I wanted to create something that will educate the public but also reflect back to us, as the original caretakers of Los Angeles’s unceded lands. My art shows the relationship and responsibility Getty has with the greater natural landscape of LA, of Tovaangar: Tongva/Gabrielino traditional homelands.

In “Protect our Relatives,” I ask the public to identify one of our most visible relatives: White Sage.

We consider White Sage medicine: something that should never be commodified or sold. Many don’t know that sage being sold is often gathered by illegal poaching or harmful methods of acquisition. White Sage, which only grows along the southwestern part of California and Baja, is threatened.

While not officially on the endangered list, White Sage’s habitat continues to decline from poaching, habitat loss, and destruction from development and climate change. There’s a continued increase in the severity and frequency of wildfires, as well as increased habitat loss from drought and changes to the natural biomes from pollution and human encroachment. As detrimental as it currently is to SoCal residents, this has impacted tribal peoples and plant relatives for much longer: starting at colonization, through Mexican and US occupation, up to present day.

Protect our relatives: the health of the land is the health of our people.

If you see White Sage growing on trails, please do not pick it. You can also support by boycotting the sale of White Sage. The best way to build a relationship with the plant is to grow your own and maintain it.”

this is a 11 x 17" signed glicee print