriculum to inspire future generations. They have programs that the community can take part in,” explains Jamieson, “like a book club… there's a science fiction festival and writing contest that produces a publication each year. They have a free book fair (supported by Octavia’s Bookshelf patrons) with books donated by the community because most students’ families don't have money to buy books from a Scholastic Book Fair. It’s very much grassroots, about access, and a public good, which were all deeply important to Octavia.”
Public schools, post offices, and libraries are all among the public goods that were so vital to Butler. “Municipal spaces that you don't necessarily need money to access,” explains Jamieson. “For example, Butler found that having a P.O. Box was safer for her, because, first, she would live in neighborhoods that were mixed income, and there were robberies and things like that. But also she felt safer using a P.O. Box to have people mail things to her. Also, different branches of the public library figure hugely into her life as places she would go to read, research, and write. The main Pasadena Central Library was one of her favorites and always frequented, as well as the Downtown Central Library.”
Pasadena's main library is currently undergoing earthquake retrofit construction, but visitors can stop by the beautiful La Pintoresca library branch. “It’s a neighborhood library within walking distance of some of the places that Butler lived,” recommends Jamieson. “They have a new librarian, and one of their initiatives is a Science Fiction Book Club for adults, which is very cool."
American Artist: The Monophobic Response
WATCH A ROCKET LAUNCH
Leaving Pasadena, head next to LACMA to check out a PST ART exhibition on which Jamieson collaborated. In The Monophobic Response, the interdisciplinary artist American Artist recreated and filmed a rocket test, originally performed by characters in Butler’s Parable series, as part of an exploration of technology, the migration of African-diasporic families from the South to the West, and re-establishing the relevance of Butler’s work to today’s time and needs.
Jamieson participated in the filming, which took place in the Mojave Desert in June. The video will be presented, along with the invited speakers, at a public event at LACMA. “It was important to American that anything that gets created be available to the public,” says Jamieson, “and not be behind a paywall. We want to be accountable to our folks and transparent about the work that we're uplifting, which is sometimes the work of everyday people. I go back to the foundations of my Black American and Jamaican roots: when you see all these videos about a “green revolution,” telling people to recycle, reduce, reuse…. We know that those of us who have immigrant parents know that if the Ziploc doesn't look dirty, or the styrofoam or the plastic plates or whatever can be salvaged safely, you use it again. We've been reusing things for, finding community, rejecting injustices for decades out of necessity, not because it's trendy.”
800 North Alameda Street, Los Angeles
MON-SUN: 4AM-1AM
TAKE A TRAIN TRIP
For the next stage of Jamieson’s tour, head to Los Angeles’s Union Station and board a train down to San Diego.
“I find historic train stations beautiful and fascinating,” says Jamieson. “I once went to San Luis Obispo on the train business class solo, and it was wonderful. It was not only very inexpensive, but the view on the train was the same that [the characters] were walking in [Butler’s] Parable of the Sower, like up the 101 along the coast. So when I need to go to San Diego—even though I typically drive—I also have taken my family and with my children on train adventures down the coast, looking at the sea. This way of traveling up and down the coastal highways is so pronounced in Butler’s books, and you really get to experience it when you're on the train. It’s also a good way of considering how you connect with the community which you can do in these communal spaces. It's not just you and your car.”
San Diego, California
GO FOR A WALK
When you arrive, for a little fresh air—and wonderful ocean views—stroll along the coastal bluffs in San Diego’s beautiful Sunset Cliffs Natural Park. You might even spot a migrating California gray whale. Further afield but equally peaceful are Mission Trails Regional Park and Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.
Science Fiction Creates the Future: Public Programming
LEARN AND PLAY
Next, your final destination, San Diego’s New Children’s Museum is host to a PST ART series of public programming that Jamieson helped to create as advising curator of Octavia E. Butler: Seeding Futures exhibit as part of Science Fiction Creates the Future, inspired by the life and works of Butler. Led by Jamieson’s Octavia E. Butler Network, artists Cannupa Hanska Luger, and Saya Woolfalk, events include panels, family workshops, an educator institute, large-scale art installations, and more.
“Luger has talked about how, for the exhibit, he’s making this basically modular universe,” Jamieson explains, “where children or visitors will have to negotiate resources in community ‘If this building is your house, then I have to take down this road. Or if this tree might be needed to make this building….’ We'll all have to figure out how to take turns and negotiate that kind of interconnectedness and work together. Butler says that, as a human species, we're always needing to develop so that we're not the most self-centered people, humans are not the most important beings in the universe. We have to think about what she has called [in the Lilith’s Brood trilogy] the ‘human contradiction,’ which is the conflict between hierarchical behavior—where we one up ourselves to death—and being highly intelligent. So Luger urges, in essence, ‘Let's not say to kids that [putting themselves first] is all that they are capable of. Instead, let's give them the opportunity to be something more. Let’s give ourselves the opportunity to learn from them and how they will operate outside of what we project onto the future of youth and vitality.’”
Exhibits like this and others Jamieson has developed at the New Children’s Museum have been important in amplifying young voices who need to be heard. “When there's another PST in 15 years, who are those artists going to be?” asks Jamieson. “They're going to come from among these kids who have grown up with the Internet, the pandemic, and things like climate anxiety. The artist will be among our future leaders and young activists who are able to express what older generations miss.”
